103 Items
The door to Dayr Mar Elian
The door to Dayr Mar Elian is one of the most ancient features still extant at the site. It is stone built, like the earliest courses of the wall on the south side, and inset in the later mud brick wall. The door is low to impede entrance as a security feature from earlier periods and the arch above the entrance has curved roundels with foliate motifs. Note in some of the pictures that there are bloody handprints above the interior door, these have been made by people sacrificing animals at the monastery and leaving handprints in fulfilment of a vow made to the saint.
Type: Architecture
Tags: Architecture, Dayr Mar Elian, Dayr Mar Elian Archaeological Project, Monastery, Qaryatayn, Syria
Views of the mud brick tower and adjoining room in the south east of the cloister
These are the buildings that survived the termite infestation that destroyed the rest of the range.
Type: Architecture
Tags: Architecture, Dayr Mar Elian, Dayr Mar Elian Archaeological Project, Qaryatayn, Syria, Syrian Civil War, Tower
Int 12 view of the wall and trench
In this picture the wall built outside the north of the cloister can be seen in context with the north wall of the church and the enclosure.
Type: Archaeological Excavation
Tags: Archaeological Excavation, Archaeology, Dayr Mar Elian, Dayr Mar Elian Archaeological Project, Excavation, Qaryatayn, Syria, Syrian Civil War
Intervention 14, test trench on SE corner of cloister
This reveals that the two walls are not tied to each other at any point.
Type: Archaeological Excavation
Tags: Archaeological Excavation, Archaeology, Dayr Mar Elian, Dayr Mar Elian Archaeological Project, Excavation, Qaryatayn, Syria
Walls in Int 12
The test trench abutting the north wall of the church and cloister revealed a wall parallel to the enclosure wall, suggesting that the cloister had contracted over time.
Type: Archaeological Excavation
Tags: Archaeological Excavation, Archaeology, Dayr Mar Elian, Dayr Mar Elian Archaeological Project, Excavation, Qaryatayn, Syria, Syrian Civil War
Intervention 14, test trench on SE corner of cloister, pre-excavation
This is the external SE corner of the cloister and is the corner with a mud brick tower. Stripping back the render revealed that the corner was constructed of two walls that abutted without being tied to each other.
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 twelfth day of excavation
A progress shot of the trench.
Type: Archaeological Excavation
Tags: Archaeological Excavation, Archaeology, Dayr Mar Elian, Dayr Mar Elian Archaeological Project, Excavation, Qaryatayn, Syria, Syrian Civil War
View of Int 12 with plaster stripped to reveal the state of the wall beneath
This was an attempt to explore how much of the 1938 church incorporated earlier elements of the mud brick shrine that had preceded in on the site. This was done by stripping back the plaster (called locally 'tineh arabiyeh') to see the formation of the bricks below. This possible because the walls were soon to be re-rendered and so local artisans needed to strip off the old plaster before applying the new layer.
Type: Archaeological Excavation
Tags: Archaeological Excavation, Archaeology, Dayr Mar Elian, Dayr Mar Elian Archaeological Project, Excavation, Qaryatayn, Syria, Syrian Civil War
Intervention 12, cleaning the cloister wall and a trench to discover the wall foundations, pre-excavation
This picture shows the north wall of the church joining the wall of the cloister as the wall of the church had become incorporated in the northern part of the enclosure wall.
Type: Archaeological Excavation
Tags: Archaeological Excavation, Archaeology, Dayr Mar Elian, Dayr Mar Elian Archaeological Project, Excavation, Qaryatayn, Syrian Civil War
View of the modern buildings at the east end of the cloister with the remains of the mud brick range still extant to the south. 
Only the tower and one room to its north survived when the original range of buildings along the east collapsed due to termite damage in the 1980s.
Type: Architecture
Tags: Architecture, Dayr Mar Elian, Dayr Mar Elian Archaeological Project, Qaryatayn, Syria, Syrian Civil War, Tower