Kalota

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Coordinates: 36 ° 21 ′ 9 ″  N , 36 ° 56 ′ 10 ″  E

Map: Syria
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Kalota​
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Syria

Kalota , Arabic كالوطة, DMG Kālūṭa , also Qalota; was an early Byzantine settlement in the Dead Cities area in northwest Syria . The ruins of several residential buildings and two churches from the 4th to 6th centuries lie on a hilltop that was inhabited from pre-Christian times to the Arab Middle Ages.

location

Kalota is located in Aleppo Governorate , about 28 kilometers as the crow flies northwest of Aleppo at an altitude of 550 meters in the eastern area of ​​Jebel Siman. The karst and treeless hilly area is part of the northern Syrian limestone massif. The place is on the on the main line from Aleppo to Afrin preferred Deir Seman achievable. From here a side road leads east into the mountains via Basufan (five kilometers) to Burj Haidar (another three kilometers) and 2.5 kilometers north to Kafr Nabu . From the last two places, earth roads in an easterly direction reach Kalota after just under four kilometers.

history

The hill was probably settled in pre-Christian times, when there was an outdoor temple or a cave sanctuary at its top. The fragmentary inscription found there indicates the inauguration of a temple and a golden cult object ( Xoanon ). A proper name is deciphered at the end with "-aitulos". The two or three deities worshiped here may have been the same as those mentioned on the inscription dated 224 AD on an olive oil press in Kafr Nabu. Seimios, Symbetylos and Leōn were the names of the three ancestral deities there, one of them is likely to have been the local variant of the oriental sky god Baalschamin or Baal , corresponding to the Greek Zeus .

In the early Byzantine period, an important settlement emerged, which is evident from the residential houses (residences) built from mighty limestone blocks, especially in the 4th and 5th centuries. After the general decline of the Christian settlements, which began around 600, i.e. before the Islamic conquest in the 630s and had the same causes everywhere, the place remained inhabited for some time. In the 11th or 12th century, the Christian buildings on the hill were fortified as an Arab refuge . The Arabic name of the place Qal'at Kalota ("Kalota Castle") comes from this time .

Eastern Church

The ruins of the Eastern Church or Qal'at Kalota Church are located on the hilltop about 500 meters from the ancient site. It is likely that parts of the wall from an earlier temple were still used. She was a three- aisled arcades basilica with six Jochen in each of the two central nave high walls, a straight east wall and behind a semicircular apse , which was flanked by approximately square adjoining rooms. The southern side of the apse can be recognized by a round archway to the nave and windows in both outer walls as a martyrion ( reliquary chamber ). In the middle of the nave there was a raised installation for the clergy known as Bema . There were two entrances on the south side and one entrance each on the north and west. A dated Greek inscription above the west portal names 492 as the year of completion. This date is used to compare the time of the Church of Mushabbak , because both houses of God took up capital forms from the Qal'at Sim'an , which had just been completed .

According to studies by Georges Tchalenko from the late 1930s, the external dimensions of the church are 26 × 16.8 meters. The central nave is extraordinarily wide with a column spacing of 7.3 meters; the arcade arches, 6.8 meters high up to the apex, rested on slender columns and resulted in an elegant room structure. The column capitals were partly variants of the Corinthian style with a top diameter of 80 centimeters and the Tuscan style with 70 centimeters on the side. The floor of the sanctuary was three steps higher than the main room. The Diakonikon in the northeast corner was directly connected to the north aisle by a door and another door to the chancel. Except for the eaves, the exterior facades are plain and the arched windows are unadorned. The only structure of the longitudinal facades consisted of porticoes above the entrances. Only the preserved west portal is highlighted by a profiled lintel stone and an arched window above it. This door and window combination was unusual for the churches in the region, but it did occur in at least ten synagogues built in previous centuries in the Galilee and Golan areas.

Furthermore, most of the south facade up to the eaves and the east side at a single storey level including the martyrion are preserved. The inner apse wall stands up to the approach of the triumphal arch . The pilasters there for the central nave arcades have Corinthian capitals with coarse smooth leaves. A transverse wall in front of the apse dates from the Arab period when the church building was converted into a fortress. In Tchalenko's reconstruction drawing, the church was surrounded in the south by a large walled forecourt with two entrances in the south wall.

Western church

The smaller western church in the town center was a three-aisled column arcade basilica with five bays and a semicircular apse, which was enclosed within a straight east wall. The southern of the two apse side rooms served as a martyrion. There was a passage from the apse to the northern side room. There were two doors on the south facade and one each on the north and west. Howard Crosby Butler, who examined the place around 1900, suspected an older predecessor building on the site. Large parts of the outer walls have been preserved all around up to the eaves level. The apse walls stand upright with the pilasters of the apse arch up to the beginning of the dome, as do almost the entire west gable. The arcades of the nave have collapsed as in the Eastern Church. The side entrances were covered by small porticos, as can be seen from the rows of holes in the wall surfaces above. The inside of the outer walls were only roughly hewn, as in Sheikh Sleman's wide arcade basilica.

Since no inscription with a year was found, the dating is done by comparing styles. Three of the eight capitals could be examined as surface finds. The capitals of the apse arch in the Corinthian style were designed very simply. Of the elaborate, branched leaf shapes of the classic style, only schematic, protruding U-shapes are left on the apse arch, which indicate leaves with raised central bars. The column capitals were more varied with smooth-leaved Corinthian shapes. The doors on the long sides are decorated on the outside with surrounding ornamental frames, which are rolled up into volutes at the ends . The frames contain stripes with flat kymatias and zigzag patterns.

The church must have been built around 600 later than Brad's North Church (dated 561). Overall, the greatly simplified decorative motifs correspond to the last of the churches built in the area of ​​the Dead Cities and especially the church of Sheikh Sleman, dated 602. The last dated early Byzantine church in northern Syria was the Sergios Church of Babisqa, consecrated in 610 . No building shows the decline in creative and manual skills as clearly as the western church of Kalota.

literature

  • Frank Rainer Scheck, Johannes Odenthal: Syria. High cultures between the Mediterranean and the Arabian desert. DuMont, Cologne 1998, p. 297, ISBN 3770113373
  • Christine Strube : Building decoration in the northern Syrian limestone massif. Vol. II. Forms of capitals, doors and cornices from the 6th and early 7th centuries AD (Damascene Research 12) Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 2002, pp. 209–214
  • Georges Tchalenko: Églises syriennes à Bêma. Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, Paris 1990, pp. 79-86

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hiking Trails in the Forgotten Cities. forgottencities.com ( Memento of the original dated May 13, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.forgottencities.com
  2. ^ Fergus Millar: The Roman Near East: 31 BC - Ad 337. Carl Newell Jackson Lectures. Harvard University Press, 1995, p. 154
  3. ^ Hermann Wolfgang Beyer : The Syrian church building. Studies of late antique art history. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 1925, p. 37
  4. ↑ Strube, pp. 193-195
  5. ↑ Kiel Image Database Middle East Single image of the website: West gable of the Eastern Church
  6. ↑ Rachel Hachlili: Ancient Jewish art and archeology in the land of Israel. Brill, Leiden 1997, p. 164
  7. ↑ Strube, pp. 209-211, 214