DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.32867#0326
294
NORTHERN CENTRAL SYRIA
deep cyma molding, however, shows a fine bit of painting, which seems to have been
a continuous design of aquatic birds and plants, the best preserved ofwhich is a duck,
painted in bright yellow and deep reds, surrounded with reeds. A small section of the
lunette at the end of the vault shows a flower pattern in greens and yellows. A rock-
hewn tomb at Hammam id-Djedj, near Shnan, preserves a variety of painted designs,
most of which are symbolic. It contains, however, two subjects which I believe to have
been portraits. They are busts, of nearly life-size, showing the head and shoulders,
which were painted in green and white stripes, as if to represent a colored tunic which
was cut close to the neck; the faces in both instances have been scraped off. The
symbolical subjects include crosses and the within circular bands of painted orna-
ment in green and ycllow, flanked by peacocks in green, the fish in green and white,
and a design which strongly resembles a representation of the seven-branched candle-
stick. This design was not found anywhere in the carving of the region, and it was
not found elsewhere in the painted ornament; but a seal-ring, found somewhere in the
immediate neighborhood, bears an unmistakable intaglio of the famous relic of the
temple at Jerusalem which the Emperor Titus carried to Eome. This painted design
is conventionally treated in green and red.
NORTHERN CENTRAL SYRIA
deep cyma molding, however, shows a fine bit of painting, which seems to have been
a continuous design of aquatic birds and plants, the best preserved ofwhich is a duck,
painted in bright yellow and deep reds, surrounded with reeds. A small section of the
lunette at the end of the vault shows a flower pattern in greens and yellows. A rock-
hewn tomb at Hammam id-Djedj, near Shnan, preserves a variety of painted designs,
most of which are symbolic. It contains, however, two subjects which I believe to have
been portraits. They are busts, of nearly life-size, showing the head and shoulders,
which were painted in green and white stripes, as if to represent a colored tunic which
was cut close to the neck; the faces in both instances have been scraped off. The
symbolical subjects include crosses and the within circular bands of painted orna-
ment in green and ycllow, flanked by peacocks in green, the fish in green and white,
and a design which strongly resembles a representation of the seven-branched candle-
stick. This design was not found anywhere in the carving of the region, and it was
not found elsewhere in the painted ornament; but a seal-ring, found somewhere in the
immediate neighborhood, bears an unmistakable intaglio of the famous relic of the
temple at Jerusalem which the Emperor Titus carried to Eome. This painted design
is conventionally treated in green and red.