Fafertin
Coordinates: 36 ° 19 ′ 0 ″ N , 36 ° 54 ′ 0 ″ E
Fafertin , also Fafirtin; is a village in northwest Syria with the remains of the oldest dated, early Byzantine , ashlar basilica . The place is in the area of the Dead Cities .
location
Fafertin is located in the Aleppo Governorate at an altitude of 517 meters in the southern hill area of the Jebel Siman, which is part of the northern Syrian limestone massif, northwest of Aleppo . The place can be reached about eight kilometers from Deir Seman on a side road that branches off to the east behind the Simeonskloster . In the area there are several villages from the Byzantine period with often better preserved church ruins. There were several basilicas five kilometers to the northwest in Burj Haidar , and in Simkhar, which lies in a flat valley southwest of Fafertin, the ruins of a basilica built in the 4th and 6th centuries can be seen. In a straight line further to the southwest lies the best preserved basilica of Mushabbak from the second half of the 5th century.
history
The oldest archaeologically proven church is located in eastern Syria on the central Euphrates in Dura Europos . 232/233 two rooms of a Parthian house made of adobe bricks were converted into the house church of Dura Europos . The first rooms in the 3rd century, in which services were held in the area of the Dead Cities, were Roman houses extended to house churches. In Qirqbize , the ruins of a house church that was built at the beginning of the 4th century by merging two rooms have been preserved. The three- aisled basilica of Fafertin, like all buildings in the region, is made of ungrounded limestone blocks and is the oldest surviving and dated church building in Western Syria. It was completed in 372 according to the Greek inauguration inscription above the eastern entrance on the south side of the nave. Of the several hundred church buildings in around 700 settlements in the area of the Dead Cities, almost 20 had a dated building inscription relevant to the completion of the building. The other churches can only be categorized in terms of time through style studies.
Design
In Fafertin, the style of basilica used in most of the churches built between the 4th and 7th centuries was used. The three-aisled columned basilica spread throughout the Mediterranean region in the early Byzantine period. In 1905, Howard Crosby Butler , as leader of the American Princeton expedition to Syria, found the semicircular apse with the two side chambers outside the east wall almost completely preserved. At that time, the nave had collapsed to the ground, but the interior of the church was still filled with stone blocks. Georges Tchalenko began investigations in 1938/39, which he continued from 1968. In his time, most of the stones had disappeared and were walled up in the town's new buildings.
The two apse side rooms to the north and south were included in the liturgy as pastophorium (corresponding to a sacristy ) and martyrion (reliquary chamber) . Round arches supported the two high walls of the central nave over six columns each. In the upper walls there were rectangular windows in the middle above the zygomatic arches . As with most churches, there were two entrances in the southern outer wall, and another entrance in the middle of the west gable was added in the 5th century.
Only the apse with the two pillar templates for the central nave arcades , part of the northern side room of the apse, the lower area around the western entrance door and the eastern door of the south wall stand upright. The only surviving capital of the column arcades shows the Tuscan style, as do the capitals of the pillars. The side walls of the eastern door consist of a single, non-profiled stone. Medallions and engraved geometric patterns can be seen on the lintel .
The relatively unconnected simple masonry of the straight outer walls is a hallmark of the oldest churches made by regional craftsmen, including the Mushabbak basilica. The apse, on the other hand, consisted of a series of large, carefully hewn blocks. The apse was probably made by specially hired specialists, while local craftsmen erected the remaining walls. All the churches of the 4th century were completely unadorned on the outside facade.
The apse inside had corner pilasters on the side . The apse arch rested on warriors decorated with kymation .
literature
- Hermann Wolfgang Beyer : The Syrian church building. De Gruyter, Berlin 1925, p. 96.
- Howard Crosby Butler : Early Churches in Syria. Fourth to Seventh Centuries. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ 1929, (reprint: Hakkert, Amsterdam 1969), p. 33.
- Christine Strube : Building decoration in the northern Syrian limestone massif. Volume 1: Forms of capitals, doors and cornices in the churches of the 4th and 5th centuries AD. Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1993, ISBN 3-8053-1407-8 , ( Damascus Research 5), p. 33f.
- Christine Strube: The "Dead Cities". Town and country in northern Syria during late antiquity. Verlag Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1996, ( Zabern's illustrated books on archeology ), (special editions of the “Ancient World”), ISBN 3-8053-1840-5 , p. 34.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Fafirtin, Syria Page. Fallingrain.com
- ^ Howard Crosby Butler: Syria. Publications of the Princeton University Archaeological Expeditions to Syria in 1904-5 and 1909. Division I: Geography and Itinerary. EJ Brill, Leiden 1930, p. 73, online at Archive.org
- ↑ Strube, 1993, p. 33
- ↑ Strube, 1993, p. 34
- ^ Friedrich Wilhelm Deichmann : Qalb Lōze and Qal'at Sem'ān. The special development of northern Syriac late antique architecture. Bavarian Academy of Sciences. Meeting reports, year 1982, issue 6, CH Beck, Munich 1982, p. 6