Resafa

Sergiopolis is a redirect to this article. For the titular archbishopric see titular archbishopric Sergiopolis .

North gate of the enclosing wall from the outside. The most elaborately designed, representative city gate has a larger central passage. An arched wall supported by Corinthian columns was placed in front of the three entrances . Lateral towers form a forecourt

Resafa ( Arabic الرصافة, DMG ar-Ruṣāfa ) is a ruined city in the desert in northern Syria , which was called Sergiopolis in late antiquity . The preserved buildings and the city wall date from this time. Resafa has been a major Christian pilgrimage destination since the 4th century and a military post in the eastern Syrian provinces in the 6th century.

location

Coordinates: 35 ° 37 ′ 44 ″  N , 38 ° 45 ′ 29 ″  E

Resafa​

Syria

Resafa is located south of the Euphrates , 25 kilometers from the junction of the Euphrates highway in al-Mansura on the northern edge of the Syrian desert . The nearest town to this village is 30 kilometers east of Ar-Raqqa . In Roman times, the place was on the Strata Diocletiana , a military and caravan route built at the end of the 3rd century AD , which formed the Limes Arabicus . This was the eastern border of the Roman province of Syria and served to ward off attacks by the Parthians and later the Sassanids . The road connected the fortress Sura on the Euphrates via Resafa and Palmyra with Damascus and continued via Bostra to Philadelphia ( Amman ).

history

In the 9th century BC A Resafa was an Assyrian administrative center. The Assyrian name was Raşappa . In the Bible, a receph (II Kings 19:12; Isaiah 37:12) is mentioned. The place name occurs often and a connection with the place described here is not proven. The earliest archaeological finds in Resafa in northern Syria date from the early Flavian period. The place was probably founded around the year 70 AD as a Roman sentinel. It is mentioned for the first time around 100 years later by Claudius Ptolemy .

The martyrdom of the later canonized Roman soldier Sergios around the year 312 AD at the gates of the fort was essential for the further development of the city . Resafa was the seat of a bishopric from the beginning of the 5th century. By the end of this century, Sergios' tomb had become an important pilgrimage destination. This pilgrimage was used by Emperor Anastasios I to develop the castle into a city, because in the conflicts between Rome and Persia Resafa was often on the way of the fighting troops. The newly founded city gave the border additional stability and was named Sergiupolis. Within a short time a huge city wall and several churches were built. Procopius , Justinian's court writer , describes the construction of the surrounding wall, houses, wall halls and the construction of water reservoirs. He does not mention that his emperor also financed sacred buildings. This leads to the conclusion that the clergy were rich enough from the income of the pilgrims to finance the basilicas with their own money.

In the 8th century Resafa was the residence of the Umayyad caliph Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik (ruled 724-743), who had several palaces built in front of the city gates. The Great Mosque of Rusafat Hisham, as the city is now called in the sources, was built by the caliph on the pilgrimage church so that the shrine with the relics of Christians and Muslims could be venerated at the same time: a sign of the coexistence of both religions.

In 1269 the inhabitants fled from the Mongols to Salamiyya , and Resafa was mentioned for the last time at the end of the 13th century. After the Mongol storm, the Euphrates formed the border between the Empire of the Ilkhan in the east and the Empire of the Mamluks in the west. Cross-Euphrates trade, Resafa's livelihood, was interrupted. Since then there have been no larger settlements in Rusafa until the present.

Research history

The first description of the great basilica (basilica A) comes from the English Protestant clergyman William Halifax in 1691, who recognized a church in the ruins. In 1896, XA Siderides published a bilingual inscription found in the church . Friedrich Sarre and Ernst Herzfeld began documenting drawings and photographs in 1907. Their first report appeared in 1909. The overall results of the research so far were published in 1920 by Samuel Guyer . Independently of this, Harry Spanner carried out measurements in 1918, which he published in 1926 together with Samuel Guyer as a comprehensive monograph.

