The Djebel Simcan — Der Simcan

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divided up among the different communities, would allow less than three square miles
to each. The Djebel SinTan was thus densely populated in comparison with almost
any country district in Europe or America to-day which one might name in which
there might be found corresponding evidences of wealth, and of good taste in external
matters such as public aud private buildings. It is plain, from the remains of presses
still extant, that oil and wine making were extensive industries, perhaps sufficient to
have supported the ancient population in the comparative luxury which their houses
indicate, in view of the not distant markets of the great city of Antioch. But here,
as I have said in the case of the hill-towns farther west and southwest \ cattle raising
and wheat growing, in quantities great enough to be more than self supporting would
have been impossible owing to the thickly settled state of the country. Trade between
the inhabitants of these towns and their nearer and more distant neighbours was
probably carried on along the routes which extended to the east, the southeast, the
south, and the west, and probably also toward the north; but the evidence would seem
to show that contact and communication with the east were the closest of all, especially
in the later centuries. The monuments of architecture here all manifest decided Oriental
influences, rather than influence from Hellenistic Antioch, or the mixed Greek and
Roman influences of Byzantium. The increasing use of Syriac in the inscriptions as
we move eastward through Northern Syria may be taken as another indication of a
close relationship between this locality and the Edessine centres of Syriac civilization
across the Euphrates. But these influences should be considered as superficial in the
main; for the Christan architecture of Northern Central Syria may be regarded as
indigenous, and as astonishingly free from foreign elements.
In taking up consecutively the discussion and description of the monuments of
architecture in the ruined towns of the Djebel Sim'an, we shall take up the sites one
by one, beginning at D&r Sim'an on the extreme western limits of the district, and
proceeding eastward, then to the southeast and south, ending in the southwestern corner
of the country, as deliminated above, at the edge of the Djebel Halakah.
80. DER SIM'AN (TELANISSUS). (TELNESHE).
The large ruined and deserted town of this name which lies at the western foot
of the hill upon which stands the magnificent church and extensive monastery of Saint
Simeon Stylites, was, in the days of its early history, an exception among the small
cities of Northern Syria (See plan of Der Simcan). It owed its importance, and even
perhaps its coming into being, to the pilgrimages to the place chosen by Simeon the
anchoret as the scene of his strange “Act of Faith”. The pilgrimages were instituted
early in Simeon’s lifetime as a pillar hermit, about 425 after Christ, and were continued
with increasing volume during his life, and long afterwards, even to the very end of
the period of Christian ascendancy in Syria, early in the seventh century. The town
was entirely a religious centre, an Early Christian Epidauros, in which hundreds, perhaps
thousands, of pilgrims were housed and fed during the days of their visit to the most
renowned shrine in Syria. Two or three religious bodies established important mon-
asteries in the town, and erected, in connexion with their religious building, large inns

' n, b. 3, P. 109.