Butler, Howard Crosby: Publications of an American Archaeological Expedition to Syria in 1899 - 1900 (Band 2): Architecture and other arts (New York, 1903)

2 I 8

ARCHITECTURE OF THE SIXTH CENTURY

West portal, Church of St. Sergius, at Babiska.

be attributed to the Persian invasion;
for the church at Khirbit Tezin, which
is one of the richest in ornamental de-
tails, and one which displays high artis-
tic ability, was completed almost fifty
years after the destruction of Antioch
by the Persians, and the date of the
Church of St. Sergius, 609/10 a.d., is
too early for it to have been affected
by the Mohammedan incursions of the
seventh century. The conditions may
perhaps be explained by the theory that
the whole country, which was to be-
come, in time, a desert waste, had al-
ready begun to fail and grow arid.

Ksedjbeh. church. The square plan of the little basilical
church of northern Dana (page 142) is recalled by that of the
smaller of the two churches at Ksedjbeh, though here the sanctuary
is of rectangular form, and the chambers beside it open into the ends
of the side aisles in the ordinary manner. The number of columns
in the nave is the same — three on a side. Only the south wall and
portions of the east and west walls are standing. The measure-
ments differ but slightly from those of the little church cited above —
15.50 m. by 13 m. outside, ancl 11.80 m. by 10.35 m- mside, between

Fig. 87. Plan of West
Church at Ks£djbeh.

South wall of West Church at Ksedjbeh.

the west wall and the
chancel arch. The
ornament of thc inte-
rior was simple, the
capitals being of the
uncut Corinthian style.
On the face of the
respond, between the
chancel and the proth-
esis, is a benitier, a
small niche with a
slightly projecting ba-
sin below it. The ex-
terior decoration, so
far as we may judge