At the beginning of the 1950s, Georges Tchalenko carried out the first planned excavations, during which he exposed the bema in the central nave of the great basilica and then left it uncovered to the weather. From 1952 , Johannes Kollwitz and Katharina Otto-Dorn were digging, financed by the German Archaeological Institute . Until his death in 1968, Kollwitz was in charge of seven excavation campaigns, the focus of which, in addition to the basilica B and the central building, was also the areas from the Islamic period outside the city wall with the palace of Hisam. There was no excavation at basilica A, as its high walls were in danger of collapsing at that time. This was made up for by Syrian archaeologists from 1968 to 1976, who carried out restorations on the north gate of the city and the basilica. They partially removed the high walls and used the material to restore other parts of the wall. The buried interior of the basilica was cleared with heavy equipment. Thilo Ulbert later complained about the damage to the walls and floor slabs. He started his work immediately after the Syrians left in 1976 and carried out excavations at the basilica until 1994. In the following years, Dorothée Sack , among others, examined the Great Mosque. In 2004/05 the excavation team fortified parts of the wall crowns.

Cityscape

city ​​wall

Basilica C. As with all churches, the apse of the sanctuary is in the east. The foundation wall of the entrance portal can be seen on the left. The city wall has been preserved in this area up to the level of the lower battlement formed by round arches

Basilica A. Two construction phases can be seen on the round arches of the two central nave walls: The wide arcade arches between the massive pillars later had to be subdivided by column-supported double arcades

Basilica A. A central wall in the eastern choir. Remains of wooden beams that formed the floor of the upper floor. Overlying stone slabs are accepted as the floor covering. Bricks were only used in the upper area of ​​this wall

Basilica A from the northeast with the remains of the mosque built in the 8th century. In a later construction phase, the church's outer walls, which were too small (60 cm) and in danger of collapsing, could only be supported by massive inclined piles of stones

Central building. View of the apse of the former choir in the east

In the flat steppe desert, the surrounding wall, which is up to 15 meters high and over 1800 meters long, can be seen from afar. As part of the Limes Arabicus, Resafa was integrated into the course of paved roads that were supposed to secure the eastern border of the Roman Empire against the Parthians . For these military considerations, the Romans put on the first enclosure wall for a modest fort, in which an army of camel riders made up of Bedouins from the area served. Resafa's task was to control the caravan route in the area between the Euphrates (Sura station) and Palmyra . The walls and bastions of various sizes, which are still visible today, date from the time of Emperor Justinian; they were rebuilt in the early 6th century to protect against the Sassanids and supplemented by the Arab occupation in 636. The 3 meter thick enclosure wall has since formed an irregular rectangle of 536 meters in the north, 350 meters in the east, 411 meters on the west and 549 meters on the south side. On each side there is a monumental gate with side corner towers. 50 bastions in different shapes have been partially preserved. From the inside of the wall, two battlements were accessible via wide flight of stairs, the lower battlement was almost 6 meters above the original floor level, the upper one at a height of 12 meters. The parapet of the upper corridor has disappeared almost everywhere. The Byzantine city wall differs from the city layout that was common in Roman times, as the gates are not in the middle, the distances between the towers are unequal and no other symmetry was observed. The surrounding wall was preceded by an earth wall on all sides.

As a building material, blocks made of hard, but brittle gypsum stone, which occurs in the area, were used. Limestone was used almost exclusively for the construction of the vaults, which replaced earlier wooden floors in the towers. Otherwise, limestone and brick were used in some repairs. The cuboids stacked in horizontal layers are on average 60 centimeters high.

Cult buildings

The population increased due to the streams of pilgrims after Sergios was martyred. The large public buildings were built in the 5th and 6th centuries. These include four churches as cult buildings: the basilica A near the south gate in the southeast corner of the 21 hectare wall area, the basilica B in the south center, the so-called central building, a bishop's church around 520, and the smaller basilica C at the east gate.

The street with shops and residential buildings leading from the north gate into the city center was partially exposed, it led past the central building. South of this is a rectangular brick building that was interpreted as Han . The early Byzantine building was thus a forerunner of the later Islamic caravanserais, which served as a warehouse, trading center and hostel.

All large buildings within the city were erected from white or gray gypsum stone like the surrounding wall, with some later additions a somewhat lighter sedimentary rock was used, which also occurs in the area. The roofing material was made of tiles, which, in the early Byzantine tradition, were occasionally built with large horizontal joints as the upper wall layers. On the large cistern, bricks alternate with sedimentary stone blocks to form the vault. The walls were plastered; inside, as can be seen from the dowel holes, they were partially clad with stone slabs.

