Butler Diary: Northern and Central Syria V, 1900

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is a large circular opening - above which one can see the remains of a winding staircase cut in the rock leading up through one story to a third level. Both of the upper floors have windows opening out through large apertures in the rock closed by a wall of masonry. In all probability there are chambers hewn in the rock on both levels but the destruction of the lower part of the stair made it impossible to determine this. The shepherd inhabitants of these caverns have built their fires below the opening and have used it as a chimney the smoke rising to escape through the upper windows. There is little or no architectural character in these remains.

The heavy facing wall with its deeply splayed split windows is probably medieval but the cutting of the chambers is undoubtedly more ancient dating from the 4th or 5th cent. 4 A.D. - 5 A.D.

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Tell Nebī Mindō March 7, 1900

On the way from Rableh to Ḥomṣ we bore slightly toward the west to visit a tell which arises conspicuously above the plain, with the Orontes sweeping in broad curves on two sides of it. The tell has been conjectured to be the site of the ancient Laodicea ad Libanum. It is undoubtedly a site of great antiquity and a Greco Roman city certainly flourished here.

The tell itself, upon which a poor native village is perched, is formed of ancient building materials and is full of pottery but few remains of historical times are found at the top except large foundation stones, which have been taken up for building purposes, and some scattered fragments of columns.

It is in the plain at the foot of the tell that one must look for remains. To the east a low mound marks the site of a large building of Roman date

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Here are traces of heavy walls of stone and masses of vault masonry - near it has been discovered a slab of white limestone with a greek inscription

All about the base of the tell are bits of cut stone and blocks of marble but the greatest mass of material has been collected to build the bridge across the river, the causeway leading to it and the mill. In this mass are stones of all kinds - limestone blocks, white and coloured marbles drums and bases of columns and door lintels one of which bears a rather crude cross.

In the causeway are found two inscribed slabs, both tombstones. Mr. Prentice copied both of these together with that near the mound to the east.

The natives brought us many Roman and Byzantine coins and told us that much pottery and glass had been found by them in the neighboring fields. All these things had been either broken or sold.

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Ḥomṣ March 7-8, 1900

The site of ancient Emessa preserves but one architectural fragment of antiquity, this is a ruined tomb structure just outside the limits of the modern town on the high road to Tripoli.

The monument besides being the only remnant of the ancient city is of great interest in itself as one of the few Roman structures preserved to us in which the masonry was designed to give a polychromatic effect.

The tomb was a square tower like structure ^38 feet sq^ of two stories and an attic with vaulted chambers, built all of concrete faced with opus reticulatum and adorned with pilasters and mouldings.

The reticulated work was executed in a white limestone in which a simple pattern is wrought in black basalt. The pilasters are built up of brick shaped blocks of the

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limestone and the mouldings are executed in long pieces of the same material

Only the north wall of the tomb with a small portion of the east wall at the S.E. angle is preserved but it is not difficult to make a general restoration of the tomb from these fragments as it was undoubtedly a perfectly symmetrical structure.

The construction is in good Roman concrete faced on the exterior with opus reticulatum and on the interior with brick - brick relieving arches are still to be seen on the second story inside and the spray of vaulting arches and masses of fallen vaulting, in concrete of broken bricks and mortar, are still found within the tomb.

On the exterior, the facing has been completely hacked away up to the level of the plaster capitals. Of these there were four. They supported three triangular pediments formed of simple

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