754 Items
Trench to the east of the 1938 church, recorded as Intervention 7 after second day of excavation
This shows the trench after two days of work from above, and also shows a view of a cutting in the trench.
Type: Archaeological Excavation
Tags: Archaeological Excavation, Archaeology, Dayr Mar Elian, Dayr Mar Elian Archaeological Project, Excavation, Qaryatayn, Syria, Syrian Civil War
Trench to the east of the 1938 church, recorded as Intervention 7 after first day of excavation
This picture was taken from the church roof looking east and shows that the first day of excavation had revealed the top of a substantial stone wall.
Type: Archaeological Excavation
Tags: Archaeological Excavation, Archaeology, Dayr Mar Elian, Dayr Mar Elian Archaeological Project, Excavation, Qaryatayn, Syria, Syrian Civil War
Trench to the east of the 1938 church, recorded as Intervention 7 before excavation
Intervention 7 was the reference given to the first trench opened to the east of the 1938 church. This site was chosen because of the belief that the church had contracted in size over time, with local informants claiming that a range of interlocking 'beehive' mud brick chambers had made up the earlier shrine on the site, itself built on the remains of a still earlier church. These images show the site of the trench before excavation commenced looking east from the roof of the church.
Type: Archaeological Excavation
Tags: Archaeological Excavation, Archaeology, Dayr Mar Elian, Dayr Mar Elian Archaeological Project, Excavation, Qaryatayn, Syria, Syrian Civil War
Chains in front of the altar in the Church of Mar Elian
The local people believe that Mar Elian is able to cure mental illness and until the recent past it was usual to chain those suffering with such an illness in the church for three nights. The chains were left in place until the dismantling of the 1938 church in 2004. The practice of sleeping in the church for three nights to pray for healing was continuing at the time that these pictures were taken, but the chains were not used.
Type: Ethnographic information/Social History
Tags: Chains, Dayr Mar Elian, Dayr Mar Elian Archaeological Project, Healing, Mar Elian, Mar Elian esh-Sharqi, Qaryatayn, Syrian Civil War
Qaryatayn Syrian Orthodox Manuscript 
A number of Syriac and Garshuni manuscripts belonging to the Syrian Orthodox Church were in the safe-keeping of a village family in the early 2000s and these MSS have now been presented to the Syrian Orthodox Metropolitanate of Homs. The date of this MS is unknown.
Type: Manuscript
Tags: Garshuni, Manuscript, Qaryatayn, Syria, Syriac, Syrian Civil War
The Early Christian bema churches of Syria revisited
A brief note published in Antiquity 75 (2001): 509-10
Type: Text
Tags: Archaeology, Architecture, Bema, Limestone Massif, Liturgy, Syria
The Early Syriac Liturgical Drama and its Architectural Setting
This article was published in 1999 and summarises some of the ideas that were expanded in the later monograph The Architecture and Liturgy of the Bema in Fourth- to-Sixth-Century Syrian Churches.
Type: Text
Tags: Archaeology, Architecture, Bema, C4th-C6th, Limestone Massif, Liturgy, Syria
Dayr es Salib
The basilica at Dayr es Salib has an almost square floorplan and is believed to date to the C5th-C6th. The remains of a Greek-style ambon and a cruciform baptismal font are still in situ at the site.
Type: Architecture
Tags: Ambon, Architecture, Baptismal Font, Basilica, C5th-C6th, Church, Dayr es Salib, Syria
Raqqa Museum
The highest status objects from regional excavations were taken to Damascus and Aleppo, but the Raqqa Museum housed less significant artefacts in a small colonial-era building. These pictures were taken quickly as an experiment in dim winter light, but are included here as all finds in the museum are now presumed destroyed or looted.
Type: Archaeological Find
Tags: Mosaic, Museum, Raqqa, Sculpture, Syria, Syrian Civil War
Roman road
This paved Roman road is approximately one kilometre in length and intersects the road from Aleppo to Dana on the Limestone Massif.
Type: Landscape
Tags: Limestone Massif, Roman, Roman road, Syria