#bostra

[twofielder]

Coin of the Day #425 (7/3/2025)

🌗?

Roman Province - Arabia

Cut AR Drachm - 18mm 1.43g

Trajan 113-114 AD

Bostra(?) Mint

Obverse ΑΥΤΟΚΡ ΚΑΙC ΝΕΡ ΤΡΑΙΑΝ CΕΒ ΓΕΡΜ ΔΑΚ

Head of Trajan right, laureate, drapery on shoulder

Reverse ΔΗΜΑΡΧ ΕΞ Ι(Η or Ζ) ΥΠΑΤ C

Arabia standing left, holding branch over camel and cinnamon sticks

RPC III 4074-5

[classicalmonuments]

Theater of Bosra

Bostra (Bosra), Arabia, Syria

2nd century CE

15,000 Spectators

It was built in either the second quarter or the second half of the second century CE and is constructed of black basalt. It is likely that the theatre was built during the reign of Trajan. The theatre was originally built outside the walls of the town, but was later completely enclosed by an Ayyūbid fortress. 

The theatre is 102 metres across and has seating for about 15,000 people; it is thus among the largest of the Ancient Roman civilisation. It served a city that once had 80,000 inhabitants. It is also one of the best preserved both in Syria and across the Roman empire. It was substantially restored between 1947 and 1970, before which it contained large quantities of sand, which may have helped to protect the interior.

In accordance with the local topography, it had to be built in purely flat terrain and it forms a uniform structure consisting of an auditorium and a stage building. The shape of the façade of the auditorium is difficult to imagine today because the building was later framed by an Arab fortress, which is the real reason that the theater has been preserved so extraordinarily well. From the outside, entrances led through 29 arches in the outer wall of the auditorium. one of the entrances was in its central axis. 

Overall, the façade consists of a double-storey row of arches and a row of rectangular windows above. Individual consoles for holding the “sun sails” have been preserved. The normal spectators reached their seats through these arcades. There were 13 staircases available to them, which they could reach from an inner corridor behind the outer façade. The outer entrances or those in the 180° axis of the theater led as aditus maximi under the east and west stands into the orchestra. The others led to a further inner contact, from which stairs to the auditorium lead directly to the praecinctio, i.e. directed the corridor between ima and media cavea. This approach could also be reached from the aditus maximi, where corridors branched off to the side. 

Here you had the choice of going down to the better ranks or up to the worse ranks or the media cavea. The access to the cavea was the more convenient, as it was at ground level. The top row of the cavea consisted of a continuous row of seats with backrests, which is why one would assume that there were places for higher-ranking personalities. there were 6 stairs in between that led to the lower places of the 5 kerkides. Only from the middle wedge did a double staircase lead down to the orchestra. There are no other levels of honor for seats of honor or bisellia in the orchestra. 

The passage from the praecinctio into the media cavea was less comfortable: To do this, one had to climb again narrow stairs leading to the side and now reached the 6 stairs, which opened up the next higher 5 kerkides. Another approach (praecinctio) lies between media and summa cavea. This can be reached via the inner staircase system, until you finally step outside at ground level and, bending to the side, reached the top tier of seats via further double staircases behind the balteus of the praecinctio. Above this there is finally a round portico, the porticus in summa cavea, of which some of the columns are still preserved in situ. It is this detail that sets the Bosra Theater apart as actually the best preserved in the ancient world.

At the ends of both praecinctiones are small doors that lead to the higher floors of the two basilicas. The walls of the basilicas facing the auditorium are decorated at the top with a series of pilasters and 3 small wall niches underneath. The tribunalia via the aditus maximi can be reached from the lower praecinctio. From there, there was the best view of the stage and the auditorium. The stage or the pulpitum can be entered via the side basilicas. The front of the stage is structured by the usual sequence of half and rectangular niches. At the back of the stage is the scaenae frons, here consisting of two round niches on the side and a round niche pulled apart in the middle. It has three floors, which can still be clearly seen in the rear wall of the stage. The lower column position has been rebuilt. In contrast to the dark basalt, it consists of light limestone. The lower order is Corinthian, above which Ionic and Tuscan columns are assumed. Behind the scaenae frons is the perfectly preserved space of the postscaenium. The theater is dated differently in the scientific literature: General urbanistic reasons speak in favor of placing the building in the founding period of the Roman Bosra, but an analysis of the architectural ornamentation of the theater led to it being dated to the early Severe period around 200 CE.

