Kafr Lāb; Kefr Lāb; Kheurbet Kafer Lâb; Kaproliabōn kōmē Complete

Description

A village in Jabal Simʿān registered in TIB 15 on p. 1361 as Kaproliabōn kōmē. Also spelt: Kafr Lāb, Kefr Lāb, Kefr Lab, and Kheurbet Kafer Lâb. Klaus Peter Todt and Bernard Andreas Vest in TIB 15 provide a checklist of buildings. Notable structures include a one-aisled sixth-century church, and houses dating from Late Antiquity. The village existed, however, much earlier. A boundary stone has a date going back to the third century. This is also a monastic site but the inscription from the complex is of the eighth-century date. Literature (after TIB 15, p. 1361): TIB 15 – Todt, K.P., Vest, B.A., Tabula Imperii Byzantini, vol. 15 (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2014), p. 1361; H. C. Butler (ed.) Publications of the Princeton University Archaeological Expeditions to Syria in 1905–5 and 1909. Division II: Architecture, Section B: Northern Syria (Leiden: Brill, 1920), 287-288; Tchalenko, G. (ed.), Villages antiques de la Syrie du Nord: Le Massif du Bélus a l'époque romaine (Paris: P. Geuthner, 1953), vol. 1, 130, 153; 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. CLIV, CLV; Tchalenko, G. (ed.), Villages antiques de la Syrie du Nord: Le Massif du Bélus a l'époque romaine (Paris: P. Geuthner, 1958), vol. 3, 97, 121; Butler, H.C., Smith E.B., Early churches in Syria: fourth to seventh centuries (Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1969), 149; 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), 95, no. 3; Weber, Th. M., "Syrien, Ägypten und Aksum. Das 'sanctuaire carré' – eine Sondernform des Altarraumes in der frühchristlischen Sakralarchitektur Westasiens und Nordostafriaks", in: D. Kreikenbom et al. (ed.), Krise und Kult. Vorderer Orient und Nordafrika von Aurelian bis Justinian (Berlin–New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2010), 230, no. 2.27. Inscriptions: Syriac inscriptions: E. Littmann (ed.), Publications of the Princeton University Archaeological Expeditions to Syria in 1905–5 and 1909. Division IV: Semitic Inscriptions. Section B: Syriac Inscriptions (Leiden: Brill, 1934), no. 51 (Syriac inscription, dated 772/773 CE). Greek inscriptions: W.K. Prentice (ed.), Publications of the Princeton University Archaeological Expeditions to Syria in 1905–5 and 1909. Division III: Greek and Latin Inscriptions. Section B: Northern Syria (Leiden: Brill, 1922), 178, nos. 1165-1166 (one Greek, and one hardly legible inscription in Greek or another language, both from houses). Seyrig, H., "Inscriptions grecques", in: Tchalenko, G. (ed.), Villages antiques de la Syrie du Nord: Le Massif du Bélus a l'époque romaine (Paris: P. Geuthner, 1958), vol. 3, 8–9, No. 8a-c (Greek boundary stones, dated 298 CE).