Division II Section B Part 6

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chapel within the inn, with nave, choir or bema, and sanctuary, and gives rise to the
question as to whether this was not a monastery. A similar arrangement however is
to be seen in a pandocheion of somewhat different general plan at Southern Dana. 1
At the extreme northwest angle of the portico of this building is a small enclosure
which served as a latrina, and just south of it, still in the portico, is a larger inclosure
the purpose of which is not clear. But the most interesting feature of the edifice is a
double row of monolithic piers, near the northeast corner, which carry heavy architraves
and slabs of stone forming a narrow viaduct, precisely like a bridge, connecting with
a broad rock-hewn terrace cut in the hill-side on a level with the upper loggia or
gallery of the inn. This feature is indicated on the plan (Ill. 297) and is well illustrated
in Plate 108 of M. de Vogue’s book. The rock-hewn terrace, beautifully smooth and
even in surface, looks like a particularly fine threshing floor or even a dancing place;
but at its northeast angle stands a tomb chapel (Ill. 297) which is almost half rock-
hewn, and in the perpendicular face of rock which bounds the terrace toward the east
are two rock-hewn arcosolia with highly ornamented piers and archivolts. The upper
storey of the tomb chapel was reached from the outside by steps cut in the natural
rock, it seems to have comprised a single large room. One of the arcosolia in the
lower storey protrudes from the line of the south wall and, together with a large part
of the wall itself on that side, was “spared” in the living rock.
“Basilica” : There is a group of buildings on the principal east-and-west street of
the town just above the point where it turns to enter the Via Sacra. Most of them
are inns of the poorer class; but one of them (No. Ill on the map) I have chosen for
special comment. I have called it a Basilica, or law-court, simply because it is a
public building of some dignity and is not oriented. The ground-plan (Ill. 298) presents
a large rectangle, 15 m. by 8 m., spanned by a broad and high transverse arch, and
having a fine porch, tetrastyle in antis, at one end. There are large portals at both
ends and one in one side of the building. The walls and the high arch of the interior
are standing, the front portico has fallen down, but its great columns lie in the ruins,
and it is possible to discover that the gable end of the building was set over the main
wall, and not above the porch which carried a leanto-roof, in which feature the building
differs from structures of the Classical period. Portals at opposite ends of a public
building with an undivided interior are rare, and suggest only the curious building
erected under the Emperor Philip at Dmer in the Hauran. 2 The details of this building
however indicate a date not earlier than the fifth century after Christ.
Pandocheion; Date: 479 A. D. The inn of M. de Vogue’s inscription3 stands
next to the “Basilica” on the west. The illustration of it given in La Syrie Centrale*
is confused and misleading; but the building, or group of buildings, is much more
ruinous now than it was when the early sketch was drawn. The plan given in Ill. 298
requires no elucidation. The group is very irregular, and is formed about a court of
irregular shape. The inscription which tells us that Symeones built the inn in the
month of July 479 was written over the doorway of the principal entrance within a
portico of piers. The large room of the inn has doorways on three sides; there is a
stable in the court yard at the rear, and another building, possibly a dependence which

1 cf. II. B. 3. p. 139.
3 III, B. 6. insc. 1154.

2 cf. A. A. E. S. II, p. 400.
4 S. C. Pl. 114.