DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.45581#0049
is-Summakiyat
99
colonnades with accuracy from the columns and architraves which lie within the court
and at the bottom of the cistern. This entire group of buildings is exceptionally interest-
ing, illustrating, as it does, the complete domestic establishment of an ecclesiastical
community in the Southern Syria in the fifth century. It is typical, moreover, of the do-
mestic architecture of the people of the well-to-do classes of this region. It is perhaps
hardly possible, hardly even worth while, to attempt to discover the uses to which
these various room were put; but we have here, in miniature, a complete suite of
apartments such as is found about the cloister courts of mediaeval abbeys in Northern
Europe. The long room, with its high arch, in the north east angle of the court may
be called the refectory, the double arched room adjoining might have been the kitchen,
the high square room next the church tower may have served as a chapter house ·,
another room corresponds to the Abbot’s parlour; while the upper rooms would have
provided sleeping quarters. So far as these domestic accommodations go, it would
have made little difference whether these quarters were to house a company of celibate
monks, or the families of a number of the ordinary priests; they provide residences of
comfort and convenience and not a little luxury.
Domestic Architecture. The residential quarters of the church buildings described
above are quite sufficient to illustrate the domestic architecture of this deserted town.
The better class of private houses here resemble closely, in general arrangement, the
plan of the buildings about the cloister of the church. Some of them were built about
a courtyard, and were almost as large as the buildings belonging to the church, others
were similarly planned but smaller, while others still were built upon only one or two
sides of a court, the other sides of which were plain walls. Colonnades in one or two
stories must have been quite common; for the number of column shafts in the ruined
houses is very great. The house built about a court, or atrium, with colonnades about
it, the use of the compluvium and the arched vestibule, are distinctly Roman, or Greco-
Roman, conceptions; the galleried basilica is also Roman in plan, and it is not without
interest that these architectural ideas should have penetrated so far into a country
where comparatively few Roman or Greek fashions were in evidence except at an earlier
period, and then only in buildings in which the government had an interest.
13. is-summakiyAt.
A little southeast of the ruined town described above is this small inhabited ruin,
occupied partly by Christians and partly by Mohammedans. The town is divided, by
a small wadi, into an eastern and a western section. The ancient buildings are of little
importance; those in the eastern section consist of houses in rough quadrated stone-
work, most of them have been destroyed or rebuilt in the poorest manner for recent
habitation. West of the wadi there stands a large complex of ancient buildings, like
a villa, or farm house, on a large scale. This stands beside the wadi. It is now in-
habited by the Mohammedan shekh of the village and his numerous family and animals.
The small chapel south of this group was measured and published by Dr. Schumacher 1
who mistook a Mohammedan, or other late, wall under the chancel-arch for an original
construction. The piers of the arch, on either side, have finished faces, and the wall
1 Z.D.P.-V. XX, p. 150.
99
colonnades with accuracy from the columns and architraves which lie within the court
and at the bottom of the cistern. This entire group of buildings is exceptionally interest-
ing, illustrating, as it does, the complete domestic establishment of an ecclesiastical
community in the Southern Syria in the fifth century. It is typical, moreover, of the do-
mestic architecture of the people of the well-to-do classes of this region. It is perhaps
hardly possible, hardly even worth while, to attempt to discover the uses to which
these various room were put; but we have here, in miniature, a complete suite of
apartments such as is found about the cloister courts of mediaeval abbeys in Northern
Europe. The long room, with its high arch, in the north east angle of the court may
be called the refectory, the double arched room adjoining might have been the kitchen,
the high square room next the church tower may have served as a chapter house ·,
another room corresponds to the Abbot’s parlour; while the upper rooms would have
provided sleeping quarters. So far as these domestic accommodations go, it would
have made little difference whether these quarters were to house a company of celibate
monks, or the families of a number of the ordinary priests; they provide residences of
comfort and convenience and not a little luxury.
Domestic Architecture. The residential quarters of the church buildings described
above are quite sufficient to illustrate the domestic architecture of this deserted town.
The better class of private houses here resemble closely, in general arrangement, the
plan of the buildings about the cloister of the church. Some of them were built about
a courtyard, and were almost as large as the buildings belonging to the church, others
were similarly planned but smaller, while others still were built upon only one or two
sides of a court, the other sides of which were plain walls. Colonnades in one or two
stories must have been quite common; for the number of column shafts in the ruined
houses is very great. The house built about a court, or atrium, with colonnades about
it, the use of the compluvium and the arched vestibule, are distinctly Roman, or Greco-
Roman, conceptions; the galleried basilica is also Roman in plan, and it is not without
interest that these architectural ideas should have penetrated so far into a country
where comparatively few Roman or Greek fashions were in evidence except at an earlier
period, and then only in buildings in which the government had an interest.
13. is-summakiyAt.
A little southeast of the ruined town described above is this small inhabited ruin,
occupied partly by Christians and partly by Mohammedans. The town is divided, by
a small wadi, into an eastern and a western section. The ancient buildings are of little
importance; those in the eastern section consist of houses in rough quadrated stone-
work, most of them have been destroyed or rebuilt in the poorest manner for recent
habitation. West of the wadi there stands a large complex of ancient buildings, like
a villa, or farm house, on a large scale. This stands beside the wadi. It is now in-
habited by the Mohammedan shekh of the village and his numerous family and animals.
The small chapel south of this group was measured and published by Dr. Schumacher 1
who mistook a Mohammedan, or other late, wall under the chancel-arch for an original
construction. The piers of the arch, on either side, have finished faces, and the wall
1 Z.D.P.-V. XX, p. 150.