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

[classicalmonuments]

East Gate of Bosra

Bostra (Bosra), Arabia, Syria

End of 1st /start of 2nd century CE

This arch is one having a single, broad, high opening, in form of a tunnel vault, through its minor axis, and two narrow, low, tunnel vaults piercing the masonry on either side of the main opening, through the major axis of the structure, at right angles to the main arch. 

 Assuming that the proportions of the podium are approximately correct, we find the first storey, on both faces of the arch and on either side of the opening, ornamented with pilasters at the angles, quarter columns adjoining the pilasters, and half columns flanking niches in the middle of each side. The architrave breaks out en ressaiit over each pilaster and half column, but the other members of the entablature above the architrave are omitted. In the upper storey another composition is repeated four times, twice on either face of the arch. This is made up of four pilasters which ascend from the ressauts of the lower order, and three niches, one large semi-circular niche in the middle space and a small rectangular niche in either of the side spaces. 

The pilasters have no bases, their caps are formed by a simple moulding which is carried across the face of the arch, breaking out over each, and curving upward in an arch above the middle niche. The main arch is the central feature of this storey. Its archivolt has a good set of architrave mouldings which spring from the ressauts above the lower pilasters. It will be noted that two of the pilasters of the upper storey terminate below rather clumsily upon the extrados of these arch mouldings. There is no attempt to produce the effect of an entablature above the order of the upper storey, the wall rises in two plain courses to a height a little above the crown of the main arch where a moulded string course is carried across the entire face of the arch. 

There are remains which show that the building was at least one tall course higher than the string moulding; but it is impossible to know how much higher the structure was, or how it was completed at the top. I have added a deep overhanging cymatium of the ordinary Hauranian type to finish the restoration; but there may have been a complete Attic storey in the style of Roman arches. Section A-B gives the treatment of the two interior faces of the arch, with the opening of the low vaulted side passages. Nothing in this drawing is restored save the podium and the profile of the crowning mouldings of the arch. The ends of the edifice are almost wholly conjectural, the lower storey being almost completely hidden by modern buildings at both ends and the upper part being in ruins. 

The more important details of this building are given on a larger scale in Plate X. The order is most unusual, though, as we have seen, it was not unique in Bosra, and it is not difficult to detect the resemblance it bears to examples known in Petra, Hegra and Sf. For this reason I do not hesitate to call it a Nabataean order. The bases of the half and quarter columns may not be given with complete accuracy; for I found them badly injured; but the capitals and the architrave and other mouldings are in good preservation. The caps of the grouped pilasters and quarter columns at the exterior and interior angles on the east face are compound designs in which the circular mouldings of the half columns are replaced by a row of stiff, erect, acanthus leaves. 

The abacus of each pilaster cap is of the same “horned” variety as that of the half columns, and a single “horn” of the same type of abacus projects above the quarter column. The architrave is low, with two bands and a very salient cymatium. It is a pity that no inscription has as yet been found that might give a definite date to this monument. We may not even look to Petra for dated monuments that would assist in dating this arch. But the dated and dateable buildings erected in the Hauran under the Antonine emperors and under the emperors of the third century present none of the details which set this monument apart, and point to an earlier date, perhaps in the reign of Trajan, probably earlier. 

