56

II. A. I. Ammonitis.

have been; for much of its original structure has been destroyed, and the standing
portions are filled with modern dwellings and stables. Judging by early drawings and
photographs, the edifice was in a far better state of preservation a quarter of a century
ago than now, and the inhabitants are still hewing the ruins to pieces for building stone.
The ruin today consists of a gigantic wall which rises to a height of over 20 m. from
the stream. The wall is in two sections, a longer and a shorter one, which meet at
an obtuse angle; the longer section has a broad apsidal recess, 8.40 m. wide, in the
middle, and the shorter section has a narrower apse set back 3.20 m. from the front
of the wall. The rear of the wall presents an irregular but unbroken face of rusticated,
draughted masonry from top to bottom (Ill. 36). The front, which shows only about
1 2 m. of height, is of smooth quadrated masonry, and its surface is broken by buttresses
which project from the angles and the sides of the recesses, and by two rows of large
round arched niches (Ill. 37) which occupy the spaces between the recesses. In front
of the wall stand two column shafts, about 10 m. high, — the remains of a great
colonnade which stood upon a platform in front of the wall. To the west of the greater
apse is a deep trench passing under the ruin by a broad arch (Ill. 36). This trench is
the bed of the stream which, in its season, flows down the northern valley; its sides
are held in place by crude walls composed of ancient fragments. The face of the arch
is over 8 m. in front of the great wall and nearly upon the line of the colonnade which
stood in front of it. Above the arch is a set-off about a meter wide, and from this
a wall rises about 3 m. high to the level of the platform of the colonnade. This wall
shows a niche directly above the arch, and one to the left on the same level. To the
rig-ht of the arch an ancient wall extends at an obtuse angle toward the northwest.
This wall was the face of a continuation of the platform, and upon it stand the base
and lower section of the shaft of a column (Ill. 38, top.). To the left of the arch are
two parallel walls of crude masonry with a filling of debris between them; one wall
rises to the height of the set-off, the other to the level of the platform. These crude
constructions are the retaining walls of a mass of debris that fills the space in front of
the great wall with its apses. The line of the platform may be traced by the position
of the two standing columns on the left, and the fragmentary column on the right.
A fragment of wall, with niches in it, forms another obtuse angle at the extreme left of
the great wall, and shows that the building was extended toward the north at that end.
Plan. With this much data one would naturally conjecture that the great apse
was set upon the axis of the original structure, and, judging by the angle of the
platform wall on the right of the lower arch, and the corresponding angle and found-
ations at the west end of the great wall, would reconstruct a third section of the great
wall with an apse in it, balancing the section on the east side of the main apse. But
Captain Conder renders conjecture unnecessary on this point; for the building was
sufficiently well preserved at the time of his visit for him to be able to present a
plan 1 which is substantially like the one given in Ill. 38. Captain Conder represents
the short parallel walls, which project from the ends of the two lateral sections of the
great wall, as terminating in half columns. These are not shown in his photograph2
and I did not find any remnant of them. Such an arrangement would make a colonnade
of five columns in front of the lateral apses, which seems impossible, and I am convinced

1 Survey of Eastern Palestine. p. 40.

2 Survey of Eastern Palestine, frontispiece.