Kafr Karmīn; Kefr-Kermin; Kafer Kermîne; Kaprokerameōn chōrion; Kpar Karmē Complete

Description

A village in Jabal Ḥalaqa registered in TIB 15 on p. 1360 as Kaprokerameōn chōrion. Also called: Kafr Karmīn, Kefr-Kermin, Kafer Kermîne, and Kpar Karmē. Surveys revealed houses, ruined walls - probably from a church, another church converted into a mosque, and a Roman road. This is also one of rare cases where we can clearly identify the religious adherence of the inhabitants. Klaus Peter Todt and Bernard Andreas Vest in TIB 15 point out that the village was remembered in literary sources as the place of slaughter of Chalcedonian pilgrim monks in 516 or 517 CE and that the site had a non-Chalcedonian ("Miaphysite") monastery in 569, with a monastic leader called Bassābā/Bar Sābā. Occupation of the site is also well attested after the twelfth century. Literature: TIB 15 – Todt, K.P., Vest, B.A., Tabula Imperii Byzantini, vol. 15 (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2014), p. 1360 (with further bibliography); Butler, H. C., Architecture and other Arts (Publications of an American Archaeological Expedition to Syria in 1899–1900 2, New York: Century, 1903), p. 58; Tchalenko, G. (ed.), Villages antiques de la Syrie du Nord: Le Massif du Bélus a l'époque romaine (Paris: P. Geuthner, 1953), vol 1, 152; Tchalenko, G. (ed.), Villages antiques de la Syrie du Nord: Le Massif du Bélus a l'époque romaine (Paris: P. Geuthner, 1958), vol. 3, 80–81, 98; Alpi, F., La route royale: Sévère d'Antioche et les églises d'Orient (512-518) (Beyrouth : Institut français du Proche-Orient: 2009), vol. 1, 232–233, 274, 331 Fig. 9 (landscape photo); Peña, I., Castellana, P., Fernandez, R., Les Reclus Syriens (Jerusalem: Franciscan Printing Press, 1980), 77, 283; Hadjar, A., The Church of St. Simeon the Stylite and other Archaeological Sites in the Mountains of Simenon and Halaqa, tr. P. J. Amash (Aleppo: , 2002), 131 no. 33. Syriac inscription: Jarry, J., “Inscriptions arabes, syriaques et grecques du massif du Bélus en Syrie du nord”, Annales islamologiques 7 (1967), 146, no. 11. Image from: Roman road, after H. C. Butler, Architecture and other Arts (Publications of an American Archaeological Expedition to Syria in 1899–1900 2, New York: Century, 1903), p. 58.