Ḫurayba; Ḫreybé; Kreybé Complete

Description

A ruined village in Syria II registered in TIB 15 on pp. 1310–1311 as Ḫurayba. Also spelt: Ḫreybé and Kreybé. Our map gives an approximate location. This appears to be a typical fortified station on the road to Ruṣāfa. Early fourth-century epigraphical evidence which was found of site comes from other structures and was reused, probably when the fort was established to secure a safe passage of pilgrims from Emesa to the martyr shrine of Saint Sergius. This cult became popular only in the fifth century. The site was surveyed by Mazloum and Lauffray in 1942–1943. Based on their findings, Klaus Peter Todt and Bernard Andreas Vest in TIB 15 record a walled enclosure, probably a fort with two towers; five cisterns; two fragmentary lintels with a Greek and a Syriac inscription. Literature: TIB 15 – Todt, K.P., Vest, B.A., Tabula Imperii Byzantini, vol. 15 (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2014), p. 1310–1311 (with further bibliography); Mouterde, R., Poidebard, A., Le limes de Chalcis. Organisation de la steppe en haute Syrie romaine (Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geutner, 1945), 139–140, 200–201, 216, 227. Inscriptions: Mouterde & Poidebard 1945, 140 (from Mazloum and Lauffray's report) and Fig. 14. Cf. Mouterde & Poidebard 1945, 227 (Syriac inscription, name). Mouterde & Poidebard 1945, 216, no. 54 (from Mazloum and Lauffray’s report). Cf. Mouterde & Poidebard 1945, 140, 200, 227; TIB 15, p. 1310–1311 (Greek inscription of Bellichos, son of Libanios, early fourth century, probably polytheistic).