The peculiar abacus of the capitals in this edifice is a common feature in the rock-hewn facades of Petra which are believed to be earlier than the year 106 CE The combined pilaster and quarter columns under a composite cap of this strange order appear in rock-hewn tomb fronts discovered at Hegra and published by the Dominican Fathers Jaussen and Savignac. These particular details appear, without the circular mouldings below the abacus, beside the doorways of three tombs (E 18) (A 5) and (B 1), all dated by Nabataean inscriptions of the year 31 CE. 3 and in the same part of another tomb (F 4) dated in the 24th year of Malichus II., i. e. 63-64 CE. Engaged columns, and pilasters with quarter columns attached, both having circular mouldings below the abacus, all very like those in the East Arch at Bosra, are found in a rock-hewn façade in Petra (No. 633)4 which bears a Nabataean inscription that is to be dated early in the second century of this era. It is therefore plain that these details were well known in the country of the Nabataeans in the first century CE and early in the second. The capital with a cluster of leaves below the “horned” abacus has not been found in Petra or Hegra. This fact however need not interfere with our assigning the East Arch of Bosra to a date near the end of the first, or early in the second, century; for Greek influence was much stronger here than in the regions farther south.

(Text is told first hand by Howard Crosby Butler, who wrote the Syria series)

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4

[classicalmonuments]

Decumanus Temple of Bosra (?)

Bostra (Busra), Arabia, Syria

2rd century CE ??

Among the crowded group of modern dwellings on the high ground in the southeast quarter of the town are many remnants of an ancient building, or buildings, that crowned this most imposing of the sites in the city. The most conspicuous of these remains are two columns, one of which is complete, standing almost due east of the East Arch, and north of Church No. 2. It was found impossible to trace the outlines of the ground plan of any ancient structure. It is located outside the walls of the Roman town near the Nabatean Gate, so in origin it was probably a sanctuary of the Nabateans; most of the materials are spolia of Roman buildings of the 2nd century, including the niches which decorate the façade.

A piece of heavy wall of highly finished masonry with two storeys of niches in it (A in Plan, Ill. 219), another bit of wall, not unlike a large parotid (B), and the two columns (C), are shown in the accompanying plan, together with the apse and side chambers of a Christian Church (D), into the walls of which several details of the more ancient building were incorporated, these are the only visible remains of this ancient edifice that can be given on a plan. The other remains are fragments of architectural ornament. In the ground-plan (Ill. 219) I have attempted to show these features in their mutual relations; but I am unable to suggest the form of the building to which they belonged. There is no doubt that the heavy wall (A) is the southwest angle of a building; but the two columns, which appear to have been within the building, are set on a diagonal opposite to the interior angle, and, being about 14 m. distant from it, seem too far removed to have constituted interior supports on the plan of an octagon within a square outer wall. 

The modern dwelling between (A) and (B) makes it impossible to discover any connection between these two walls. Two superposed niches in the wall (A) are given in a drawing beside the plan, and the profile of (B) is also represented. The column (C) is presented in a photograph (Ill. 220). Only the upper storey of the niches is above the present ground level, the niche of the lower storey shown herewith had been disclosed recently by the natives while excavating for building stones. The two niches are not shown here in their actual relation, the upper niche being the one next to the angle, and the lower being the second from it. The niche above this particular lower niche is less well preserved, but was substantially like it. Both are interesting, the Doric half columns of the lower niche are unusual in this particular usage, and the absence of a Doric entablature is significant. The erect and the inverted conches are not unusual in Syria; the little cross at the center of the upper conch was added in early Christian days. 

The two columns, one of which is represented in a photograph (Ill. 220) are elevated upon pedestals. Their shafts are nearly eight diameters high. The capitals are of good design; but were not executed with the exquisite technique that is to be observed in the capitals of the Nymphaeum; for the spaces underneath the angle volutes are solid instead of being cut through as they are in the capitals of the other building, the abacus is flat, and its profile is poor; but the acanthus leaves and the bud are well executed. There is a column almost precisely similar to these standing about 28 m. to the northeast.

In the courtyard of the same house with the two columns are fragments of a fine large portal in the same style as the portals of the two temples at Atil, and the outermost gate of the temenos at Si, all of which belong to the period of the earlier Antonine emperors. The fragments show sections, or courses, of panels separated by quarter-columns the grooves of which are filled with a cable. The panels and quarter- columns were set upon a plain orthostate, like a dado, as in the example at Sic quoted above. The panel carving is rich and beautiful, being in flowing designs naturalistically treated. 

