H07 Nimreh — basilica – 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), 24, fig. 22.

Summary information

Location
Description

The church at Nimreh follows the oblong shape, it also has six bays, much wider than those of the prototype, and appears to have terminated toward the east in an apse between side chambers; but the conditions are such at this end of the church that thorough examination is, for the time, impossible,
A distinct change is noticeable here, not only in the proportions of the ground plan, but in those of the superstructure. If the Section A-B in the plan is compared with the corresponding Section of the “Basilica” at Shakka or with that of the church at Tafha, it will be observed that the side aisles are narrower in proportion to the middle aisle, and that the arches, both upper and lower, which span the aisles, are higher and of more pleasing proportions. The supports in this church are exceedingly slender, especially when one considers the enormous weight of the arches and roof which they were designed to carry; yet more than half of them are in place after nearly sixteen hundred years.
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), 22–24.
Phasing
Bibliogaphy

Characteristics

Apse
- Inscribed mono-apsidal apse with rooms on both sides of the apse (presumed)
Chancel
- Unknown
Furnishings/decoration
- Not able to examine east end of the church
Flooring
- Unknown
Entrances
- One from the north
- One west entrance
- One exit from south aisle to tower? on west.
Annexed spaces
- Attached structures to the west
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