rock-cut chamber Complete
ID: 97
Building type: oil press
Context:
funerary; monastery; tomb
Description:
In the jabal, to the south of the monastery there is a hollow chamber cut directly in the rock-face. One of the walls has traces of a niche for mounting a beam. According to the surveyors from Butler's AAES and Tchalenko's expedition, it was originally a polytheistic tomb, in Late Antiquity converted into an oil press. This reuse of the tomb could have been authorized by the monastery. The Greek and two Syriac inscriptions are carved inside the chamber, on the south wall, to the right of the entrance. The Greek inscription is much earlier, it belongs to the period of the use of the chamber for funerary purposes. See: Butler, H.C., Architecture and other Arts (Publications of an American Archaeological Expedition to Syria in 1899–1900 2, New York: Century, 1903), p. 269; Tchalenko, G. (ed.), Villages antiques de la Syrie du Nord: Le Massif du Bélus a l'époque romaine (Paris: P. Geuthner, 1953), vol. 1, 153; Tchalenko, G. (ed.), Villages antiques de la Syrie du Nord: Le Massif du Bélus a l'époque romaine (Paris: P. Geuthner, 1958), vol. 3, 100.