Btirsa

Coordinates: 35 ° 40 ′ 17 ″  N , 36 ° 32 ′ 30 ″  E

Btirsa​

Syria

Field of ruins with former residences

Btirsa was an early Byzantine settlement in the Dead Cities area in western Syria .

The ruins of Btirsa are located in the Idlib governorate in the Jebel Zawiya area, the southern part of the northern Syrian limestone massif. From Maarat an-Numan a road leads west to the small town of Kafr Nabl, 10 kilometers away. On the western outskirts, a road branches off to Serjilla and Al-Bara to the north. It reaches Btirsa after 5.5 kilometers. The remains of other settlements from the late Roman and early Byzantine times can be seen from the road in the immediate vicinity . To the north the road leads 2.5 kilometers to Ba'uda and another 2 kilometers to the larger and better-known Serjilla ruins. In ancient times, Btirsa belonged to the administrative region of Apamene and was assigned to the city of Apamea . As in the heyday of the place in the 4th to 6th centuries, olive trees and grapes are planted in the area .

Only small remains of the former residences made of solid limestone blocks have survived. The only church in the village was one of the smallest in the Jebel Zawiya area. Melchior Comte de Vogüé made a first sketch in the 1860s, after the American expedition of 1899 Howard Crosby Butler drew a floor plan and gave a brief description. Joseph Mattern similarly mentions the church in 1933.

The three-aisled columned basilica from the 5th century had a semicircular apse within a straight east wall, the northern of the two side rooms was the martyrion ( reliquary chamber ). There were two entrances on the south wall, a door in the west wall and probably a closed north wall. A portico column was built along the south facade . Butler found the east wall and the corner of the southern adjoining room in situ , and the upper parts have collapsed since then. The middle walls of the nave were each supported by seven columns. Ten of the column capitals were in an almost undisturbed position on the ground. They show the Tuscan style and the Corinthian style with smooth acanthus . This combination occurs equally in house architecture of the 5th and 6th centuries.

Unique for all of Syria, apart from the oldest church in al-Bara , is that this church has flat architrave stones on console capitals instead of the usual round arches on the narrow pillars . A local workshop can be used for the construction.

literature

• Christine Strube : Capital, door and cornice forms of the churches of the 4th and 5th centuries AD (building decoration in the north Syrian limestone massif ; Vol. 1). Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1993, ISBN 3-8053-1407-8 , pp. 195-197.
• Hermann Wolfgang Beyer : The Syrian church building (studies of late antique art history; Vol. 1). Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 1978, ISBN 3-11-005705-0 , p. 101 (reprint of the Berlin 1925 edition).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Joseph Mattern: À travers les villes mortes de Haute Syrie. Promenades archéologiques en 1928, 1929, 1931 . Imprimerie Catholique, Beirut 1933, p. 34.