Kharab Shams
Coordinates: 36 ° 20 ′ 22 ″ N , 36 ° 56 ′ 34 ″ E
Kharab Shams , ( Arabic خراب الشمس, DMG Ḫarāb aš-Šams ) also Kharab al-Shams, Kharab Shems; was an early Byzantine settlement in the Dead Cities area in northwest Syria . An unusually high basilica from the end of the 4th century has been preserved on the site of the ruins , which is nicknamed the “ Stilt Church ” because of its arcades .
location
Kharab Shams is located in Aleppo Governorate , about 26 kilometers as the crow flies northwest of Aleppo in the southern area of Jebel Siman. The karst hilly area is part of the northern Syrian limestone massif. About five kilometers as the crow flies to the north was on the central hill plateau Kaprobarada, today Brad , the ancient administrative center of the region. Kharab Shams is about on the main line from Aleppo to Afrin preferred Deir Seman achievable. From here a side road winds north-east into the mountains, first to Basufan , then to other places that were inhabited in early Byzantine times: Burj Haidar with several church ruins and Fafertin with the oldest church in Western Syria.
Townscape
The church can be seen from a distance in the open field in the midst of the remains of the settlement made of limestone blocks, just below a hilltop. The landscape is almost treeless and littered with boulders, the thin soil layer only allows the cultivation of grain in shallow hollows. At the top of the hill, the outer walls of a single-nave chapel from the 6th century, which may have belonged to a monastery , are preserved. Further building remains and a necropolis show a larger place that was already settled in Roman times and whose heyday was between the 4th and 7th centuries.
basilica
It is a three-aisled pillar basilica , the five zygomatic arches of the two high walls of the central nave rest on four columns and on the walls on pilasters . The style and time of construction correspond to the Mushabbak basilica from the second half of the 5th century. Howard Crosby Butler, who investigated the Kharab Shams in 1900 as the leader of an expedition from Princeton University in America, dated the church to the late 4th century. A renovation took place in the 6th century. According to his plans, the nave is 12.5 meters wide and 19.2 meters long. Behind the closed east wall was a round apse , which was 4.3 meters wide on the triumphal arch , and two side rooms, almost square with 2.6 × 2.8 meters. The northern side room opened through a door to the side aisle, the southern room through a portal with a round arch. This corresponds to the common division into a diakonicon in the north and a martyrion ( reliquary chamber ) in the south of the apse. Butler found a semicircular bema in the middle of the nave as a raised seat for the clergy , which measured about 3.5 × 5 meters. A row of round arched windows runs in duplicate over the five arcades in the upper storey. As in Mushabbak, the west gable also provided generous light with three rows of windows. In both churches, the decoration of the exterior facade was almost entirely dispensed with.
Due to an earthquake, the outer walls on the long sides and the apse have completely disappeared. Both gables and the walls of the central nave have been preserved on seemingly elongated columns that end with Ionic , Tuscan and Corinthian capitals. It is unclear whether all of the capitals date from the original construction period. Together with the horseshoe-shaped arches, they give the impression that the top-heavy upper floor is on stilts. Two entrances from the south side and one entrance each from the north and west side led through the no longer existing outer walls into the church. In front of the west was a single-storey narthex , of which four pillars with architrave stones still stand upright.
literature
- Howard Crosby Butler: Princeton University Archaeological Expeditions to Syria in 1904–1905 and 1909. Division II: Architecture. EJ Brill, Leiden 1907-1949, pp. 322-325
- Hermann Wolfgang Beyer : The Syrian church building. Studies of late antique art history. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 1925, p. 96
- 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. I. Forms of capitals, doors and cornices in the churches of the 4th and 5th centuries AD. Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1993, p. 34 f