Decorative Lintels in the Southern Limestone Massif of Northern Syria during the Byzantine Period

Introduction:
The Limestone Massif is a name applied to the region, located in northwestern
Syria, which geographically stretches from the archaeological city of Cyrrhus on
the north, to the city of Apamea on the south, 150 km long, and is bordered by the
Orontes and Afrin valleys on the west, and Aleppo plateau and Chalcis on the east,
70 km wide. The Massif includes a group of mountains with lowland terrain and
at heights varying from 400 – 900 meters. Moreover, it is divided into two main
groups, namely the southern group of az-Zawiya Mountain and the northern group
of Mount Simeon separated by the vast plains of Chalcis; to its west runs a lower
mountain chain of Barisha, al-Aala, al-Halaqa, al-Woastani and al-Dwyli.
The karstic nature and climatic conditions of the region made it possible
for hundreds of villages to develop and provided key living conditions in order
for these villages to flourish and prosper depending on agriculture as a source
of living, which relied mainly on growing olives, vines and fruit trees as well as
other crops such as vegetables and fruit depending on the availability of the best
conditions in the cultivated regions, rain and humidity which is specially abundant
on the foothills of the western Massif. Moreover, the availability of a network of
groundwater channels, especially in the slopes and valleys, which were formed as a
result of a series of northeast-southwest oriented faults on the one hand and the rain
(400 to 600 mm annually) stored in reservoirs carved in rocks on the other hand,
was the most important factor in their emergence. In addition, the groundwater
in the region of valleys helped many villages to settle down, which is evidenced by
the survival of wells from the Byzantine period that are still used until our present
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Decorative Lintels in the Southern Limestone Massif of Northern Syria during the Byzantine Period

day. However, as far as the plateaus are concerned, lack of groundwater forced their
residents to immigrate.
The remains of the villages and their basic components such as churches,
monasteries, towers, olive presses, domestic buildings and others, we can see now,
draw a unique and old rustic scene of rural life during the Byzantine period even
though hundreds of modern villages have been built on the ruins of or next to
archaeological villages, like al-Bara, Deir Sunbul, Frekea, etc. Furthermore, lots
of important villages have remained as deserted archaeological sites since ancient
times, and they have exceptionally preserved their archaeological structures, such
as Serjilla, Mugleyya, Btirsa, Shinsharah, Rabi’a, Ba’uda, Ruweiha, Gerade and
others. In addition, some villages of the Limestone Massif like Ruweiha, Gerade and
Serjilla are distinguished for their unique sights of the ruins of the old agricultural
subdivisions, which will help us to understand the status of farming in ancient times
and the size of land appropriate for cultivation seeing that farmers coming from
neighboring regions worked on reclaiming these lands and cleaning them from
stones which they used to build low walls in order to demarcate their properties.
They also used piles of stones in different areas so as to make the most of as many
lands as possible for cultivation.