237 Items
Site visit to Dayr Mar Elian with students in 2010
These pictures were taken on the way to begin excavations at Zalabiyeh in 2010 and show the state of the Syrian excavation, site museum and elements of the new church and cloister to the north as they stood in the last year before the Syrian civil war began.
Type: Archaeological Excavation
Tags: Archaeological Excavation, Archaeological Finds, Archaeology, Architecture, Church, Dayr Mar Elian, Dayr Mar Elian Archaeological Project, Monastery, Museum, Qaryatayn, Syria, Syrian Civil War
View of Deir Mar Musa from the east
These pictures were taken from the valley below the monastery before a road and small-holding were established there.
Type: Architecture
Tags: An Nabk, Architecture, Deir Mar Musa, Mar Musa al-Habashi, Monastery, Syria
View of Deir Mar Musa from the north
These pictures were taken from the modern buildings, partially based on caves, where the men of the monastery live and the kitchen for making cheese is located. The view is of the old, central monastery buildings with the church in the foreground.
Type: Architecture
Tags: An Nabk, Architecture, Church, Deir Mar Musa, Mar Musa al-Habashi, Monastery, Syria
View of Deir Mar Musa from the west
This is how visitors approaching from the west first see Deir Mar Musa al-Habashi.
Type: Architecture
Tags: An Nabk, Architecture, Deir Mar Musa, Mar Musa al-Habashi, Monastery, Syria
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
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
Dartlo
Dartlo is located above a ford in the valley. The closest building to the river is a ruined stone structure that, on closer investigation possessed the traces of a fresco of an angel. This had obviously been a church in the past and was the only evidence of Christianity encountered on the first visit to Tusheti in 2006. By 2016 the village was more developed and second only in size to Dzveli Omalo for tourist infrastructure.
Type: Architecture
Tags: Architecture, Church, Dartlo, Fresco, Georgia, Tower, Tusheti
Dochu
This village is notable for the shrine at its centre. A large and substantial stone cairn is topped with stag antlers and females in our party were told that we were not to approach the structure. The local belief is that the fertility of the men of the village is damaged should women pass too close to the shrine.
Type: Architecture
Tags: Antlers, Architecture, Fertility, Georgia, Pagan, Shrine, Tusheti