Travels in Syria and the Holy LandBurckhardt, John Lewis
History
Travels in Syria and the Holy Land
Burckhardt, John Lewis
Palestine -- Description and travel; Syria -- Description and travel
The long street just described terminates in a large open space (f)
enclosed by a magnificent semicircle of columns in a single row; fifty-
seven columns are yet standing; originally there may have been about
eighty. To the right, on entering the forum, are four, and then twenty-
one, united by their entablatures. To the
[p.257]left, five, seven, and twenty, also with entablatures; the latter
twenty are taller than the others, the lower ground on which they stand
having required an increased height of column in order to place the
whole entablature of the semicircle on the same level. The pillars near
the entrance are about fifteen feet in height, and one foot and a half
in diameter: they are all of the Ionic order, and thus they differ from
all the other columns remaining in the city. The radius of the
semicircle, in following the direction of the long street, was one
hundred and five paces.
At the end of the semicircle, opposite to the long street, are several
basins, which seem to have been reservoirs of water, and remains of an
aqueduct are still visible, which probably supplied them. To the right
and left are some low arched chambers. From this spot the ground rises,
and on mounting a low but steep hill before me, I found on its top the
remains of a beautiful temple (g), commanding a view over the greater
part of the town. The front of the temple does not stand directly
opposite to the long street and the forum, but declines somewhat to the
northward. Like the temple first described, it was adorned with a
Corinthian peristyle, of which one column only remains, at the south
angle. In front was a double row of columns, with eight, as I
conjecture, in each row. They seem to have been thrown down by an
earthquake, and many of them are now lying on the declivity of the hill,
in the same order in which they originally stood. They are six spans and
a half in diameter, and their capitals appeared to me of a still finer
execution than those of the great temple. I am unable to judge of the
number of columns on the long sides of the peristyle: their broken
shafts lie about in immense heaps. On every side of the temple except
the front, there appears to have been a large ditch round the temple. Of
the cella the walls only remain, the roof, entrance, and back wall
having
[p.258]fallen down. The interior of the cella is thirty paces in length,
and twenty-four in breadth; the walls within are in a better state than
those of the temple (a), which are much impaired. On the outside of each
of the two long walls, was a row of six niches, similar to those within
the temple (a).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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