The outer panels are the wider, and have a rinceau of acanthus with star- like and lily-like flowers of large and graceful form (Ill. 221). The inner panels are carved with the grapevine (Ill. 222). Among other architectural fragments found here is a piece of ornament showing the Greek fret, or meander, with a pair of grotesque These heads must be taken either as decorative grotesques, or as earlier than the other fragments, perhaps as of Nabataean workmanship, for the heads wrought into the meander carving of the gate at Si, which belong unquestionably to the same period as the panels described above - the period of the Antonines - are distinguished for their grace and beauty. The photographs of the details herewith presented (Ill. 221, 222, 223) were taken from casts now in the Princeton collection. The originals were not so placed that they could easily be photographed. Although none of these details, i. e., columns, niches, and fragments of ornament, is of a scale so large as to prove the former existence of a large temple on this site, any or all of them might have belonged to a building of considerable size.

Bostra was a larger city than Gerasa, if we are to judge by its extent; although so much more of the latter city is represented in ruins at the present day. Bostra is known to have had various cults, especially important among which was the cult of Dusares, the Nabataean Dushara; and one would naturally presume that there were temples here that compared in scale with the two more important temples at Gerasa. It is not impossible that the features above described belonged to such temples.

Sources: 1, 2, 3 ,4

[classicalmonuments]

Nymphaeum of Bosra

Bostra (Busra), Arabia, Syria

2nd century CE

The four columns of the Nymphaeum, which are beautiful in themselves, and are quite perfectly preserved, are practically all that remains of the building of which they formed the façade. They stand on a line diagonal to the two main streets of the town which intersect at this point and were so placed as to cut off the sharp angle which would have been produced if the colonnades of the two streets had met, for the streets do not meet at an exact right angle, but at an angle rather more acute. The north colonnade of the east-and- west street, and the west colonnade of the north-and-south street, terminated against the two end columns of this façade.

The central intercolumniation is wider than the other two which are equal. When Puchstein was here he excavated to find this curved wall, and we found his excavation almost completely filled up when we entered the enclosure behind the wall. I took measurements of as much of the wall as I could find, which would be sufficient for our Plan of Bosra, and from these I have drawn the accompanying plan. Puchstein called the building a Nymphaeum and I have followed him. The plan is sufficiently like that of the Nymphaeum of Gerasa to make this identification practically certain.

I contented myself with measuring some of the details of the base of one of the columns which were easily reached. For a restoration I have assumed the height of the pedestals, and, knowing the diameter of a column (1.20 m.), I have erected the four columns by finding their approximate height in diameters from photographs. The capital was drawn from a sketch and from photographs. The present level of the soil is shown by a broken line. The visible parts of the building are shaded to represent basalt. The rear wall was restored from a similar plan in the central portion of the Nymphaeum at Amman, where the wall is standing. 

An apsis must be covered by a half dome; at Amman the half dome springs from the level of the tops of the columns. This disposition of the half dome suggests an arched entablature even if the wide middle intercolumniation did not demand it. I have chosen to strike the semicircle of the intrados of the arched architrave from the level of the tops of the columns rather than from the level of the top of the architrave, because the remnant of the arcuated architrave of the Central Arch here in Bosra and other examples of arched entablatures in the Hauran have this form. 

The members of the entablature are drawn roughly from other buildings in the neighborhood, the roof is wholly conjectural. It is very probable that the walls adjoining the apsis had two or three storeys of niches in them, like the walls beside the great niche at Amman, and it is not impossible that the apsis itself was also provided with superposed niches, like the one at Jerash, but I found no proof or suggestion of these details. 

The upper part of the pedestal and the base of a column are given herewith in a measured drawing. The octagonal form of the pedestal and of the plinth below the Attic base is interesting, and was probably employed in the present case to accommodate the end columns of the street colonnades which approached them at an angle. I have made the adjoining bases of the columns of the colonnades to correspond with them. 

