On The E. Side Of The Wady, Half An Hour
From Souf, Is The Ruined Place Called Kherbet Mekbela [Arabic].
Three
quarters of an hour from Souf, in our road, and just over the ruined
city of Djerash, are the ruins called Kherbet el Deir, with a Turkish
chapel named Mezar Abou Beker.
Our road lay S.S.E. In one hour we
passed, n the declivity of the mountain, descending towards Djerash, a
place which I supposed to have been the burying place of
DJERASH.
[p.252]Djerash. I counted upwards of fifty sarcophagi, and there were
many more; they are formed of the calcareous stone with which the Zoueit
and Moerad mountains are composed. Some of them are sunk to a level with
the surface of the ground, which is very rocky; others appear to have
been removed from their original position. The largest was ten spans in
length, and three and a half in breadth; but the greater part are much
smaller, and are not even large enough to contain the corpse of a full
grown person. On the sides of a few of them are sculptured ornaments in
bas-relief, as festoons, genii, &c. but in a mutilated state, and not
remarkable for beauty of execution; I saw only one that was elegantly
wrought. The whole of these sarcophagi had flat covers, a few of which
still remain. Upon one of the largest of the sarcophagi, and which is
one of those first met with in going from Souf, is a long inscription,
but so mutilated as to be almost wholly illegible. In the neighbourhood
are several heaps of large square stones, the remains of some building.
In an hour and a half from Souf we reached the city walls of Djerash, or
Kerash, [Arabic], the Dj being the Bedouin pronunciation of the letter
[Arabic], which in the language of the city corresponds with our K.
Djerash was built upon an elevated plain in the mountains of Moerad, on
uneven ground, on both sides of Wady Deir, which, besides the name of
Kerouan [Arabic], bears also that of Seil Djerash [Arabic], or the river
of Djerash. This river empties itself, at a short distance from the
town, into the Wady Zerka [Arabic], probably the Jabock of the ancients.
The principal part of the city stands on the right bank of the river,
where the surface is more level than on the opposite side, although the
right bank is steeper than the other. The present ruins prove the
magnitude and importance of the ancient city; and the modern name leads
to the belief that it was the ancient Gerasa, one of the principal
DJERASH.
[p.253]towns of the Decapolis, although this position does not at all
agree with that given to Gerasa from the ancient authorities by
D'Anville, who places it to the north-east of the lake of Tiberias,
forty miles to the north-westward of this place. The ruins are nearly an
hour and a quarter in circumference, following insulated fragments of
the walls, which were upwards of eight feet in thickness, and built of
square hewn stones of middling size; I could not judge of their original
heighth, as the upper parts were every where demolished.
I shall now enumerate the principal curiosities of Djerash, agreeably to
the annexed plan, which may give a general idea of the whole; for its
accuracy in regard to distances I do not mean to vouch, as I had, at
most, only four hours to make my survey, and it was with great
difficulty that I could persuade my three companions to wait so long for
me. None of them would accompany me through the ruins, on account of
their fear of the Bedouins, who are in the habit of visiting this Wady,
they therefore concealed themselves beneath the trees that overshade the
river. The first object that strikes the attention in coming from Souf,
after passing the town-wall, is a temple (a). Its main body consists of
an oblong square, the interior of which is about twenty-five paces in
length, and eighteen in breadth. A double row, of six columns in each
row, adorned the front of the temple; of the first row five columns are
yet standing, of the second, four; and on each side of the temple there
remains one column belonging to the single row of pillars that
surrounded the temple on every side except the front. Of these eleven
columns nine are entire, and two are without capitals. Their style of
architecture is much superior to that of the great colonnade hereafter
to be mentioned, and seems to belong to the best period of the
Corinthian order, their capitals being beautifully ornamented with the
acanthus leaves. The shafts are composed of five or six pieces, and are
seven spans and a half in diameter,
[p.254]and thirty-five to forty feet in heighth. I was unable to
ascertain the number of columns in the flanks of the peristyle. The
temple stands upon an artificial terrace elevated five or six feet above
the ground. The interior of the temple is choaked with the ruins of the
roof; a part of the front wall of the cella has fallen down; but the
three other sides are entire. The walls are wthout ornament; on the
interior of each of the two side walls, and about mid-way from the
floor, are six niches, of an oblong shape, and quite plain: in the back
wall, opposite to the door, is a vaulted recess, with a small dark
chamber on each side. The upper part of a niche is visible on the
exterior of the remains of the front wall, with some trifling but
elegantly sculptured ornaments. This ruin stands within a peribolus or
large area surrounded by a double row of columns. The whole edifice
seems to have been superior in taste and magnificence to every public
building of this kind in Syria, the temple of the Sun at Palmyra
excepted.
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