Basilica A

Basilica A was probably built in the late 5th century after the building sculpture and coins found in the floor. The inscription discovered by Thilo Ulbert with the year 559 does not refer to the church consecration, but to a later renovation. The model was the Weitarkaden basilica by Qalb Loze in the north Syrian limestone massif (completed around 470), which also influenced the great basilica in Ruweiha . The main building measured 42 × 34 meters without the numerous additions that were used as monks' quarters or for liturgical purposes. Before the nave was cleared out by the Syrian antiquities authorities in the 1970s, parts of the walls were up to 15 meters high. For structural reasons, a few meters had to be removed. Measured by the span of the arcades, it is the largest preserved wide arcade basilica in Syria, the span in the central nave is 10.7 meters. Only the basilica in the Tempelhof of Baalbek , which was probably built around the middle of the 5th century, had a larger arch width of 12.6 meters. The remains of this church were excavated around 1900 and completely removed in 1935. The floor surface of basilica A did not consist of the plaster blocks visible today, but of colored stone slabs overlying them. The building had nine entrances of the same size on the north, west and south sides, probably all with a porch.

In the middle of the church was the largest known ( Bema ) in the country. The clergy sat on this raised platform, which is characteristic of many early Byzantine churches in Syria, during the word service. The layout of basilica A filled almost the entire width of the central nave and provided space for the bishop, 24 clergymen, and a wooden altar for placing the gospel .

To the north, adjacent to basilica A, was a closed rectangular courtyard ( peristyle ), which was visited by European and Christian-Arab pilgrims during the ceremonies on Sergio's death (October 6). The retaining walls attached to the south nave were probably required to stabilize the building after an earthquake in the 11th century. In the middle of the 8th century, Caliph Hisham had a mosque built in the north courtyard of the basilica, which was used until the 13th century. In an adjoining room of the peristyle part of the church treasure was discovered, which had been hidden by the crusaders in the middle of the 13th century from the Mongol invasions (1247 and 1259/1260).

Basilica B

According to a building inscription, basilica B was started in 518, ie in the last year of the reign of Emperor Anastasios I (r. 491-518). According to the same inscription, the relics of St. Sergios were venerated here before they were relocated in basilica A. The church has so far only been partially excavated. Only in the east is part of the southern nave, which rises as an 18.5 meter high tower. The three-aisled column basilica was 53 meters long and 25.7 meters wide, including the side aisles, each 5 meters. The wall thickness was 95 centimeters. In the east there were two lavishly furnished apsidal side rooms on the sides of the chancel.

Central building

The central building from the beginning of the 6th century was a four-cone complex ( tetraconchos ), the conches of which protruded semicircularly in the middle of the longitudinal walls and on the front sides from a rectangular inner church space. Apart from the massive masonry altar apse in the east, the three other conches were openly designed as exedra with four columns. The central building was surrounded by an outer corridor that was expanded polygonally on three sides. In the east, the handling ended in rectangular side rooms on both sides of the altar apse. The side rooms had semicircular apses and were connected by doors with the walkway and the chancel. The presumed cathedral deviates from the construction principle of the central building , since the nave was constructed as a nave and closed over an upper window zone with an open roof structure ( saddle roof ).

Parts of the outer walls are preserved up to the height of the lintels, the east side stands upright up to the second floor. The basic dimensions were 42.2 × 34 meters. The central nave was 22 meters long and 10.5 meters wide with four angular pillars in the center of the entire complex. The building was built at one time and remained virtually unchanged until its gradual destruction that began in the 9th century. Parts of the church could have been used for church services until the 13th century.

Other central buildings with tetraconchos in Syria, which presumably all served as cathedrals, were in Seleucia Pieria and Apamea , both from the second half of the 5th century. The Church of Saints Sergius, Leontius and Bacchus in Bosra , also a central tetrakonchos, which was surrounded by a rectangular outer wall, dates from the year 512. They are discussed as a possible forerunner of a number of Armenian tetraconchus that were used by the Zvartnots Cathedral led to the round church of Bana .