The four capitals, which are of unusual beauty, present charming variations in minor details, as may be seen by a careful observation of the photograph. The proportions of the capital given in my drawing may not be absolutely accurate, as they were not measured; but certain observations may be made which are, in the main, correct. The capitals are unusually tall, the part between the acanthus leaves and the abacus being almost as high as the taller leaves. The acanthus leaves have a prominent V section, the cauliculi, or stalks, are tall and flowing. The angle volutes and the intermediate spirals are quite free from the bell, as in the early Greek capitals of this order from Epidauros. Each volute and spiral was composed of a slender moulded fillet, and was cut entirely free as a detached member, in the most delicate manner possible, springing out of the stalk and touching only the angle of the abacus in the case of the volutes, and only the lip of the bell in the case of the spirals. The flower in the middle of the abacus has several varieties, and the sides of the abacus are slightly moulded. The execution could not have been more perfect in the finest quality of marble.

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

[classicalmonuments]

Gate of the Lantern (Central Arch of Bosra)

Bostra (Bosra), Arabia, Syria

2nd century CE (?)

The Central Arch is the most conspicuous of the Ancient buildings in Bosra after the West Gate. The arch, which has triple openings through its minor axis, was also pierced with a vaulted passage through its longer axis, which divided the structure longitudinally into two equal parts, or halves. The northern half stands in almost perfect condition. The southern half has completely disappeared. One may observe by referring to the ground plan that the intersections of the longitudinal passage with the two minor openings of the arch involved the use of two cross vaults which so separated the two faces of the structure that one face could stand without the other. The plan and the photograph also show engaged columns at the east and west angles of the north face of the arch, which stand in line with the columns on the south side of the main colonnaded street. I have attempted to restore the hidden parts, which are shown below the dotted line, by adding 2.35 m. to the bottom of the visible portion of the engaged column (see P. A. Fig. 900), which is 4.65 m. high, and thus making it equal in height to the columns of the street colonnade of which it was a part, which were 7 m. high. 

The Corinthian pilasters which form the principal ornamental features of the face are thus made nine diameters in height, and are provided with suitable bases, which give a fair proportion to the order. On either hand the ends of the street colonnades have been restored from the remains published in Ill. 210, and statues of life size have been placed upon the consoles, or brackets, which were made to receive them. Above the Corinthian pilaster only one member is shaded, this is the architrave which is in place.

The masonry of this storey is not so smooth or so well laid as that of the storey below it, and it must have puzzled many beholders to reconcile this crude work with the very excellent work on the pilasters and lower arches. It will be observed that the mouldings of the architrave are returned at the arch, and were intended to be carried over the semicircle; but the face of the present arch above its springing is without mouldings. It may be urged that the Arch, having been begun in a costly manner, was completed by change of plans in this simple and inexpensive way even in the Roman period; but I believe that the Arch was originally completed in quite a different manner, and was rebuilt in its present form at a comparatively recent date. 

This arch is called by the natives “il-Kandil”; it is known from an Arabic inscription that there was once a mosque in Bosra of that name, and I am convinced thas this arch once formed the front of that mosque, that the ruins behind it are the ruins of the mosque and that the present upper storey of the Arch belongs to the period of the building of the Djamic il-Kandil. But this assumption does not restore the arch to its original design. 

Suggestions for the restoration of the Arch to the original plan are to be found, first, in the building itself, and secondly, in buildings of the same general type and period in the neighbourhood. The returned mouldings of the architrave demand at least one completely arched member of an entablature, and suggest that the two others were employed. The other two Arches of Bosra have only the lower member, it is true; but neither of them preserves a true Classical order. It would be impossible to restore the Central Arch after the manner of the others, for the reason that the upper storey would be too low in proportion to its width. 

The Corinthian pilasters and other ornamental details of the Arch compare favourably with similar features in other monuments of the Hauran and of the cities of the Decapolis that belong to the period of the Antonine emperors, and in all such monuments in which the arcuated architrave occurs, it is accompanied by the arcuated frieze and cornice. It is not important to consider the third-century inscription that appears below the statue console at the west end of the Arch at Bosra; for this is simply an honorary inscription that might have been engraved at any time after the completion of the building. 

