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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

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I hope everyone has had a good Easter and Passover (and any other holidays I have recently missed)! This week, I’d like to promote a recent publication on a topic that a lot of people have an interest in, whether for historical or collecting interests: architecture on Roman coins. Nathan Elkins, of Baylor University, has recently published a high-level academic study of the known monuments to appear on Roman coins complete with details about structures that are no longer standing and in depth analysis of those that are, like today’s coin, a denarius of Septimius Severus showing his arch in Rome. The arch still stands in the Roman forum, and provides us with insight about how die engravers translated physical, three-dimensional reality to the tiny tondo format of a coin. In the case of the arch, the coin can also be compared to the sculptural program on the arch itself, which has a different conception about the relationship between reality and depiction. I recommend this book to everyone, but if you can get your hands on a copy, this website has gathered a number of monuments on Roman coins and makes for a good starting place for those who would like to know more: <a href="http://www.romancoins.info/VIC-Buildings.html">http://www.romancoins.info/VIC-Buildings.html

#nathan Elkins #baylor #Roman forum #Roman architecture #septimius Severus #Roman arch