Bāšakūḥ; Bašakuḥ; Bashakouḥ; Bashkuh Complete

Description

A ruined village in Jabal Bārīšā registered in TIB 15 on pp. 987–988 as Bāšakūḥ. Also spelt: Bašakuḥ, and Bashakouḥ. This late antique village lies in the centre of the Limestone Massif and is very similar to other settlements in the region. Klaus Peter Todt and Bernard Andreas Vest in TIB 15 list 29 individual houses. Common infrastructure includes a community building (andron). There are other finds which point to economic (oil presses), and religious activities: tombs, a monastery with a small oratory housing a sarcophagus and a reliquary: possibly remnants of an ascetic's tomb. Todd and Vest accept the supposition of surveyors that like a number of other settlements in this region, it may have developed from an earlier Roman villa. Literature: TIB 15 – Todt, K.P., Vest, B.A., Tabula Imperii Byzantini, vol. 15 (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2014), 987–988; Butler, H.C., Architecture and other Arts (Publications of an American Archaeological Expedition to Syria in 1899–1900 2, New York: Century, 1903), 171, 253. Tchalenko, G. (ed.), Villages antiques de la Syrie du Nord: Le Massif du Bélus a l'époque romaine (Paris: P. Geuthner, 1953), vol. 1, 29 note 2; 38 note 1, 153, 312, 384; vol. 2, LIV, LXXXIX, XCIII, CLII, CLIII; vol. 3, 88; Peña, I., Castellana, P., Fernandez, R., Les Reclus Syriens (Jerusalem: Franciscan Printing Press, 1980), 217–218; Peña, I., Castellana, P., Fernandez, R., Les cénobites syriens (Jerusalem: Franciscan Printing Press, 1980), 42, 46, 49, 55, 263–264; Tate, G., Les campagnes de la Syrie du Nord (Beirut: Presses de l’Ifpo, 2013), 40, 77, 100, 107, 117 (fig. 170), 118, 207, 254, 319. Syriac inscriptions: Jarry, J., ‘Inscriptions arabes, syriaques et grecques du massif du Bélus en Syrie du nord [avec 42 planches]’, Annales Islamologiques 7 (1967), 152, no. 21 (one word, doubtful reading). Jarry, J., ‘Inscriptions arabes, syriaques et grecques du massif du Bélus en Syrie du nord [avec 42 planches]’, Annales Islamologiques 7 (1967), 151–152, no. 20 (one word, doubtful reading). Greek inscriptions: Jarry, J., ‘Inscriptions arabes, syriaques et grecques du massif du Bélus en Syrie du nord [avec 42 planches]’, Annales Islamologiques 7 (1967), 183–184, no. 105 = IGLS II 573 (invocation on behalf of Ioannes, son of Symeonios, a donation); Prentice, W.K. (ed.), Greek and Latin Inscriptions (Publications of an American archaeological expedition to Syria in 1899-1900 3, New York: Century 1908), 66 no. 45 = IGLS II 574 (hardli legible, names, clerics?) Plan after Tchalenko, G. (ed.), Villages antiques de la Syrie du Nord: Le Massif du Bélus a l'époque romaine (Paris: P. Geuthner, 1953), vol. 2, Pl. XCIII.