Ruweiha
Ruweiha ( Arabic رويحة, DMG Ruwaiḥa ) was a village settlement in the late Roman and early Byzantine times in the area of the Dead Cities in northwestern Syria .
location
Ruweiha is located in the Idlib governorate in the Jebel Zawiye area, the southern part of the northern Syrian limestone massif. In late antiquity, the place belonged to the Apamene cultural landscape, named after Apameia , the administrative capital at the time at the southern end of the mountainous region.
From the expressway that leads north from Maarat an-Numan towards Aleppo , after seven kilometers in the village of Babila, a secondary road branches off to the west, which after three kilometers crosses the ancient settlement of Jerada . Ruweiha is another two kilometers northwest on a flat hill. In contrast to Jerada, there is no modern village in the vicinity, some ruins are used by cattle farmers as accommodation and stables. The landscape is almost treeless, karstified and, during the dry summer time, characterized by the contrast in color between a thin red-brown layer of earth and light-gray boulders.
Cityscape
Knowledge about Ruweiha goes back to the 3rd century AD. A Roman temple has survived from this period, which was restored in 384/385 and rededicated as a tomb. The building is completely preserved. The date of the renovation can be read on an inscription that is affixed to the northern gable and gives the names of those buried with Bassimas and Mathbabea. The tomb has the shape of an ante temple with two columns in front of the entrance portal on the north side and is covered with stone slabs. Another temple tomb is in the north outside the village.
At least some families lived here at the beginning of the 4th century. From the middle or end of the century, when Christianity had established itself everywhere as the state religion, the place should have grown due to the influx of Christian settlers. Like almost all of the 700 or so cataloged ancient sites in the limestone massif area, Ruweiha was a village settlement, which had its greatest extent and importance from the 5th to the 7th centuries. The approximately 100 buildings in an area of about 23 hectares included two basilicas and an agora in the center of the village. A larger number of stately, two-story residences indicate a formerly wealthy upper class. The houses can be divided according to the wall structure: on the one hand, in buildings with older double masonry and roughly hewn blocks that are not laid in a line, which are generally poorly preserved, or, on the other hand, with simple, neatly joined rectangular stones in horizontal layers.
In ancient times, cisterns were built to supply water, from which today's settlers still obtain their service water. In the south and east of the village there are large grave fields with stone sarcophagi , the burial space of which was sunk into the rock floor and closed with a heavy stone lid on the surface.
Early arcade basilica
The older of the two sacred buildings is a three- aisled column arcade basilica (south church) in the center of the village, of which no inscription is known. Its dimensions are 24.8 × 14.5 meters. The wider central nave is separated from the narrow aisles by eight Tuscan columns. The walls are carefully layered seamlessly from limestone blocks. The rectangular windows in the high arcade wall, doors without frame ornamentation and a simple semicircular apse speak for an early construction period. In contrast, the overall view of the well-preserved building shows a clear concept, which can also be found in churches in the north of the limestone massif. The standard program of these churches includes two entrances, each with a column-supported portico on the south wall. The west wall was emphasized by three entrances with a wide porch. Based on style comparisons, the time of origin is given as 420 to 430. Of all the buildings dated to the 4th century, this basilica is by far the most professionally executed. Therefore, and because of the style parallels with churches further north, it is likely that no local workers but experienced craftsmen from abroad were employed in the construction.
Wide Arcade Basilica
The larger, but much worse preserved church building (north church) is located outside the town center 400 meters northwest of the south church and is a wide arcade basilica. This innovative architecture, created in Syria, has its starting point in the pilgrimage church of Qalb Loze, built around 460 to 470 . It was the model for many other basilicas with wide arcades in the central nave, such as Basilica A in Resafa , whose arches spanned over ten meters. The basilica of Ruweiha, built around 500, was one of the largest churches in the northern Syrian limestone massif and the largest in Jebel Zawiye, although its roof was only supported by four cross-shaped pillars. Gertrude Bell traveled to Ruweiha in 1905 specifically because of this “famous church” and described it as the most beautiful church in Jebel Zawiye.
The basic dimensions were 39.6 × 19.2 meters. Between the four pillars in the middle of the nave was a U-shaped bema , of which only the stone slab paving exposed in 1943 can be seen. An arch in the western nave and a large part of the western wall have been preserved. The remaining walls have crumbled or were recently torn down for further use. The ruin is built by cattle sheds. A three-part narthex with side corner towers and a wide central round arch was built on the western gable wall . Such a representative double tower facade only had two churches in the area of the Dead Cities, which were in the north: Qalb Loze and the completely disappeared monastery church of Der Turmanin . Outside of Syria, the wide arcade basilica of Ruweiha is considered a model for the northern Armenian basilica of Jereruk , which is dated to the 6th century.
The building inscription gives no date, but the name of a wealthy resident, of whom it is not known whether he was a large landowner or a priest: Bizzos, the son of Bardas. His mausoleum is covered by a round dome and is located right next to the church within the Temenos of that time . The fact that this entire facility could only be donated by a single man allows conclusions to be drawn about the economic situation at the time. A municipal workshop was active during the construction, as can be seen from the overall picture of carefully executed building construction and decorative elements. As a “city” church, it differs significantly from the other sacred buildings in Jebel Zawiye that were built under local direction. Most of the other church buildings had not adopted the technical improvements coming from the north in the construction of the central high walls. In the 6th century, the Bizzos Church was probably one of the rare pilgrimage churches in the south. Most of the pilgrimage destinations in the north originated from the imitation of the column cult around Symeon , which, starting from the Qal'at Sim'an , produced many large and small pilgrimage destinations.
literature
- Christine Strube : The "Dead Cities". Town and country in northern Syria during late antiquity . Verlag Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1996, ISBN 3-8053-1840-5 .
- Crosby Butler: Early Churches in Syria. Fourth to Seventh Centuries. Edited and completed by E. Baldwin Smith. Princeton University Press, Princeton 1929 (Reprint: Adolf M. Hakkert, Amsterdam 1969)
- E. Baccache: Églises de village de la Syrie du Nord. Documents photographiques des archives de'l Institut Francais d'Archeologie due Proche-Orient. Paul Geuthner, Paris 1980, pp. 118–124 (black and white photographs)
Web links
- Ruweiha / grave temple. Kiel image database Middle East
Individual evidence
- ↑ 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. 159
- ↑ Page no longer available , search in web archives: Southern church. A church from the fourth, fifth century AD Strabo
- ↑ Strube, 1996, p. 46f
- ^ Gertrude Lowthian Bell: Syria. The Desert and the Sown. William Heinemann, London 1919, p. 253 Archive.org
- ↑ Page no longer available , search in web archives: Northern church (Bizzos church) in Ruweiha. Strabo
- ^ Hermann Wolfgang Beyer : The Syrian church building. Studies of late antique art history. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 1925, p. 152
- ↑ Strube, 1996, pp. 81f, 84