754 Items
The ancient monastic cemetery of Deir Mar Musa 
The ancient monastic cemetery of Deir Mar Musa is located in the wadi west of the monastery. It was mentioned by Sir Richard Burton in the C19th and had been comprehensively looted by the latter part of the C20th.
Type: Landscape
Tags: An Nabk, Cave, Deir Mar Musa, Grave, Landscape, Mar Musa al-Habashi, Monastery, Syria, Tomb
Views of the walk to Deir Mar Musa from the west 
This was the only route into Deir Mar Musa for visitors until the early C21st and involved taking a rough track into the mountains from An Nabk for around 18 kilometres before hiking for another 2 kilometres along a watercourse to reach the monastery.
Type: Landscape
Tags: An Nabk, Deir Mar Musa, Landscape, Mar Musa al-Habashi, Syria
Dayr Mar Elian Museum
This small exhibition space was established in the restored room north of the tower at Mar Elian and held the fragments of Byzantine reliquaries found during the excavations, along with ceramic and glass objects. This included a number of C19th amphorae that had been uncovered west of the 1938 church and which environmental analysis revealed had held wine or grape molasses.
Type: Museum Exhibit
Tags: Archaeological Finds, Archaeology, Dayr Mar Elian, Dayr Mar Elian Archaeological Project, Mar Elian, Mar Elian esh-Sharqi, Museum, Qaryatayn, Syria, Syrian Civil War
Defile north of Maaloula that was used for early Christian burials
The narrow rock defile north of Maaloula is called by the local inhabitants the siq and (not entirely seriously) compared with the defile at Petra in Jordan. This part of the town and the high ground above and around the town was used for Roman and Late Antique burials.
Type: Landscape
Tags: Grave, Landscape, Maaloula, Qalamoun, Siq, Syria, Tomb
View of Maaloula from the shrine of St. Thecla
This is a view of the distinctive houses of Maaloula that are built on top of each other terraced into the steep-sided valley in which the town is located.
Type: Landscape
Tags: Architecture, Landscape, Maaloula, Qalamoun, Syria
Maaloula Church of St. Thecla
The Church of St. Thecla today is a modern convent and orphanage for young girls run by Rum Orthodox nuns, as with the convent at Saydnaya. The shrine is believed by local people to be the place that the rocks opened to receive St. Thecla as she fled an attempted rape. The story is known from the early Christian text called The Acts of Paul and Thecla and most people locate these events in Asia Minor, but there is a long-standing Syrian tradition of placing these events in Maaloula.
Type: Architecture
Tags: Architecture, Chapel, Maaloula, Qalamoun, Shrine, St. Thecla, Syria
Dayr Mar Elian post-excavation 2005
These pictures were taken in 2005 after the British Archaeological excavations had ended and before a Syrian team undertook to excavate the entirety of the cloister. In the year since the excavations had ended a new mud brick chapel had been constructed over the sarcophagus of the saint and at the east end of this chapel the trench where three fragments of Byzantine reliquaries had been discovered with a broken glass vessel had been left uncovered. Groundworks on the north side of the chapel in preparation for a new northern cloister revealed the earlier stratigraphy of the enclosure/chapel wall.
Type: Archaeological Excavation
Tags: Archaeological Excavation, Archaeological Finds, Archaeology, Architecture, Chapel, Church, Dayr Mar Elian, Dayr Mar Elian Archaeological Project, Monastery, Qaryatayn, Syria, Syrian Civil War
Palmyra Museum
These images were taken on 1997 and, despite their relatively poor quality (they were badly developed in Syria) have been included as of possible interest due to the occupation of Palmyra by IS and the continuing uncertainty of the fate of many of the artefacts there. The pictures show Palmyrene sculptures and a scale model of the Temple of Bel.
Type: Sculpture
Tags: Archaeology, Museum, Palmyra, Sculpture, Syria, Syrian Civil War, Tadmor
Abano Pass into Tusheti
This is the only overland route to Tusheti from the rest of Georgia, apart from a hiking trail that leads to Khevsureti. The pass is only open in high summer and is inaccessible for around eight months a year.
Omalo
Omalo is the largest village in Tusheti and one of very few to be inhabited all year round. It has grown a great deal in the last ten years as it has become the centre for tourism in the Tusheti National Park. Dzveli (Old) Omalo has the largest concentration of guest houses within the park and the visitor centre lies just outside the village. It also boasts a twentieth century church and a pagan ritual enclosure south of the old part of the village. As at Dartlo, the cluster of towers above the village is given a different name to the rest of the settlement. In Omalo the towers are called Keselo.
Type: Architecture
Tags: Architecture, Church, Georgia, Keselo, Omalo, Pagan, Tower, Tusheti