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, al-Malik al-Manṣūr Nāṣir al-Dīn Ibrāhīm b. al-Malik al-Mud̲j̲āhid Asad al-Dīn S̲h̲īrkūh II, cousin of Salāḥ al-Dīn (Saladin), succeeded his father S̲h̲īrkūh [ q.v.], prince of Aleppo and Damascus, in Rad̲j̲ab 637/January-February 1240. When he became master of the province of Ḥimṣ, to which at that time there belonged Tadmur, Raḥba and Māksīn, the pressure of the K̲h̲uwārizmians in northern Syria was very great. When Ibrāhīm learned of the defeat of the Aleppan army at Buzāʿa in Rabīʿ II 638/October-November 1240, h…

, the name of the members of the Banū ʿAsākir family, eminent figures who for almost two centuries, from 470 to 660/1077-1261, held an important position in the history of the town of Damascus and produced a dynasty of S̲h̲āfiʿī scholars. Among the most illustrious members of this remarkable family it is fitting to mention al-Ḥasan b. Hibat Allāh, who was born in 470/1077 and died at Damascus in 519/1125. A grammarian and juris-consult of note, he allied himself by marriage to the family of the Banū Kurās̲h̲ī, which traced its ancestry back to the Umayyads and which included numerous ḳāḍīs …

, the Compass Dial, mediaeval fortress in Palestine whose name has been corrupted into “Coquet” by the Frankish authors who also cite it by the name of Belvoir. Constructed not far from Mount Tabor (al-Ṭūr) on a promontory 297 m above the Valley of the Jordan and situated 4 km to the south of the Lake of Tiberias and 14 km to the north of Baysān [ q.v.], a watchpost in the G̲h̲awr, it controlled the province of ¶ the Jordan and guarded the fords into Galilee, notably below the confluence of the Yarmūk, the D̲j̲isr al-Mad̲j̲āmiʿ (Bridge of the Confluence). The castle presents a plan of Byzantine…

, a place in western Syria, situated in the D̲j̲abal Bahrāʾ region. This last becomes lower as it falls southwards, with a large gap commanded to the north by Ṣāfīt̲h̲a and Ḥiṣn al-Akrād [ q.v.] and to the south by ʿAkkār and ʿIrḳa [ q.vv.]. The mountains of the ʿAlawīs fall southwards into the Ṣāfīt̲h̲a depression. Ṣāfīt̲h̲a was the ’Αργυρόκστρων of Byzantine authors, Castrum Album or Chastel Blanc of the ¶ Latin ones, and is the main place in the district, with its fortress called in Arabic texts Burd̲j̲ Ṣāfit̲h̲a; this last lies to the eas…

or Bécharré, one of the oldest villages in northern Lebanon, 1400 metres above sea-level. It is situated at the bottom of an amphitheatre at the entrance to the Ḳadīs̲h̲a gorge, a hollow ravine of many caves and hermitages, where traces of very ancient monastic settlements are to be found. The Arab geographers refer to the district under the name of D̲j̲ubbat Bs̲h̲arrīyya or Bs̲h̲arrā. At the time of the Crusades it was one of the fiefs of the County of Tripoli, under the name of Buissera. A stronghold of the Maronite mountain, it depended under the Mamlūk domination from the niyāba …

, an ancient town and military district in Syria; the name is of Aramaic origin and appears as Kennes̲h̲rīn in the Syriac texts. Composed of ḳinnā “nest” and nasrīn “of eagles”, it is mentioned in the Babylonian Talmud in the form of Kannis̲h̲rayyā and the European historians of the Middle Ages called the area Canestrine. A distinction must be drawn between the town and the d̲j̲und . 1. The town. At the present day, Ḳinnasrīn is nothing more than a little village surrounded by ruins, a day’s journey to the south of Aleppo, on the right bank of the Ḳuwayḳ which …

(a.) meant, in the Umayyad period, a residence in the countryside (whence the verb tabaddā ), an estate in the environs of a settlement or a rural landed property in the Syro-Jordanian steppeland. For Musil, the bādiya was the successor to the summer encampment called by the old Syrian Bedouin name of al-ḥīra . At the opening of the 20th century, the sense was restricted by archaeologists to the desert castles. They went so far as to construct theories about the attraction of the Bedouin way of life for the Umayyads and about the conservatory role…

