H04 Bosra — Church #3 – Northeast Insulae Project

Howard Crosby Butler, Early Churches in Syria: Fourth to Seventh Centuries, Princeton Monographs in Art and Archaeology (Princeton, N.J.: Department of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University, 1929), 119, fig.116.

Summary information

Location
Description

In the heart of the modern village of Bosra, among the walls of private houses and other buildings, may be traced the bare outline of a large basilical church. The nave alone was over 25 m. long. The apse was very wide and showed a part of its curve beyond the east walls of the two narrow side chambers; in this curve were five parallel windows. The openings between the side chambers and the aisles were arched. Only one pier of the nave is in place , this shows that there were three broad arches on either side of the nave; but, since three arches of equal width with the arch whose width is known would not carry the arcade to the point where the west wall is known to have been, one must assume either a narrow arch at the west ends of both arcades, as in many churches of Northeastern Syria, or an interior narthex at this point, The presence of modern buildings makes it impossible to clear up the matter.
Howard Crosby Butler, Early Churches in Syria: Fourth to Seventh Centuries, Princeton Monographs in Art and Archaeology (Princeton, N.J.: Department of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University, 1929), 119.
Phasing
Bibliogaphy

Characteristics

Apse
- Mono-apsidal apse with rooms on both sides of the apse
- Tri-apsidal usually inscribed
Chancel
- Apse only?
Furnishings/decoration
- None described
Flooring
- Not stated
Entrances
- One from the north, perhaps to the narthex
Annexed spaces
- Unknown
Baptistry (if present)
- None
Mulholland protocol
Constantinopolitan
- Protruding apse
- Entrances from the east on either side of the apse
- Π-shaped chancel
- Multiple entrances on all sides
- Ambo on the south
- Exterior chapel to the north
Syrian
- Π-shaped chancel
- Inscribed mono-apsidal
- Rooms on both sides of the apse
- West entrance
- Ambo on south
- Baptistry in room south of the apse or in the south aisle
- Separate south chapel
- South entrances from side rooms/chapels
Roman
- Τ-shaped or bar-shaped chancel
- Tri-apsidal usually inscribed
- Altars in the side apses
- Relics and Reliquaries
- Ambo to the north
- Baptistry outside off the atrium or the north aisle
- Marble furnishings (high status imperial association) and imported fine wares
- Decorative elements on chancel screens [specify]
- Separate north chapel
Syrian to Roman conversion
- Τ-shaped or bar-shaped chancel replacing Π-shaped chancel
- Side apses inserted into rooms adjacent to the main apse
- Separate north chapel (suppressed south chapel)
- Liturgical furniture with decorative motifs like those at St. Clemente in Rome