ENPages
BSY_FB_05_p.24
24
one block, carved on the face with a central disc, bearing symbols, and enclosed in a rectangular frame of deep mouldings. The doorways opening from the portico are also provided with sculptured lintels and crosses within circles.
Another house has a perpendicular gutter cut in the wall near the N.E. corner, carried down through six courses of stone and terminating above a large basin of solid stone - the basin has a narrow lip cut in the edge.
BSY_FB_05_p.25
25
An extensive ruin half an hour south of Ḳalb Lauze, situated on one of the highest eminences of the Jebel-el-A'la, conspiuous from every point of vantage.
The ruins consist of a large, well preserved basilica and another public building in complete ruins besides an extensive group of private buildings in varying conditions of ruin.
The former building was measured by de Vogüé and is fully illustrated in his "La Syrie Centrale" and needs no further discussion from the architectural standpoint but I am not sure that De V. correctly derived its purpose.
It was called by him the church of Beḥyō. It is correctly oriented and it is true its groundplan consisted of three aisles divided by two rows of debased classic col's It bears many ecclesiastical symbols on
BSY_FB_05_p.26
26
its walls, but it terminates toward the East in a flat wall pierced with a double row of windows.
A short distance to the East of this building are the delapidated remains of a structure of nearly equal dimentions with the above, also planned with 3 aisles, separated by piers and broad arches, and terminating in a semi-circular apse. This building is also properly oriented for a church and seems from the fragments to have been rich in architectural sculpture.
The two structures are equally suitable to be considered church edifices but the second has the advantage of an apse which brings it more into line with the churches of the region at Ḳalb Lauzi and Kfêr.
The better preserved of the two has a large well paved courtyard adjoining
BSY_FB_05_p.27
27
on the south with a large empty cistern of the common bottle form, and remains of small structures about it.
On the north is a second court several feet below the level of the floor of the main building and, ^ on ^ opposite side considerable remains of important buildings which had colonnaded porticoes and richly carved lintels over the doors which open on the court.
It seems quite possible, in view of the presence of the second building to call this a civil basilica. Ecclesiastical symbols are no ^ peculiar ^ mark of religious structures for almost every house in the whole region has the cross and other symbols above its doorways. The town of Beḥyō was certainly of sufficient importance to have its own public basilica which might have been the magistraterial centre for the surrounding smaller towns.