In proceeding with our restoration we can do no better, I believe, than to take the Propylaea of Jerash as a model; for the pilasters of that building are almost precisely similar to those of our Arch. These Propylaea belong unquestionably to the Antonine period, as is attested by an inscription. The Jerash Propylaea, like this Arch at Bosra, were set upon the line of one of the street colonnades; they consisted also of two main parts longitudinally divided, a portico of four columns with a broad middle intercolumination, and a wall with one large and two small openings in it, faced with pilasters. 

The middle intercolumniation of the portico was surmounted by a complete entablature in arch form, and a raking cornice covered the whole façade. The colonnade of the street joined the portico on either hand, and the covered walk passed behind the columns and in front of the wall. The plan of the Arch at Bosra is very similar; but the portico of columns is replaced by pilasters embracing arches, and the side walk passes under cross vaults behind the lower arches. Since we have the evidence for the arcuated architrave in the Bosra monument, which seems to correspond with the monument at Jerash in size and style, it will not be assuming too much to complete the entablature, and cover the whole with a raking cornice, that is, to take the entablature and gable from the columnar portico of Jerash and place it upon the pilasters of the Bosra Arch, and this is what I have done in the restoration of the north face. 

As to the restoration of the two ends I am not at all confident; but I have placed narrow gables directly above the roofs of the side walks of the colonnade which abut upon the ends of the Arch. The roof of the Arch might quite as well follow the simple pitch of the raking cornice. It is quite evident that the entablature was stopped and returned upon the end walls immediately after rounding the angles, for the architrave mouldings are terminated in this manner. The restoration of the Section is conclusive, having been taken from Brunnow’s drawings and photographs which were made while the interior arches and vault of the east half of the monument were still standing. 

The eastern half of the south face also shows considerable portions of the Arch which may now be studied only from photographs. Since the entablature of the north face was stopped at the ends of that face, I have restored the south face of the principal arch and the walls on either side of it without ornament of any kind. Indeed the window opening shown in Brunnow’s photograph, occupies a space upon the level of the entablature of the front of the Arch. Here again the end gable might be omitted, allowing the high roof to follow the straight line of the raking cornice. The restorations of the colonnaded streets, extending to the east and west of the Arch, and to the south in the direction of the Theatre, are not to be questioned ; the only features open to debate are the solid back walls of the colonnades which are shown extending out at right angles from the corners of the Arch, and manner of roofing the side walks. The former seem necessary to the completion of the plan of these colonnades; the latter might equally well have been a simple shed roof of single pitch.

(Text is told first hand by Howard Crosby Butler, who wrote the Syria series)

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4

[classicalmonuments]

Gate of the Winds (West Gate)

Bostra (Bosra), Arabia, Syria

3rd century CE

10 m. in height

The plan of the gate is composed of two square towers with pilasters at all four angles, set, over 10 m. apart, to mark the ends of the opening in the wall, and, between the towers, a double arched entrance of smaller depth than towers, the arches being flanked on either hand by two pilasters and a niche. 

The two faces of the gate are almost precisely alike, the only differences being minor considerations of small measurements.  In the elevation which I have drawn, i. e., the West Face, the middle part of the gate alone is represented; only the corners of the towers and their pilasters appearing on either hand. It will be observed that this middle part rises a full storey higher than the tops of the towers, the extra height being given by the tunnel vault which is still in place. 

This then constitutes the gate proper. It consists of three storeys, divided by string mouldings, the lowest storey containing the wide opening and its side walls ornamented with two pilasters and a niche on either side, a middle storey embracing the arch of the opening flanked by pilasters which are carried up from those below, and an uppermost storey which forms an Attic. This Attic is almost wholly conjectural, but the high tunnel vault behind it, shown in dotted lines, must have been faced in some manner, and a single stone in place on the right side of the west face shows that the pilaster at this point was carried up another storey. 

The arrangement can not be far from the original scheme. The cross section (A—B) illustrates the manner in which the space between the arches ascends, without divisions of storeys, from the pavement to the high vault. Near the top of the wall between the arches, just within the east face, is a bracket pierced through with a hole which corresponds to a block with a socket in it just within the threshold. These features are found on both sides of the east opening, i. e., the arch toward the city, and are to be regarded as the fixtures for the hinges of the great doors by which the inner arch was closed. 

