Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean (12.2000(2001))

KHIRBET AL BERGE

SYRIA

THE SITE

The site in the valley (Fig. 1) seems to be
a large (c. 4.5-5 ha) and previously
unknown Roman military camp (?),
surrounded by a regular wall made of
dressed stone blocks. To the west and
southwest the wall encompasses two empty
areas of a refugial nature. In the central part
of the camp one can see the foundations of
three monumental stone buildings
developing on an E-W axis along regular
cobbled streets. These rectangular
structures are c. 55 m long and c. 30 m
wide. Inside each there are traces of big
rooms with surviving doorways preserved to
c. 130 cm of their height, as well as smaller
separate buildings in the vicinity. The site
yielded considerable quantities of terracotta

tiles and sherds of apparently 2nd century
AD date, along with ceramic evidence and
several marks on the stone jambs of
structures, suggesting intensive reuse and
partial rebuilding in Byzantine times.
Robbers' pits, evidently newly cut,
were observed in a number of places inside
the buildings, damaging severely ancient
occupational layers. (Some of these pits had
been covered with stones after our first
visit to the site, suggesting that the
robbers are continuously active in the
area.) The nearby cemetery, obviously
connected with the site, also had incurred
heavy damage, including apparent removal
by bulldozer of layers of soil covering the
tomb entrances.


Fig. 1. Kbirbet al Berge. Ruins in the valley viewed from the west
(Photo R.F. Mazurowski)

344