Basilica C

According to some excavated fragments, Basilica C had an apse covered with colored mosaics. After being destroyed by an earthquake, the ruins served as living space until the Middle Ages. In the northwest there was another basilica (Basilica D) , parts of the portal and apse of which have been preserved. It was uncovered by the German Archaeological Institute around 2000.

Secular buildings

The cisterns were in the southwest. They served the drinking water supply for an estimated 6000 inhabitants in a region without springs or running water and with an average annual precipitation of only 150 milliliters. There were four large underground cisterns with brick vaults. The largest cistern with a length of 50 meters and a top height of 15 meters could store 15,000 to 16,000 cubic meters of water. It was built in Justinian's time and repaired in the early 7th century. The other two cisterns are dated to the 7th century. The water was drawn from a dam on a wadi in the west of the city, which held back the precipitation that fell in winter and spring, via a 4.7 meter wide main channel. Several covered supply ducts led from this to the cisterns. Before they were built, groundwater that was not suitable for drinking could only be drawn from a well about 40 meters deep, which was only suitable for irrigating the fields and for watering the cattle. Drinking water was previously collected in private, bottle-shaped house cisterns; if these were empty, servants had to fetch the drinking water with donkeys from the Euphrates.

Chan courtyard. The use of flat bricks, which is rare for Resafa, can be seen in the upper area of ​​the wall

From the north gate, a 4.6 meter wide main road with 2 meter wide sidewalks on each side led past shops and residential buildings to the south. It was secured with stamped plaster of paris and rocks. Where this road met an east-west connection are the ruins of a building known as Chan . Six rooms were oriented around a courtyard. The vaults were made of bricks. It is probably a rare example of a pre-Islamic caravanserai .

The surface in the city center is now a crater landscape. Most of these craters are former robbery excavation holes that must have been made between 1910 and 1920, as the photos of the earliest expeditions (Sarre / Herzfeld; A. Musil) still show the city undisturbed.

Buildings extra muros

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100 meters outside the north gate are the ruins of a square building that was built between 570 and 580 and may have served as a church and meeting room for the Christian-Arab Ghassanids . The building was archaeologically examined in the 1990s by Thilo Ulbert and Michaela Konrad . However, the results of the excavation have not yet been published.

A further 100 meters north of it is a small tower-like structure with belt arches on the inner walls. A late antique bathing complex from the 6th century was examined in the west.

The large settlement area outside the city walls ( extra muros ), especially to the south, was mapped, but only exposed at certain points. The small remains of a 77 × 72 meter type of building were found here, which is generally known as a "false fort" because of its massive construction or a mighty entrance portal, the air-dried bricks of which have almost completely disintegrated. The building belonged together with some outbuildings and a garden to the palace area of ​​Hishams. In 1990 Thilo Ulbert uncovered the slightly elevated wall remains in this garden and interpreted it as a pavilion. Otherwise hardly anything can be seen of the Umayyad residence in the south of the city.

literature

• Georg Beer : Resapha . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume IA, 1, Stuttgart 1914, Col. 620.
• Harry Spanner, Samuel Guyer : Ruṣāfa. The pilgrimage city of St. Sergios. (Research on Islamic Art 4). Reimer, Berlin 1926
• Walter Karnapp : The city wall of Resafa in Syria. (= Monuments of ancient architecture 11). de Gruyter, Berlin 1976, ISBN 3-11-006535-5
• Michael Mackensen : A fortified late antique complex in front of the city walls of Resafa. Excavations and small finds from late antiquity from a survey in the area around Resafa-Sergiupolis. (Resafa 1) Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1984, ISBN 3-8053-0741-1
• Thilo Ulbert : The Basilica of the Holy Cross in Resafa-Sergiupolis. (Resafa 2) Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1986, ISBN 3-8053-0815-9
• Thilo Ulbert: The silver treasure from Resafa-Sergiupolis from the Crusader era. (Resafa 3) Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1990, ISBN 3-8053-1061-7
• Dorothée Sack : The Great Mosque of Resafa - Ruṣāfat Hišām. (Resafa 4) Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1996, ISBN 3-8053-1790-5
• Michaela Konrad : The late Roman Limes in Syria. Archaeological investigations at the border forts of Sura, Tetrapyrgium, Cholle and in Resafa. (Resafa 5) Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 2001, ISBN 3-8053-2600-9
• Gunnar Brands : The architectural ornamentation of Resafa-Sergiupolis. Studies of late antique architecture and building equipment in Syria and northern Mesopotamia. (Resafa 6) Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 2002, ISBN 3-8053-2800-1
• Thilo Ulbert (Ed.): Research in Resafa-Sergiupolis. (Resafa 7) de Gruyter, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-11-046746-8

