DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.36287#0112
CHAPTER 1/
RUINS IN NORTHERN CENTRAL SYRIA, ROADS AND BRIDGES,
BUILDING MATERIALS, MODERN HOUSES, THE LACK OF
FORESTS, SOIL, AGRICULTURE, GRAZING, INHABITANTS
RUINS IN NORTHERN CENTRAL SYRIA
UT^HE Expedition studied carefuily a great number of ruined towns, villages, and
^ isolated structures. In the three districts covered by the local maps in this
volume, which lie to the east of the Orontes valley, we visited 142 single structures or
groups of ruined buildings, only two of which are of comparatively modern origin.
In thirty-four instances, however, portions or the whole of the ancient sites are in-
habited to-day. Twenty-two more ruined sites were seen not far from our path,
but we were unable to visit them because all our time was used up by the work done
in the other places.
These districts include only a small part of Syria, though it is a portion that was
formerly quite thickly settled—more so than it is now. In all there are to-day about
160 places in which people are living, for we saw 126 modern villages, where we
found no traces of ancient buildings, in addition to the 34 ruined places reconstructed
crudely and in part by the present inhabitants, or by their fathers during recent cen-
turies.
In early Christian times there were doubtless many towns in existence of which
there are no traces now. It is a noteworthy fact that of the 164 ruined places indi-
cated on the local maps, about 133 are high up in the hills, or in the foothills near
them, while still others are on slight elevations which often resemble islands in a sea of
soft earth. Much of this soil has been washed by the rain down the hills into the
lower country, and has presumably buried a number of towns the walls of which had
been already broken and reduced in great measure to heaps of loose stones. There
were probably also many villages in the lower country built of sun-dried bricks, which
have crumbled away, leaving no traces of any sort.
The names and geographical positions of about 100 of the ruined places marked on
the maps are here published for the first timed Some of them are mentioned by the
Arab geographers, but the exact or even approximate positions of these few have not
been known hitherto.
* The places referred to are indicated in the Gazetteer in this volume.
86
RUINS IN NORTHERN CENTRAL SYRIA, ROADS AND BRIDGES,
BUILDING MATERIALS, MODERN HOUSES, THE LACK OF
FORESTS, SOIL, AGRICULTURE, GRAZING, INHABITANTS
RUINS IN NORTHERN CENTRAL SYRIA
UT^HE Expedition studied carefuily a great number of ruined towns, villages, and
^ isolated structures. In the three districts covered by the local maps in this
volume, which lie to the east of the Orontes valley, we visited 142 single structures or
groups of ruined buildings, only two of which are of comparatively modern origin.
In thirty-four instances, however, portions or the whole of the ancient sites are in-
habited to-day. Twenty-two more ruined sites were seen not far from our path,
but we were unable to visit them because all our time was used up by the work done
in the other places.
These districts include only a small part of Syria, though it is a portion that was
formerly quite thickly settled—more so than it is now. In all there are to-day about
160 places in which people are living, for we saw 126 modern villages, where we
found no traces of ancient buildings, in addition to the 34 ruined places reconstructed
crudely and in part by the present inhabitants, or by their fathers during recent cen-
turies.
In early Christian times there were doubtless many towns in existence of which
there are no traces now. It is a noteworthy fact that of the 164 ruined places indi-
cated on the local maps, about 133 are high up in the hills, or in the foothills near
them, while still others are on slight elevations which often resemble islands in a sea of
soft earth. Much of this soil has been washed by the rain down the hills into the
lower country, and has presumably buried a number of towns the walls of which had
been already broken and reduced in great measure to heaps of loose stones. There
were probably also many villages in the lower country built of sun-dried bricks, which
have crumbled away, leaving no traces of any sort.
The names and geographical positions of about 100 of the ruined places marked on
the maps are here published for the first timed Some of them are mentioned by the
Arab geographers, but the exact or even approximate positions of these few have not
been known hitherto.
* The places referred to are indicated in the Gazetteer in this volume.
86