237 Items
The Church of the Nutrition, Nazareth
A short distance from the church of the Annunciation in Nazareth is the church of the Nutrition. It was given this name as its original Late Antique church was constructed over the home and workshop of Joseph and was the place where Christ spent much of his childhood. This church incorporated grottos, cisterns and a ritual bath or baptismal font. It was used in the Crusader period, prior to its destruction by fire in the thirteenth century. The Franciscans rebuilt the current church in the twentieth century.
Type: Architecture
Tags: Architecture, Bath, C20th, Caves, Christ, Christian, Church, Cistern, Crusades, Holy Site, Israel, Late Antique, Nazareth, Pilgrimage, St. Joseph
The Church of the Annunciation, Nazareth
In the mid-fourth century, a church was constructed around a grotto in the town of Nazareth that was said to be the Virgin Mary’s house and the place where the archangel Gabriel appeared to her during the Annunciation. This holy site was clearly well established as a place of worship towards the end of the fourth century as the pilgrim Egeria describes an altar within a grand and splendid grotto. The Piacenza pilgrim who journeyed to Nazareth in the late sixth century states that there is a basilica at the House of Mary that contains many garments that once belonged to the Virgin. Today, remnants of wall paintings, mosaics, and the architecture from this early church building are visible.
Type: Architecture
Tags: Annunciation, Architecture, C20th, C4th, C5th-C6th, Cave, Christ, Christian, Cross, Foliage, Fresco, Geometric Motif, Greek Inscription, Holy Site, Inscription, Israel, Mosaic, Nazareth, Pilgrimage, St. Gabriel, Staurogram, Virgin Mary
Semandağ
The monastery of St. Simeon Stylites the younger was said to stand on the "miraculous mountain", possibly because it was near Mt. Cassius which was a pagan holy mountain. Even today there is an Alawite shrine further down the mountain from the ruins of the monastery. Simeon the younger was a sixth century imitator of his fifth century namesake, Simeon the elder, and a complex of buildings appears to have sprung up around his pillar even during his lifetime. In his vita there is mention of Georgian followers settling at the site and later on they appear to have run their own monastery-within-a-monastery at the site. The modern name for the ruins translates as "Simeon's mountain."
Type: Architecture
Tags: Architecture, C6th, Church, Monastery, Pillar, Semandaǧ, Simeon Stylites the Younger, Stylite, Turkey
Zar Zita
Zar Zita is a small village to the south west of Qalat Seman. It has scattered Roman and late antique buildings including an imposing first or second century mausoleum in the centre of the settlement.
Type: Architecture
Tags: Architecture, Jebel Seman, Late Antique, Limestone Massif, Mausoleum, Qalat Seman, Roman, Syria, Zar Zita
The Church of Mar Elian, Homs
The Church of Mar Elian is believed to date back to the early fifth century and to have been founded on the site of the saint's martyrdom in 284. Elian was a local physician who was murdered by his father, a Roman officer, for his Christian faith. He is widely venerated in Syria for miracles of healing. The church was built around a late antique marble sarcophagus decorated with crosses and located in a small side apse south of the main sanctuary of the church. In the 1970s fragments of frescoes and mosaics were discovered during a renovation programme in the chamber around the tomb, and some elements of the decoration possibly date back as far as the sixth century, though most of the frescoes are twelfth century. Today the church interior boasts frescoes of the life of Mar Elian and various biblical scenes painted by two Romanian artists.
Type: Architecture
Tags: Architecture, C12th, C5th, C6th, Church, Fresco, Homs, Late Antique, Mar Elian, Mosaic, Sarcophagus, Syria, Tomb
The Church of Paulinus, Tyre
In his History of the Church, Eusebius of Caesarea devoted the tenth book to Bishop Paulinus of Tyre. In it Eusebius repeated the oration that he delivered on the occasion of the dedication of Paulinus' new church in Tyre. In the mid 1990s an Israeli bomb destroyed an apartment block in the centre of the city. When the rubble was cleared away evidence for an early church was discovered. Its unusual floorplan with the altar placed on a central platform in the nave suggested that the structure was constructed before church planning crystallised in the post-Constantinian era and led to speculation that this newly revealed site was in fact the church of Paulinus.
Type: Architecture
Tags: Architecture, Caesarea, Cathedral, Church, Eusebius, Lebanon, Paulinus, Sur, Tyre
Madrasa Halawiyeh
The madrasa is an Islamic school that was built by Nur al-Din (1118-1174) on the apse of the former Byzantine cathedral of Aleppo. The capitals are very close stylistically to those at Qalat Seman, suggesting that the church was originally built in the second half of the fifth century. Beside the steps down into the madrasa is a large basalt block inscribed with Christian symbols and some Syriac words. Its placement seems designed to underline Islamic supremacy over the former Christian owners of the site.
Type: Architecture
Tags: Aleppo, Architecture, Basalt, Byzantine, C12th, C5th, Capital, Cathedral, Church, Inscription, Madrasa, Madrasa Halawiyeh, Nur al-DIn, Qalat Seman, Sculpture, Syria, Syriac, Syriac Inscription
The Temple of Mercury (also known as the Temple of Bacchus), Baalbek
The temple believed to have been dedicated to Mercury also possesses imagery linked to Bacchus, in addition to the presence of symbols such as the caduceus belonging Mercury. This has led to the temple being referred to in conjunction with both deities.
Type: Architecture
Tags: Architecture, Baalbek, Bacchus, Lebanon, Mercury, Pagan, Roman, Sculpture, Temple
The Temple of Jupiter, Baalbek
These photographs show changes that were made to the temple in order to fortify it in the medieval Islamic era.
Type: Architecture
Tags: Architecture, Baalbek, Islam, Jupiter, Lebanon, Middle Ages, Sculpture, Temple
The Temple of Jupiter, Baalbek
The largest of the three temples at the site, the temple of Jupiter is perhaps most famous for the presence of the trilithon, three stones in the podium of the temple that are amongst the largest ever utilised by man.
Type: Architecture
Tags: Architecture, Baalbek, Capital, Column, Jupiter, Lebanon, Pagan, Roman, Temple, Trilithon