Dana (North)
Coordinates: 36 ° 13 ′ 0 ″ N , 36 ° 46 ′ 0 ″ E
Dana , also ad-Dana, Dana (north) in contrast to Dana (south) ; is a small town in northwest Syria in the Dead Cities area . Of the Roman and early Byzantine settlement of the same name , only a small grave monument from the 2nd century AD has been preserved.
location
Dana is the capital of the plains of the same name and is located in the Idlib governorate about three kilometers north of the expressway leading from Aleppo to the west to the Turkish border crossing at Bab al-Hawa. The plains, which are used intensively for agriculture with the cultivation of fruit trees and cereals, are bordered in the south by the karst hills of the Jebel Barisha and in the north by the Jebel Halaqa, both of which are part of the northern Syrian limestone massif. The designation Dana (north) serves to delimit Dana (south) in the mountainous region of Jebel Zawiye (near Jerada ) to the south , where an early Byzantine pyramid tomb has been preserved. Dana is located at an altitude of 390 meters five kilometers west of Der Turmanin and about 15 kilometers south of Deir Seman , two important monastery settlements at the same time.
Ancient site and history
The long-distance trade route between Aleppo and Antioch ran through the plain in Roman times, a paved section of which has been preserved two to three kilometers south of Dana (near Tall Karameh). On the southern Jebel Barisha in Baqirha, a Roman temple dated 161 AD has been partially preserved, another Roman temple dedicated to Zeus Bomos stood on the 850 meter high summit of Jebel Sheikh Barakat (south of Refade ) in the north of the plain. To the west was the temple of Srir, consecrated in AD 164. These pilgrimage sites on the mountains, which presumably had prehistoric origins, surrounded the fertile and easily accessible plain of Dana on three sides.
Roman tomb
A small, free-standing grave monument from the 2nd century AD has been completely preserved. The pavilion-like building, whose flat-curved pyramid roof rests on four columns (Greek tetrastyl ) with Ionic capitals, is the visible part of an underground burial space. Such a canopy grave was very rare in the region; another is known from Brad in Jebel Siman; A two-column grave monument with an architrave above has been preserved in Refade and Sermada .
The pillars stand on a two-tier pedestal made of four rows of stones, the top of which is shaped into a cornice with a wide cove. Four architrave stones form a multi-profiled eaves. In the memories of her trip through Syria in 1905, Gertrude Bell described the monument as "the loveliest monument in northern Syria."
The Greek tetrastyle altar, which basically had a pedestal substructure, is considered to be the origin of this design. Tetrapylons as grave structures in Italy date from the 1st century AD. In North Africa they belonged to the Libyan- Phoenician tradition. Most of the tetrapylons in Syria were prominent landmarks at intersections in the center of cities. They were either free or, as in Palmyra, were built in connection with colonnades along the road axes .
church
The place was inhabited in the Roman and the subsequent early Byzantine period, when the majority of the settlements were generally not in the plains, but rather flourished in the surrounding limestone hills from the 4th to the 7th centuries. With the inauguration year 483 AD, according to an inscription stone on the west wall, a small church has come down to us. Of the numerous church buildings in the area of the Dead Cities, only ten inscribed dates are known in the 5th century. The earliest detailed descriptions of most of the northern Syrian churches are from Melchior Comte de Vogüé in the 1860s. Although he was also in Dana, he does not mention this church, presumably because it had already disintegrated in his time. The only description of the then at least partially upright church was provided by Charles Texier and Richard Popplewell Pullan after their trip in 1840. Howard Crosby Butler found the door lintel with the inscription walled up in a new apartment building in the neighborhood. From 1899–1900 he headed an expedition to Princeton University in America.
The three- aisled building had an unusual, broad rectangular floor plan. There were three pillars on each arcade of the central nave. The round apse in the east was surrounded by side apse-side rooms that were only accessible from the side aisles without a direct connection to the chancel. The only entrance to the church was in the western gable end. The unadorned windows had a round arch made from a lintel stone, a window opening was in the middle of the apse. The columns had Corinthian capitals with jagged leaves; the horseshoe-shaped triumphal arch on the altar wall was decorated with multiple ribbons; a cornice ran along the inner apse wall.
Corresponding to the position of the pillars, pilasters with an unclear function were found on the side walls . Together with the strange floor plan, they raised the question of a possible previous building. There could have been a church building from the 4th century, the roof of which was originally supported by transverse arches. Such a roof construction is known from the Hauran , but would be unique for the area of the Dead Cities. The date 483 would then refer to the conversion.
literature
- Hermann Wolfgang Beyer : The Syrian church building. Studies of late antique art history. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 1925, p. 51f
- Frank Rainer Scheck, Johannes Odenthal: Syria. High cultures between the Mediterranean and the Arabian desert. DuMont, Cologne 1998, p. 299, ISBN 3770113373
Web links
- Gertrude Bell Archive, Photoghraphs. Photograph by Gertrude Bell, April 1905. Dana (C 041)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Dana, Syria Page. fallingrain.com
- ^ Warwick Ball: Rome in the East. The Transformation of an Empire. Routledge, London / New York 2000, p. 219, ISBN 0-415-11376-8
- ^ Murray Steuben Butler: Hellenistic Architecture in Syria. Princeton University, Princeton 1917, p. 46, online at Archive.org
- ↑ Christine Strube : The "Dead Cities". Town and country in northern Syria during late antiquity. Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1996, p. 19, ISBN 3805318405
- ↑ Gertrude Bell: At the end of the lava flow. Through the deserts and cultural sites of Syria. Gabriele Habinger (Ed.), Promedia, Vienna 1991, p. 260, original edition: The Desert and the Sown , 1908
- ↑ Warwick Ball, p. 276, illus. P. 277
- ↑ Beyer, p. 37
- ↑ Melchior Comte de Vogüé: Syrie centrale. Architecture civile et religieuse du Ier au VIIe siècle. J. Baudry, Paris 1865-1877
- ^ Charles Texier, Richard Popplewell Pullan: L 'architecture byzantine. London 1864, p. 189 ff
- ^ Howard Crosby Butler: Early Churches in Syria. Fourth to Seventh Centuries. Princeton University Press, Princeton 1929, p. 64 (Amsterdam 1969)
- ↑ Beyer, p. 52