, an ancient town of Syria which was situated to the north-east of Aleppo. It appears that an urban settlement with the name Nappigi or Nampīgi existed on this site in the Assyrian period. In the time of Shalmaneser, it was known as Lita As̲h̲ūr, The Syriac appears to refer back to the Assyrian root; in fact the name became Mabbog or Mambog which signifies “gushing water”, linked, according to Yāḳūt, to the root nabad̲j̲a . “to gush”, which would hardly be surprising in a region of abundant springs. The following spellings are encountered: in the …

, a word of Persian origin designating on the one hand a staging-post and lodging [see also manzil ] on the main communication routes, on the other a warehouse, later a hostelry [see also funḍuḳ ] in the more important urban centres. I. The highway k̲h̲ān. The economic functions served by this institution have changed little from the Middle Ages to the present day. It had its roots in the beginnings of organised highway trade in the earliest times, but it flourished with particular vigour in the Islamic world. The K̲h̲ān was born of the need to ensure safe lodgi…

, name given in Syria to abundantly irrigated areas of intense cultivation surrounded by arid land. A g̲h̲ūṭa is produced by the co-operative activity of a rural community settled near to one or several perennial springs, whose water is used in a system of canalization to irrigate several dozen or several hundred acres. Each g̲h̲ūṭa has its own particular system of irrigation based on cycles of varying length. The soil in a g̲h̲ūṭa is usually laid out in platforms which form terraces of watered zones, the level sections of which are supported by stone walls two to s…

, Ḳuṭb al-Dīn , Atabeg [see atabak ] of al-Mawṣil. ʿImād al-Dīn Zankī, on his death on 6 Rabīʿ II 541/15 September 1146, left four heirs: of these Mawdūd b. ʿImād al-Dīn Zankī, Ḳuṭb al-Dīn al-Aʿrad̲j̲, the youngest of his sons, was only sixteen years old. The eldest, Sayf al-Dīn G̲h̲āzī represented his father at al-Mawsīl of which Zankī [ q.v.] held only the usufruct; the second son, Nūr al-Dīn Maḥmūd [ q.v.], twenty-nine years old, accompanied his father in his campaigns; the third, Nuṣrat al-Dīn Amīr-Amīrān was named as heir presumptive when the former was ill, in…

, D̲j̲eblé, Lat. Gabala, Fr. Gibel, Zibel (not to be confused with Giblet-Ḏj̲oubayl) is a small port on the Syrian coast, situated 30 km. to the south of al-Lād̲h̲iḳiya, facing the island of Ruwad; it is one of the termini of the main road from K̲h̲urāsān, through the valley of the ʿAya al-S̲h̲arḳī in contact with D̲j̲abal Bahirā and G̲h̲āb, where there are roads towards Apamée and Aleppo. This town was an important commercial centre from the time of the Phoenicians, a Dorian colony in the 5th century B.C. and then a prosperous Roman town, surrounded by a coasta…

or baradān , the ancient Cydnus, now D̲j̲ayhūn, a river rising in Cappadocia, which flows towards the West, irrigates the gardens near Marʿas̲h̲ and those of Ṭarsūs, brings down alluvial deposits to the low-lying plain of Cilicia and empties into the sea on the Western side of the Gulf of Alexandretta. In ancient times, small ships sailed up it as far as Ṭarsūs. (N. Elisséeff) Bibliography Masʿūdī, Murūd̲j̲, i, 264 Yāḳūt, i, 389, iii, 526 Le Strange, Palestine under the Moslems, 63, 378, 419 Cl. Cahen, La Syrie du Nord, 146-151.

