DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.45601#0023
118
church, and particularly within it, raises an important question regarding the burial of
the dead within the sacred edifice. It is quite plain that the bodies deposited in these
tombs were other than the sacred relics of saints and martyrs. It might be that the
bones which reposed in the arcosolium adjoining the church and visible from the nave,
were of more than usual sanctity; but we cannot believe that the tombs in the oblong
chambers, and the sarcophagi in the chapel beyond, were other than those of
ecclesiastical dignitaries, or of citizens of the town whose pious gifts made them worthy
of burial within the sacred enclosure. The church of Serdjilla I believe to have been
one of the oldest in the region. Its interior columns are substantially like those of a
church of Fafirtin which is dated 372 A.D.; but the other details, like the arcuated
lintels and some of the mouldings, suggest a date somewhat earlier, say the middle of
III. 133. Serdjilla5 Church Buildings, Southeast Angle of Cloister Court.
the fourth century. The buildings about the court appear to be a little later. The
lintel ornaments and other carvings would place them about the end of the same century.
Bath. 473 A.D. The public bath at Serdjilla, the most perfect building of its
kind in Syria, had already been made famous by M. de Vogue, in the work 1 so often
mentioned in these pages, when the American Expedition visited the monument and
discovered the mosaic pavement,3 with its inscription3 which gave the definite date,
473 A.D. to the building, and told of Julianos and his wife Domna, whose munificence
presented the bath to the town. M. de Vogue’s plan was reproduced in the publications
1 S.C. Pls. 55—57-
2 A.A.E.S. II, pp. 288—293.
3 Ibid. Ill, insc. 220.
church, and particularly within it, raises an important question regarding the burial of
the dead within the sacred edifice. It is quite plain that the bodies deposited in these
tombs were other than the sacred relics of saints and martyrs. It might be that the
bones which reposed in the arcosolium adjoining the church and visible from the nave,
were of more than usual sanctity; but we cannot believe that the tombs in the oblong
chambers, and the sarcophagi in the chapel beyond, were other than those of
ecclesiastical dignitaries, or of citizens of the town whose pious gifts made them worthy
of burial within the sacred enclosure. The church of Serdjilla I believe to have been
one of the oldest in the region. Its interior columns are substantially like those of a
church of Fafirtin which is dated 372 A.D.; but the other details, like the arcuated
lintels and some of the mouldings, suggest a date somewhat earlier, say the middle of
III. 133. Serdjilla5 Church Buildings, Southeast Angle of Cloister Court.
the fourth century. The buildings about the court appear to be a little later. The
lintel ornaments and other carvings would place them about the end of the same century.
Bath. 473 A.D. The public bath at Serdjilla, the most perfect building of its
kind in Syria, had already been made famous by M. de Vogue, in the work 1 so often
mentioned in these pages, when the American Expedition visited the monument and
discovered the mosaic pavement,3 with its inscription3 which gave the definite date,
473 A.D. to the building, and told of Julianos and his wife Domna, whose munificence
presented the bath to the town. M. de Vogue’s plan was reproduced in the publications
1 S.C. Pls. 55—57-
2 A.A.E.S. II, pp. 288—293.
3 Ibid. Ill, insc. 220.