DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.36287#0122
96
TOPOGRAPHY OF NORTHERN CENTRAL SYRIA
Thus a sequence is followed which without doubt includes our region, and the
text furnishes sufficient proof that these hills which we studied aided in supplying
timber for the country beyond the Euphrates.
Professor Sethe has shown that there were also expeditions from Egypt to Syria,
made for the purpose of securing timber, in the third millennium and in the fifteenth
century B.cd
There are apparently no written records to prove the existence of forests in this
country during the succeeding centuries, but sufficiently positive evidence exists in
the ruins themselves, which date for the most part from the first six centuries of the
Christian era.^ This is especially true of the region around Djebel Shekh Berekat
and toward the southwest nearly to Apamea, but the ruins scattered here and there
eastward and southeastward from this region also bear indisputable evidence of the
existence not far away of forests to which the people had easy access. The holes
cut in the stones at the top of the walls, or at the several door-levels in buildings
of two or more stories, show that wooden beams were placed there to support the
floors and the roofs. With wooden beams, of necessity, go floors of wood and prob-
ably roofs of a rough thatch.
There are several thousand ruined buildings now to be seen in the small area
specially referred to here, and there must have been a great number more that have
been totally destroyed or buried. It may be thought that the builders of these houses
secured their timber from a distance, but while that is of course possible, yet in view of
the knowledge of the early existence of forests gained from the records already referred
to, and in view of the general similarity of the different parts of the country, and also
in view of the many casual references to the trees in later writings, such as that of
MukaddasI given in Le Strange (Palestine under the Moslems, p. 15), it is hardly
reasonable to assume that in the early Christian centuries a large supply of timber
could be obtained in the country we now call Asia Minor, or in the Lebanons toward
the south, or even further away, while none could be had in Djebel il-A'la and the
mountains near by.
Another reason for assuming that forests existed there before the sixth century A.D.
is that a great change has taken place in the quantity of water obtainable by the
people. The supply to be had to-day would not be sufficient to support the larger
population that lived and prospered there centuries ago. The rainfall has evidently
diminished considerably and springs and wells and streams have dried up. There
were numerous cisterns and sometimes larger reservoirs in every village or city for
i Zur altesten Geschichte des agyptischen Seeverkehrs
mit Byblos und dem Libanongebiet, published in Agyp-
tische Zeitschrift, 1908, pp. 7 sqq.; also, Eine agyp-
tische Expedition nach dem Libanon im ig. Jahrhundert
v. Chr., published in Sitzungsberichte der Berliner Aka-
demie, igo6.
3 Mr. Butler discusses this subject from the archaeological
view-point in Part II, pp. 7-12.
TOPOGRAPHY OF NORTHERN CENTRAL SYRIA
Thus a sequence is followed which without doubt includes our region, and the
text furnishes sufficient proof that these hills which we studied aided in supplying
timber for the country beyond the Euphrates.
Professor Sethe has shown that there were also expeditions from Egypt to Syria,
made for the purpose of securing timber, in the third millennium and in the fifteenth
century B.cd
There are apparently no written records to prove the existence of forests in this
country during the succeeding centuries, but sufficiently positive evidence exists in
the ruins themselves, which date for the most part from the first six centuries of the
Christian era.^ This is especially true of the region around Djebel Shekh Berekat
and toward the southwest nearly to Apamea, but the ruins scattered here and there
eastward and southeastward from this region also bear indisputable evidence of the
existence not far away of forests to which the people had easy access. The holes
cut in the stones at the top of the walls, or at the several door-levels in buildings
of two or more stories, show that wooden beams were placed there to support the
floors and the roofs. With wooden beams, of necessity, go floors of wood and prob-
ably roofs of a rough thatch.
There are several thousand ruined buildings now to be seen in the small area
specially referred to here, and there must have been a great number more that have
been totally destroyed or buried. It may be thought that the builders of these houses
secured their timber from a distance, but while that is of course possible, yet in view of
the knowledge of the early existence of forests gained from the records already referred
to, and in view of the general similarity of the different parts of the country, and also
in view of the many casual references to the trees in later writings, such as that of
MukaddasI given in Le Strange (Palestine under the Moslems, p. 15), it is hardly
reasonable to assume that in the early Christian centuries a large supply of timber
could be obtained in the country we now call Asia Minor, or in the Lebanons toward
the south, or even further away, while none could be had in Djebel il-A'la and the
mountains near by.
Another reason for assuming that forests existed there before the sixth century A.D.
is that a great change has taken place in the quantity of water obtainable by the
people. The supply to be had to-day would not be sufficient to support the larger
population that lived and prospered there centuries ago. The rainfall has evidently
diminished considerably and springs and wells and streams have dried up. There
were numerous cisterns and sometimes larger reservoirs in every village or city for
i Zur altesten Geschichte des agyptischen Seeverkehrs
mit Byblos und dem Libanongebiet, published in Agyp-
tische Zeitschrift, 1908, pp. 7 sqq.; also, Eine agyp-
tische Expedition nach dem Libanon im ig. Jahrhundert
v. Chr., published in Sitzungsberichte der Berliner Aka-
demie, igo6.
3 Mr. Butler discusses this subject from the archaeological
view-point in Part II, pp. 7-12.