Temple of Brekeh
Brekeh(بريكة ), Hauran, Syria
Roman period
The temple of Brekeh was an Prostyle Ionic Tetrastyle temple with a Syrian arch.
“this is a small temple in the northeastern part of the village. It is now abandoned, though it appears to have been converted into a mosque at some distant date, when its front wall which had fallen was roughly rebuilt, and a crude niche was erected against its south wall. The podium of the temple, although partly buried, is all in place, with its steps in front and the sloping side walls which bounded them on either side. The cella (Ill. 352) measures about 8.80 m. by 9.90 m. outside; there are four pilasters on either side, three in the rear, and four in the front, or east, wall, where the two which flank the broad doorway are narrower than those at the ends. The porch is very narrow, being only 2.30 m. deep, while the cap of the podium has a broad projection of 30 cm. beyond the bases of the pilasters. The little building was constructed with great care and skill. It is a complete ruin, though its rear wall is preserved to the top of the pilaster-caps, and its side walls vary in height from the same level at the rear to three or four meters at their east ends; while the front wall preserves only the lower courses of the pilasters and of the door jambs. The interior of the cella shows highly finished walls, quite plain except at the west end where the concha of a shallow niche, 1.50 m. wide, has been torn out, leaving only the lower courses of two coupled pilasters on either side. There are many fragments of architectural details lying inside and outside of the temple, such as the bases, shafts, and capitals of columns of one larger and two smaller orders, sections of the cornice both straight and curved, voussoirs of a large arch, and all the parts of two niches which flanked the doorway. With the aid of these fragments the restoration of the temple is a simple task. None of the columns of the porch is in situ ·, but it is plain that there were four, and that the middle space was arcuated. Their places may be accurately determined by placing their bases upon the edge of the porch, one opposite each of the pilasters (Ill. 352). The order used was the Ionic (Pl. XXIX), and the standing pilasters give the height of the columns. The columns of the porch were elevated upon sub-plinths with paneled sides, the bases are of the Attic type, and the shafts are unfluted. One of the angle-capitals is shown in a drawing to scale in Ill. 352, the other capitals were of the common type.
architrave consists of two bands separated by a slender reed, the lower band is very narrow, and the cymatium is of an unusual type, consisting of a simple cyma-reversa, as may be seen in the drawing (Ill. 352) of a voussoir from the arcuated part of the architrave. The frieze was quite plain, and could be detected in the ruins only by the presence of those parts of it which belonged to the arcuated entablature. The cornice was denticulated, but it is too badly broken to be reproduced in a drawing. It was found that the cyma of the cornice was separated from the corona and dentils on the east façade, the former taking the lines of the gable, the latter following the arch. The two exterior niches are represented by four heavy and very salient brackets, one of which is in place, by pieces of the stone-coursing cut with parts of the curve of a niche and with sections of coupled three-quarter columns, bases, and Ionic capitals, and by two large blocks each cut to form the concha, the arcuated entablature, and the gable of a niche. One of these niches is represented in a scale drawing in Ill. 352, and they are shown in place in the restoration (Pl. XXIX), where it will be observed there is no room to spare between the pilasters and the niches. In the interior were found sections of the plain shafts and capitals of Ionic columns of an order slightly smaller than those of the porch. It is probable that these divided the interior and supported the roof; but excavations would be necessary to determine their number, and where they stood. It was interesting to find that the capitals of these columns had four similar faces, like the upper part of a Composite capital. I made no drawings of these capitals; but the outer angle of the exterior corner capital which is shown in Ill. 352, if reproduced all the way around, would present a very exact picture of one of these interior capitals. The great niche in the west wall, only the lower courses of which are preserved, is 1.52 m. wide, and only 60 cm. deep. It is flanked by coupled pilasters. The great concha which crowned the niche had the form of one quarter of a hollow sphere, and its projection beyond the niche which is less than a semicircle, together with the heavy mouldings and the pediment above them, were carried on two pairs of columns to which the coupled pilasters were responds. Thus the great niche of the interior and the smaller exterior niches were all reproductions on small scale of the east façade of the temple itself. The great concha of the interior niche fell from its place in the wall when its supporting columns were removed, and it was later intentionally broken up; a small part of it being taken for the erection of the mihrab which the Moslems built against the south wall of the cella. The style of this little building would indicate a rather late date. The Ionic capitals with the flat bands which describe their volutes and the rather dry, stiff carving suggest the order of the street colonnades of Bosra, which belong probably to the time of Severus Alexander, rather than that of the temple at Hebran which is dated in the reign of Antoninus Pius. Many of the projecting mouldings which would be expected to be curved, like the upper and lower numbers of the pilaster bases (cf. Ill. 352), are simply chamfered; but all the carving and the stonework have the highest finish, which shows that technical skill had not yet begun to decline in the Hauran.”
(Text is told first hand by Howard Crosby Butler, who wrote the Syria series)
Sources: 1, 2
