the churches are built in fine ashlar masonry, with moulded archivolts and architraves to doorways and windows, and moulded string courses and cornices of simple design. The principal decoration externally is found in the hood-mould or label round the windows, continued as a string-course and carried round other windows, and sometimes terminating in a disk with cross in centre. These hood-moulds are occasionally richly carved. All the churches in central Syria had open timber roofs which have now disappeared; this is proved by the sinkings in the end walls to receive the purlins, and the corbels provided to carry the tie beams. The apses were always covered with semi-domes. The three most important churches were those of Turmanin, Kalb-Lauzeh and Kalat-Seman. The plans of the two first are similar, except that in Turmanin the nave arcade is of the ordinary type, with seven arches carried on columns, while in Kalb-Lauzeh (fig. 32) there are three wide arches on each side carried on two rectangular piers and responds. Both have entrance porches (fig. 33), which are flanked by angle buildings carried up as towers in three storeys; these probably contained wooden staircases to ascend to an open gallery, which consisted of four columns in-antis between the angle towers above the porch. The north and south walls were quite plain, except for window and door dressings and string courses; the apse was richly decorated, with wall shafts superimposed between the windows, and carrying a projecting cornice with alternate corbels. The church at Ruweiha has a similar plan to that at Kalb-Lauzeh, but two transverse arches in stone are thrown across the nave, resting on abutments attached to the nave piers.
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| Fig. 32.—Interior of the Church of Kalb-Lauzeh. |
The most remarkable example and by far the largest is the great basilica at Kalat-Seman (fig. 34), which was erected round the pillar on which St. Simeon Stylites spent thirty years of his life. The base of the pillar stands in the centre of an immense octagonal court open to the sky. The plan consists of nave, transept and choir, all with side aisles, separated in the centre by the octagonal court which constitutes the crossing. The nave built on the side of a hill is raised on a crypt, and the principal entrance would seem to have been through the porch of the north transept, which occupies the full width of transept and aisles. There were, however, in addition two doorways with porches to each aisle, as well as portico and doors to the north transept. At the eastern end were three apses, the two outer ones, facing the aisles, being additions in the second half of the 6th century. St. Simeon died in 459, and the church was probably begun shortly afterwards, but not completed till the 6th century. The archivolts of the great arches on each side of the octagonal court consist of architrave, frieze and cornice, copied from the arch of the propylaca at Baalbek or other Roman work. Here, as in the great southern porch, the classic nature of the details is remarkable, the pilasters are all fluted, and the modillion and dentil, derived from Roman models, exist throughout. On the other hand, the carving of the foliage was certainly executed by Greek artists, and the well-known Byzantine capital, with the leaves bending under the influence of the wind, is here reproduced. The great apse externally retains its decoration with superimposed shafts and cornice, as in Turmanin and Kalb-Lauzeh.
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| Fig. 33.—Church of Turmanin. |
The monastery of Kalat-Seman was built on the south side of the great church, and many of the rooms had roofs of slabs of stone carried on arches across the room, a method of construction universally found in the Hauran, where the absence of timber necessitated this more permanent method of construction. The monasteries differ from the domestic work in being much plainer, and, instead of columns in the porticoes, having invariably square piers of stone.
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| Fig. 34.—Plan of Church of Kalat-Seman. |
