Butler Diary: Northern and Central Syria I, 1899

60

Bamuḳḳa

described above, some single, one double, and one with three divisions. These are high on the wall, perhaps five feet from the floor and seem to have been more like mantel-pieces

Plaster. Under the curved moulding below the single closet to the west is plainly seen a remnant of smooth well-made plaster of a white color in substance but reddish on the surface suggesting paint-

There can be little doubt from this evidence that this house, and other houses in this region which have roughended wall surfaces on the interior, were originally plastered within. In this instance the singular preservation of the walls and the protection of the cornice have preserved the plaster which elsewhere is totally destroyed. The thick growth of scrub oaks and other trees within the house and about it made it impossible to photograph or even sketch this house and suggested to the name of the "House of the Sleeping Beauty."

61

Bāshakûḥ November 3, 1899

This ruin is situated on the crest of a hill about fifteen minutes walk W. of Bashmishli It is absolutely deserted and overgrown but a number of its houses are well preserved.

As we approached the town from the east we came upon a group of ruined buildings, two or three connected and three detached. It is impossible to determine the plan from the pile of dilapidated stonework but this group seems to have been a monastery. Adjoining the largest structure, which may have been the church is a square chamber, with ornamented portal sculpture in the walls of which are tombs, arcosolia with broken sarcophagi. One of the small sq. detached buildings has a large single-stone shed projecting over the portal and remains within of tombs and niches. These ruins, so far as we were able to discover, were the only ecclesiastical buildings of Bāshakûḥ

62

Bāshakûḥ

The town was built in practically two styles, the remains of the simple megalithic being very rare. These are the ordinary colonnaded style with rectangular columns moulded caps and architraves and a simpler style, somewhat later perhaps, in which houses are more nearly square in plan, higher, and provided with windows ^ with ^ semicircular tops. (not arches)

Several large houses on the west side of the town illustrate the first style.

They are very wide, only one room deep, with the two story colonnade running the full length of the front. The end walls of the colonnade are universally separate in construction from the end walls of the house of which they are a continuation. ^ These house walls are ^ usually of large squared blocks. The colonnades are all on the same plan, a series of rectangular monolithic piers with caps more or less richly moulded and architraves sometimes moulded often plain.

63

Bāshakûḥ

The doorways opening upon the upper and lower colonnades are usually two, provided with some sort of ornamental lintel or symbolic discs.

Panels. Between the columns of the upper story are rectangular panels, of single blocks, moulded all round and often decorated with symbols in the center of the panels.

This double colonnaded style with decorated panels was rare in the Djebel el A'la, one house in Kfêr ^ (p. 23) ^ being the only well preserved example and two houses in Ḳirḳ Bêzā ^ (p. 18) ^ showing the only other traces of it.

The second style is represented by several houses of different plans and dimentions. A large house on the S.W. of two tall stories, has an enclosed portico or atrium extending the full width of the house with two doorways in its front wall and a row of good sized windows in the second story ^ (ain.|am.) ^ with curved lintels. Behind this

64

Bāshakûḥ

is a small square house with a large round topped window in the end wall of the second story. This window, on the exterior is ornamented with a rich moulding extending over the curved top, down the sides and then turned horizontally from the sill for several inches.

Another small square building of unknown purpose has an ornamental lintel with a Syriac insc. and small round topped window.