Each leaf of the doors was a rectangle, tall as the arch is high, hung from a round timber one end of which was inserted into the hole in one of the brackets, and the other into the socket below it, in the ancient fashion employed even for doors of stone in the Hauran. The doors, when opened, folded back into the spaces between the arches. It is not impossible that a floor was provided beneath the vault, forming a chamber above the entrance, in which some mechanism for opening and closing the great doors was set up. It would seem that the outer arch was not provided with doors. 

The ornament of the two faces of this double arched gate is exceedingly simple, so simple in fact that it fails to give details that are easily dated. The pilasters which constitute the main features of the decoration have no bases, and their caps are nothing more than the string mouldings broken out to cover the shafts. The lowest pilasters have thus a double cap, the lower of which (N) is a moulding that connects the two pilasters but is not carried to the end of the wall, the upper (M) is the arch moulding which breaks out at its springing and is carried along as a string moulding as far as the walls of the towers. The moulding which forms the caps of the pilasters of the middle storey is the cornice of the towers, the uppermost moulding is conjectural. 

The niches are rectangular in plan and round topped. Their decorative features were applied in an unusual manner. Each is flanked by very plain and slender pilasters with simply moulded caps and bases, in the usual way; but the mouldings of the three-piece arches are executed only upon the middle piece, or broad keystone. The face of this stone is set out from the face of the wall and is brought to a straight line above the arch mouldings to support a pediment composed of very simple mouldings. Upon the crown of the arch mouldings, and upon the apex and at both ends of the pediment, are carved small brackets, or pedestals, which resemble the bases for statues or other sculpture often seen in larger arches and pediments in Petra and Hegra. Indeed one can not fail to observe in these details a resemblance to the details of the rock-hewn facades of these two places, some of which are as early as the first century CE. The absence of any details that belong strictly to any of the Classical orders, and the likeness of certain features to those of early monuments in Hegra, might incline one to assign a somewhat early date in the second century to this West Gate. 

The drawings of mouldings on larger scale here given (M and N) are not of ordinary profiles, but they are dry and hard and uninteresting, and this is perhaps the result of attempting to execute details of rather small scale in a material so hard as basalt. 

(Text is told first hand by Howard Crosby Butler, who wrote the Syria series)

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4

[classicalmonuments]

Kalybe of Bosra (“Cradle of the King’s Daughter”)

Bostra (Bosra), Arabia, Syria

3rd century CE

A Kalybe (κάλὑβη) is a type of temple found in the Roman East dating from the first century and after. They were intended to serve as a "public facade or stage-setting, solely for the display of statuary." "They were essentially stage-sets for ritual enacted in front of them." The kalybe has been associated with the Imperial Cult.

The Kalybe of Bosra enjoys the most impressive location, as it stands at the intersection of the city's two main column streets. The Kalybe of Bosra has a  colonnaded plan with a semi-circular niche in the center, covered by a half-dome, and diagonal walls are stretched on both sides, followed by short, perpendicular walls. The open front of the Kalybe was 24.60 meters long and was bounded by two pillars. These were placed in front of pillasters, at both ends of the Kalybe front, on either side. In the center of the Kalybe was a semicircular niche, with smaller niches beside it. Two diagonal walls, guests five feet each, are drawn from the short walls along the sides of the central niche. In each of the two walls is a small semicircular niche and a pillaster, which complete the wide front of the Kalybe structure. The architectural decoration, which still remains in place, indicates an excellent level of workmanship. In view of the large number of decorative niches, which were arranged on the three floors of the building, it is conceivable that many statues adorned the Kalybe, in addition to the emperor's statue which was placed probably in the central niche.

According to local folklore, an unnamed monarch built the open-air temple with a cradle for his daughter around the second century after being told by a clairvoyant she would die before turning 18 from a poisonous scorpion sting. Once the cradle was built to protect her, slaves would carry food and everything else she needed up the columns. After a while, a deadly scorpion hiding in a bunch of grapes stung and killed her. 

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6