96

II. A. 2. — Southern Hauran

edifice was of medium size (Ill. 78); the ecclesiastical residences beside it were built
about an open court, or cloister, in the middle of which was a large cistern, arched
over, and roofed with stone slabs. The group possibly constituted a small monastery,
but the residential buildings are hardly large enough to have housed more than a small
number of monastics, and it seems more probable that they were built to accommodate
the regular priests of a parish church. The church is one of the most interesting of
all those that we found in the Southern Hauran, a true basilica of three aisles sepa-
rated by two rows of five columns each, and having an upper story, or gallery, over
the side aisles. The chancel arch is still in situ (Ill. 79) though closed up with a me-
diaeval wall built, probably, when the nave was converted into a mosque, during the
middle ages. The north wall and parts of the west wall with the main portal, are
well preserved; the south wall is in complete ruins. Two columns of the north aisle are
standing at opposite ends of the nave, with architraves above them. These columns
are of simple late Doric style. The architraves were laid two by two. At the ends
of the colonnade the architraves rested upon corbels (Ill. 79) in the east and west walls
of the nave. The north wall preserves a corbel course on the level of the architraves,
and the broken slabs which lie in the aisle show that a stone floor was carried be-
tween the colonnade and the wall. The columns of the gallery, of the Ionic order
and lighter than the columns of the main colonnade, are lying in the middle of the
nave. Corbels in the east wall, on either side of the chancel arch, show the height
of the upper colonnade, and the north wall bears remnants of a second corbel course
with a weighting wall, or parapet, above it. No evidence is wanting to show that the
church had a gallery; and, so far as we may know, it was the only church of longi-
tudinal system in all the Hauran that had one. The wall, with a window in it, above
the chancel-arch, shows that the middle aisle was provided with a double pitched, or
gabled, roof in wood. The tower which stands above the prothesis was altered by
being provided with stairs in later, Moslem, times. In the process ot this change the
prothesis was filled up. The stairs are reached through the door between the chamber
and the apse. This tower, later a minaret, is still almost perfectly preserved; but for
its roof, which I have restored in the drawing, and may be ascended with ease. At
the top one finds that there was a wide opening in each face of the tower, and two
of the slender colonettes that divided these openings are lying near their original po-.
sition. The colonnettes are of early Christian pattern, and I have no doubt were de-
signed by the original builders to occupy the place which they recently filled ·, but the
stairs are apparently of later date and are crudely fitted together. In other words, I
believe that the tower originally had no stairs of stone, but that its exterior form was
as we see it today. The apse was deep-set, and is now much ruined, like the dia-
conicum on its south side, which had two stories. At the west end of the north aisle
was a square tower that contained stairs leading to the gallery. It is difficult now to
find out where the stairs for the south gallery were placed; but it is apparent that
there was no tower on the south side of the entrance, corresponding to that on the
north side, and there is no evidence to show that the gallery was carried across the
west end of the nave; yet it may have been so, though all traces of it have dis-
appeared. The details of the church are simple. The lower order is composed of a
late variety of Doric columns (Ill. 78, Orders) with a well proportioned, but perfectly
straight, echinus, and a base like an inverted capital with a heavier echinus, and a