DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.36287#0016
GENERAL PREFACE
xii
Central Syria had been begun until the closing year of the century, when the Ameri-
can Expedition was organized for the purpose of extending in as many branches as
possible the work begun half a century before.
The work of the Expedition was divided at first into four departments: one for sur-
veying, map-making, and the taking of notes for an itinerary; one for the study of the
monuments of architecture and the other arts; one for the copying of inscriptions in
Greek and Latin; and one for the study of Semitic inscriptions and the collection of
Arab folk-lore. Each of these departments is represented by its own part in the Pub-
lications, which are now complete, having been issued in the following order: Part II,
Architecture and the Other Arts, by Howard Crosby Butler, in 1903; Part IV, Semitic
Inscriptions, by Enno Littmann, in 1904; Part III, Greek and Latin Inscriptions, by
William Kelly Prentice, in 1908; and Part I, Topography and Itinerary, by Robert
Garrett, in the present year (1912). Professor Littmann's collection of Arabic stories
made on this expedition have been published independently of this present series.
In the spring of 1900 the staff of the Expedition was joined by Henry Minor Hux-
ley, who came out to take charge of a department for the study of Anthropology. The
anthropological material gathered between March and June of that year, which was
originally to have been published as a separate part of these Publications, was later
taken over and combined with more extensive anthropological data acquired by Mr.
Huxley in Syria during the following year.
Early in April, 1900, Dr. George E. Post, the veteran botanist of Syria and Pales-
tine, who was then chief of the medical staff at the Syrian Protestant College at Beirut,
joined the Expedition in order to make the journey across the desert from Aleppo to
Palmyra. The large number of portfolios of botanical specimens gathered by Dr.
Post in Northern Syria and in the desert above Palmyra on this expedition were made
a part of the collection at the Beirut College.
The territory explored by the Expedition, as is shown on the general map published
in this volume, embraces the deserted and semi-deserted hill country to the east of
the Orontes, from Aleppo on the north to Apamea on the south, which we have called
Northern Central Syria, and the mountain region of the Hauran, or Southern Syria:
that is to say, the entire held of M. de Vogue's explorations, with the exception of
Bosra in the extreme south. It includes many sites to the right and left of his route,
as well as considerable extensions to the east of his held. The long excursion to the
Euphrates, the desert journey from Aleppo to Palmyra, and the journey from Pal-
myra as far as the Hauran, which are shown on the map, were important only nega-
tively as showing that these regions are practically barren of monuments of the kind
found farther west. The territory lying between the two districts which we have
called Northern Central Syria and Southern Syria respectively, which embraces Ccele-
Syria, the region north of Damascus, and the vicinity of Hauran, was not explored,
xii
Central Syria had been begun until the closing year of the century, when the Ameri-
can Expedition was organized for the purpose of extending in as many branches as
possible the work begun half a century before.
The work of the Expedition was divided at first into four departments: one for sur-
veying, map-making, and the taking of notes for an itinerary; one for the study of the
monuments of architecture and the other arts; one for the copying of inscriptions in
Greek and Latin; and one for the study of Semitic inscriptions and the collection of
Arab folk-lore. Each of these departments is represented by its own part in the Pub-
lications, which are now complete, having been issued in the following order: Part II,
Architecture and the Other Arts, by Howard Crosby Butler, in 1903; Part IV, Semitic
Inscriptions, by Enno Littmann, in 1904; Part III, Greek and Latin Inscriptions, by
William Kelly Prentice, in 1908; and Part I, Topography and Itinerary, by Robert
Garrett, in the present year (1912). Professor Littmann's collection of Arabic stories
made on this expedition have been published independently of this present series.
In the spring of 1900 the staff of the Expedition was joined by Henry Minor Hux-
ley, who came out to take charge of a department for the study of Anthropology. The
anthropological material gathered between March and June of that year, which was
originally to have been published as a separate part of these Publications, was later
taken over and combined with more extensive anthropological data acquired by Mr.
Huxley in Syria during the following year.
Early in April, 1900, Dr. George E. Post, the veteran botanist of Syria and Pales-
tine, who was then chief of the medical staff at the Syrian Protestant College at Beirut,
joined the Expedition in order to make the journey across the desert from Aleppo to
Palmyra. The large number of portfolios of botanical specimens gathered by Dr.
Post in Northern Syria and in the desert above Palmyra on this expedition were made
a part of the collection at the Beirut College.
The territory explored by the Expedition, as is shown on the general map published
in this volume, embraces the deserted and semi-deserted hill country to the east of
the Orontes, from Aleppo on the north to Apamea on the south, which we have called
Northern Central Syria, and the mountain region of the Hauran, or Southern Syria:
that is to say, the entire held of M. de Vogue's explorations, with the exception of
Bosra in the extreme south. It includes many sites to the right and left of his route,
as well as considerable extensions to the east of his held. The long excursion to the
Euphrates, the desert journey from Aleppo to Palmyra, and the journey from Pal-
myra as far as the Hauran, which are shown on the map, were important only nega-
tively as showing that these regions are practically barren of monuments of the kind
found farther west. The territory lying between the two districts which we have
called Northern Central Syria and Southern Syria respectively, which embraces Ccele-
Syria, the region north of Damascus, and the vicinity of Hauran, was not explored,