Web links

Commons : Resafa  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Resafa at the German Archaeological Institute
• Article in archeology-online
• Catharine Hof: Masonry Techniques of the Early Sixth Century City Wall of Resafa, Syria. (PDF; 36.6 MB) Proceedings of the Third International Congress on Construction History, Cottbus, May 2009

Individual evidence

1. ^ Walter Karnapp: The city wall of Resafa in Syria. de Gruyter, Berlin 1976, ISBN 3-11-006535-5 , p. 4.
2. ↑ Thilo Ulbert: Rusafa Sergiupolis - place of pilgrimage and residence. In: Kay Kohlmeyer , Eva Strommenger (ed.): Land des Baal. Syria - Forum of Peoples and Cultures. Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1982, pp. 356-360.
3. ^ William Halifax: A Relation of a Voyage from Aleppo to Palmyra in Syria. London 1753 ( full text ); Relation of a Voyage to Tadmor in 1691. In: Palestine Exploration Quarterly 22, 1890, pp. 273-303.
4. ↑ Thilo Ulbert 1986, pp. 1-4.
5. ↑ Georg Gerster , Ralf-Bernhard Wartke : Flight images from Syria. From ancient to modern. Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 2003, ISBN 3-8053-3249-1 , p. 133.
6. ^ Catherine Hof: Masonry Techniques of the Early Sixth Century City Wall of Resafa, Syria. Proceedings of the Third International Congress on Construction History, Cottbus, May 2009
7. ↑ Thilo Ulbert 1986, pp. 117-120.
8. ↑ Gunnar Brands 2002, pp. 48-56.
9. ^ Stephan Westphalen : From the temple to the basilica. The sanctuary in Byzantine times. In: Margarete van Ess , Thomas Maria Weber (ed.): Baalbek. Under the spell of Roman monumental architecture. Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1999, ISBN 3-8053-2495-2 , p. 71.
10. ↑ Thilo Ulbert, pp. 120f.
11. ↑ Pierre-Louis Gatier, Thilo Ulbert: A lintel inscription from Resafa-Sergiupolis. In: Damaszener Mitteilungen 5, 1991, pp. 169–182.
12. ^ Gunnar Brands 2002, pp. 93-97.
13. ↑ Johannes Odenthal: Syria. High cultures between the Mediterranean and the Arabian desert. DuMont, Cologne 1983, pp. 283-288.
14. ^ Gunnar Brands 2002, pp. 122-128.
15. ↑ W. Eugene smallholder: Zvart'nots and the Origins of Christian Architecture in Armenia . In: The Art Bulletin , Vol. 54, No. 3, September 1972, pp. 245-262
16. ^ Thilo Ulbert: Resafa - pilgrim center and border fortification. In: Mamoun Fansa, Beate Bollmann (ed.): The art of the early Christians in Syria. Signs, images and symbols from the 4th to 7th centuries. Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 2008, pp. 69–77.
17. ↑ Werner Brinker: To the water supply of Resafa-Sergioupolis. In: Damaszener Mitteilungen 5, 1991, pp. 117–146.
18. ^ Gunnar Brands: The so-called audience hall of al-Munḏir in Resafa. In: Damaszener Mitteilungen 10, 1998, pp. 211–235; Elizabeth Key Fowden: An Arab building at al-Ruṣāfa-Sergiupolis. In: Damaszener Mitteilungen 12, 2000, pp. 303-324.
19. ↑ Gerster / Wartke, p. 133.
20. ^ Resafa - Rusafat Hisham, Syria. Middle area: Archaeological investigations at the residence of the caliph Hisham b. `Abd al-Malik. In: Jahrbuch MSD 2006-08, Berlin 2008, p. 81 ( Memento of the original dated February 21, 2014 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. (PDF; 783 kB).