H07 Nimreh — basilica

Summary information

• Location

  GPS coordinates: 32.82609, 36.7092

  Coordinates are approximate.

• 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

  Not stated.

• Bibliogaphy

  Butler, Howard Crosby. 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.