Studia Palmyreńskie (10.1997)

64

TOMASZ SCHOLL AND AHMED TAHA

parts of stone foundations located at the depth of 55-90 cm below the present surface. They
clearly formed a corner of a building, the plan of which was, however, difficult to make out.
Also a wall fragment uncovered right under the surface in the south-east corner of the
trench may be connected with the recent period.

EARLY ISLAMIC STRUCTURES

The last intensive phase of utilisation of the investigated area is dated by pottery fragments
and some lamps in the Early Islamic period. It may be associated with a few fragments of
stone structures and clay layers (PI. 1.2). In the south-eastern part of the trench, a door was
found, oriented SW-NE as indicated by the preserved threshold resting 1.90 m below the
present surface. Inside the door the top of an earlier foundation makes up a kind of
pavement. Between two walls of an earlier period, wall I and wall II on our plan, there were
almost completely sterile layers formed of alternating clay and ash. The upper layers of clay
floor, located 15 cm below the top of wall I, correspond to such floor in the NE part of the
trench, formerly trial pit C, where it covered a blocked passage in the earlier wall IV. In the
NW corner of the area A only stone débris were found, possibly associated with this phase
of utilisation. A threshold fragment and a doorjamb located in the central part of the trench,
1.60 m to 90 cm below surface, and aligned with the other door further south might also be
connected with the Early Islamic period.

STRUCTURES

OF THE 1ST AND IIND CENTURY A.D.

The most interesting phase of the fragmentary structures uncovered during the excavations
is obviously the earliest one (PI. III.2). The original structure was composed of four parallel
walls, each 1.15 m thick, built at the distance of 1.90 m from each other and oriented SW-
NE, i.e. perpendicular to the neighbouring section A of the Great Colonnade (PI. 1.3). It
should be assumed that the walls were constructed in the 1st or Ilnd century A.D., according
to some datable pottery fragments found in the connected and undisturbed layers, such as a
Late Hellenistic/Early Roman lamp, fragments of Parthian glazed ware, and terra sigillata
sherds. The walls were founded in the bed of a wadi, probably in order to fill it and to make
possible the development of the monumental centre of the city in an area originally separ-
ated by this wadi from the Bel sanctuary and the neighbouring, presumably earliest parts of
the settlement. The limited extent of the excavation prevents us from understanding the
detail of this enterprise, where the natural watercourse had been deflected, and whether the
four parallel walls had served as foundation for some monumental structure. The wadi bed
was in any case filled up to the level of the surrounding plain. The area of the future city
centre became in this way open for extending the quarters around the Bel temple. Some
monuments, in the first place the Great Colonnade between the temple and the Arch, could
be never erected otherwise.

The greatest depth of nearly 6.5 m below the present surface of the Saray courtyard was
reached in the central part of the trench (PI. VI.2). There was, above virgin soil, a 15 cm lay-
er of calcareous gravel which included some flint fragments (PI. IX.8). Foundations of walls
II and III were posed in trenches dug into the virgin soil. At the bottom of the trenches a
layer of small stones, clay and ashes was spread, upon which the stones of the foundation
were laid, mostly reused blocks from some earlier buildings. On the foundations stand