Shaqqa

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شقا / Šaqqā
Shaqqa
Shaqqa (Syria)
Red pog.svg
Coordinates 32 ° 54 '  N , 36 ° 42'  E Coordinates: 32 ° 54 '  N , 36 ° 42'  E
Basic data
Country Syria

Governorate

as-Suwaida
ISO 3166-2 SY-SU
height 1180 m
Residents 8000
The Al-Qaysariya Palace from Roman times
The Al-Qaysariya Palace from Roman times

Shaqqa or Shakka ( Arabic شقا Shaqqa , DMG Šaqqā , also Shaqqah or Shakka , French Chaqqa , Greek Sakkaia , Maximianopolis , as titular diocese Maximianopolis in Arabia ) is a place in Syria in the as-Suwaida governorate , around 25 km northeast of the capital as-Suwaida of the governorate of the same name located on the road to Damascus . Schaqqa today has around 8,000 inhabitants, mostly Druze , who lived in the 18th and 19th centuries. Immigrated from Lebanon in the 19th century.

In Roman and early Byzantine period Shaqqa was or Sakkaia Maximianopolis a comparatively more important city (polis), which by the Romans to Colonia was raised with its own administration and its own, with the year 286, the year of Kaiserakklamation Maximian , starting year census decreed . A temple for Zeus Megistus is documented with inscriptions, and another inscription with an epigram for the philosopher Proclus testifies to local literary culture. As an important building from Roman times, the ruins of a building known today as al-Kaisariye have been preserved in the location of the former main square, which due to its size is not to be interpreted as an ordinary residential building, but as a palace-like representative building.

In Christian times, Sakkaia was the seat of a bishop, first documented in 451 by the participation of a Serenus episcopus Maximianopulis at the Council of Chalcedon . As local churches, inscriptions name a martyrion ( reliquary chamber ) of St. George and other martyrs built by a local bishop named Tiberinus in 594 and a martyrdom of St. Theodore in 596 . A basilica has been partially preserved , the oldest of which is not reliably dated and may have been an ancient cult or courthouse building that was subsequently converted for Christian worship. Less than a third of the basilica has been preserved, part of the former aisle is now used by the Druze as a cult room, while other parts of the building serve as stables and storage space.

Remarks

  1. ↑ Johannes Koder / Marcel Restle: The era of Sakkaia (Maximianopulis) in Arabia , in: Yearbook of Austrian Byzantine Studies 42 (1992), pp. 79-82
  2. ^ A b Frank R. Trombley: Hellenic Religion & Christianization, c. 370-529 , EJ Brill, Leiden 1993 (= Religions in the Graeco-Roman world, 115), Vol. II, p. 344
  3. ↑ Images: KiBiDaNo / Kieler Bilddatenbank Middle East , search word "Kaisariye"
  4. ↑ Eduard Schwarz (ed.): Acta Conciliorum Oecumeniorum , Tom. II, vol. iii, pars 3, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / Leipzig 1937, p. 544, no. 89
  5. ^ Trombley, Hellenic Religion (1993), p. 345
  6. ↑ a b Images: KiBiDaNo / Kieler Bilddatenbank Middle East , search words "Sakkaia" and "Basilika"

literature

  • Johannes Koder, Marcel Restle: The era of Sakkaia (Maximianopulis) in Arabia , in: Yearbook of Austrian Byzantine Studies 42 (1992), pp. 79-82
  • Frank R. Trombley: Hellenic Religion & Christianization, c. 370-529 , EJ Brill, Leiden 1993 (= Religions in the Graeco-Roman world, 115), Vol. II, ISBN 90-04-09691-4
  • Charles Jean Melchior de Vogüé: Syrie Centrale. Architecture civile et religieuse du Ier au VIIe siècle. Volume II, Noblet & Baudry, Paris 1865

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