PH04 Qabr Hirem – St. Christopher church

Summary information

• Location

  GPS coordinates: 33.22615, 35.27404

  Coordinates are approximate.

• Description

  The small basilica was located in a group numerous outbuildings and formed a rectangle with an atrium or porch to the west and a tripartite room almost the same width as the church to the east. The basilica, oriented west to east (notably, the original plans had no directional indicator), included three naves of six bays separated by colonnades each ending in an eastern apse. The north aisle was slightly narrower than the south probably because of adaptation to pre-existing neighboring buildings. The center and eastern part of the nave were delimited by the enclosure of the low choir which opens towards the east and two bays long, just like the podium which it precedes and which ends in a deep and narrow apse. Three doorways to the church are known, one at center of the west facade, a second in the south wall at the location of the second intercolumniation, the third almost opposite in the north facade.

  Pauline Donceel-Voûte and Bernadette Gillain, Les pavements des églises byzantines de Syrie et du Liban: Volume I : Décor, archéologie et liturgie, Publications d’histoire de l’art et d’archéologie de l’université catholique de Louvain 69 (Institut Supérieur d’archéologie et d’histoire de l’art Collège Érasme, 1988), 411

  The church, which was perhaps preceded by a narthex or a vestibule, measures in total approximately 24 m x 12 m. The domus (approximately 14.50 m x 10.70 m) has three accesses, one axial (width 1.27 m) and two lateral. The north door was decorated with an appropriate inscription on its threshold.

  There are three naves and six bays by two rows of support columns placed at irregular intervals. The two aisles are unequal (2.90 m and 2.60 m up to the axis of the colonnades). The proportion between the central nave (approximately 5 m between axes) and the side aisles is classic as is the average intercolumniation, which varies from 2.30 m to 2.60 m.

  The plan of the apse with three inscribed apses (less wide than the naves: 2.50 m and 1.50 m) is well attested to the Byzantine period in the East. A problem arises regarding the arrangement shown on the plan and on the section at the bottom of the central apse: the architect crossed the entire thickness of the wall with two parallel lines approximately 80 cm apart, but “pocketed” the interval; on the axial section, the masonry is flat at this location and located at a level slightly higher (20 cm?) than the preceding step. Theoretically, one can hesitate between a door and the base of an episcopal pulpit. But this would not occupy the entire thickness of the wall and would probably be linked to a presbyteral bench, which does not appear on the plan. Despite the rarity of this provision, we must therefore think of a door pierced at the bottom of the apse to communicate the church and the presumed baptistry, which would otherwise have no direct connection with the basilica.

  The apse is extended by a group of three rooms communicating via large bays, which form a rectangle a little narrower than the church itself (10.70 m). There is a resemblance of the plan to others where the baptistery occupies the same location: Amwas-Emmaüs in Palestine and a whole series of sites in Africa. The separation into three rooms is  communicated either by a large door, by a colonnade, or by a large arch. An excavation would therefore undoubtedly have revealed a baptismal font in the center. The only reservation comes from the location of the accesses in general this type of complex is made for transverse circulation and therefore normally has a door at each end.

  Noël Duval, “Note sur l’eglise de Kabr Hiram (Liban) et ses installations liturgiques,” Cahiers Archeologiques – fin de l’Antiquite et Moyen Age 26 (1977): 81-82, 84.

  The pavement was executed in mosaics throughout the south aisle, throughout the nave and inside the barrier of chancel of the low choir, as well as in the north aisle to the penultimate bay. The pavement of the last bay of this aisle and the apses is in marble slabs (likely); unfigured mosaics paved the intercolumniations running along the choir. There remained only loose earth in the raised choir delimited by a stone border; It may have had a surface of plain paving or also plates of marble.

  Pauline Donceel-Voûte and Bernadette Gillain, Les pavements des églises byzantines de Syrie et du Liban: Volume I : Décor, archéologie et liturgie, Publications d’histoire de l’art et d’archéologie de l’université catholique de Louvain 69 (Institut Supérieur d’archéologie et d’histoire de l’art Collège Érasme, 1988), 411

  This church floor is very obviously one of the most stunning known in the Lebanese regionb. The choice of figured themes connects this floor with mosaics of Phoenicia, Palestine and Transjordan on which scenes of domestic life, hunting, work fields are collected, often alongside representations months and seasons. The winds, too represented – a rare occurrence elsewhere – are only represented for amplify the content of the other figures and designate the passage of time.

  This pavement an iconographic program represents the sensitive universe. But the formal organizing scheme in rows of medallions and small aligned panels does not correspond, however, to an organization that is theoretical or systematic, or comprehensive. The personifications, seasons, months and winds are gathered together center of the aisles, following only the order of the calendar. The nave of the building of worship fails in fact to provide the clearly readable image of the terrestrial world to which authors of the Eastern Church compare it sometimes. It is a collection of pieces chosen where only one or the other component, here the personifications, have been subject to some reorganization.

  Pauline Donceel-Voûte and Bernadette Gillain, Les pavements des églises byzantines de Syrie et du Liban: Volume I : Décor, archéologie et liturgie, Publications d’histoire de l’art et d’archéologie de l’université catholique de Louvain 69 (Institut Supérieur d’archéologie et d’histoire de l’art Collège Érasme, 1988), 417.

• Phasing

  The inscription in the second choir reads:

  “All the mosaic work of the church illustrates and highly venerated martyr Saint Christopher was executed under the archdeacon and chorbishop Georgios very friend of God and under the deacon and administrator Kyros, very friend of God, for the salvation of the thrifters and laborers of both domains and for that of their children, and of the clergy and benefactors, at the time of the very pious Zaccharias, very priest humble, in the month of Daisios, of the year 701, ninth of the indiction.”

  Pauline Donceel-Voûte and Bernadette Gillain, Les pavements des églises byzantines de Syrie et du Liban: Volume I : Décor, archéologie et liturgie, Publications d’histoire de l’art et d’archéologie de l’université catholique de Louvain 69 (Institut Supérieur d’archéologie et d’histoire de l’art Collège Érasme, 1988), 411

  The date must be calculated according to the era of Tyre, the nearest large city, to the north, of Qabr Hiram; it corresponds to the year 575 AD, calculated according to the city’s own era; the month of Daisios, according to the calendar specific to the city of Tyre, goes from June 19 to July 20, but corresponds to the month of May according to the Macedonian calendar. The paleographic unity of the three inscriptions of the church, the remarkable coherence of the organizing scheme as well as the execution of the motifs, and their relationship with contemporary groups allow us to accept the date of completion in 575 AD for the entire pavement given by the choir inscription.

  Pauline Donceel-Voûte and Bernadette Gillain, Les pavements des églises byzantines de Syrie et du Liban: Volume I : Décor, archéologie et liturgie, Publications d’histoire de l’art et d’archéologie de l’université catholique de Louvain 69 (Institut Supérieur d’archéologie et d’histoire de l’art Collège Érasme, 1988), 417.

• Bibliogaphy

  Donceel-Voûte, Pauline, and Bernadette Gillain. Les pavements des églises byzantines de Syrie et du Liban: Volume I : Décor, archéologie et liturgie. Publications d’histoire de l’art et d’archéologie de l’université catholique de Louvain 69. Institut Supérieur d’archéologie et d’histoire de l’art Collège Érasme, 1988.

  Duval, Noël. “Note sur l’eglise de Kabr Hiram (Liban) et ses installations liturgiques.” Cahiers Archeologiques – fin de l’Antiquite et Moyen Age 26 (1977): 81–104.