(currently written Beyrouth or Beirut), capital of the Lebanese Republic, situated 33° 54′ lat. N. and 35° 28′ Long. E., is spread at first on the north face of a promontory, of which it now occupies almost the entire surface. The etymology of the name, long disputed, is no doubt derived from the Hebrew beʾerot , plural of beʾer , (well), the only local means of water supply until the Roman period. As a human habitat the site is prehistoric, traces of the Acheulian and Levalloisian periods ¶ having been found there. It is as a port on the Phoenician coast that the agglomeration ap…

, a town of central Syria on the eastern side of the D̲j̲abal al-Nuṣayriyya situated at 33 miles/54 km to the east of Bāniyās [ q.v.] and 28 miles/45 km to the east of Ḥamāt [ q.v.], in long. 36° 35’ E. and lat. 35° N., in the massif of the D̲j̲abal Anṣāriyya at the foot of the eastern slopes of the D̲j̲abal Baḥrāʾ, at an altitude of 1,591 ft./485 m. and to the west of the great trench of the fault of the G̲h̲āb [ q.v.]. The pronunciation and orthography of the name varies between the forms Maṣyād , Maṣyāf (in official documents and on the inscriptions mentioned below of the years 646 and 870 A.H.), Maṣyāt and M…

(or bat̲h̲rūn ), Graeco-Roman Bostrys and the Boutron of the Crusaders; a small t o w n on the Lebanese coast, situated 56 kms. north of Bayrūt; it witnessed the passage of all the armies of conquest, covering as it does the Bayrūt-Ṭarābulūs road to the south of the precipitons promontary of Rās S̲h̲aḳḳa (Theouprosôpon). According to a tradition cited by Josephus ( Antiq . viii, 3, 52), it was apparently founded by Ithobaal, king of Tyre. In reality it is of much older origin and is mentioned in the Tell al-ʿAmarna letters (15th century…

(the “Citadel of the Rock”) is the Crusaders’ castle of Beaufort. It is also known by the name of S̲h̲aḳīf ʿArnūn. On the testimony of the Arab authors, Yāḳūt among others, it was long believed that ʿArnūn was the Arabic transcription of the name Arnould, a Frank said to have been lord of the region. In fact, it is a toponym which occurs even in the Bible (Joshua, XII, 1); its position to the west of the Jordan indicates that it corresponds to the present village of ʿArnūn which, in former times, marked the frontier of the land of Moab. From the earliest remains it may be supposed that a ¶ military sett…

, a small town in North Syria (lat. 36° 01′ N., long. 36° 40′ E.). It is 40 km. to the north of Maʿarrat al-Nuʿmān [ q.v.], 50 km. south-west of Aleppo or Ḥalab [ q.v.] and 12 km. north-west of Sarmīn. It owes its importance to its position between the districts of the Rūd̲j̲, the D̲j̲azr and the D̲j̲abal al-Summāḳ and formerly served as the market for this region which the road from Ḥalab to Armanāz traverses, a route used in the Middle Ages by the Turkomans. Its role has devolved today on Idlib. The land, although poorly watere…

(Latin Emesa, French and English Homs, Turkish Humus), town in Syria (36° E. and 34° 20′ N.) 500 m above sea level on the eastern bank of the Orontes (Nahr al-ʿĀṣī), in the centre of a vast cultivated plain which is bounded in the east by the desert and in the west by volcanic mountains. Situated at the entrance to a depression between the mountains of Lebanon and the D̲j̲abal Anṣāriyya, Ḥimṣ benefits from the climatic influences of the sea which come …

Umayyad castle in the Syrian desert at 60 km. SSW of Palmyra (Tadmur [ q.v.]) on the track connecting this oasis to Damascus via Ḳaryatayn and the one leading from Ḥimṣ [ q.v.] to al-Ḏj̲awf [ q.v.] through the pass of Harbaka. The whole of the Umayyad ruins include a ḥammām , a k̲h̲ān , a large garden ( bustān ), a zone of cultivable lands irrigated by canalizations connected with a birka and with the Roman dam of Harbaḳa, and a residential palace which occupies an important place in the history of Umayyad architecture and environment in the Near East. Before the organization of this bādiya [ q.v.], s…

, the name of a pre-Islamic site famous for its abundant water and shady gardens, and often celebrated by Damascene poets who discovered This name in Ḥassān b. T̲h̲ābit. It was there that the G̲h̲assānid princes of the Ḏj̲afnid branch venerated the tomb of one of their ancestors, and that they built what was, with the exception of D̲j̲ābiya [ q.v.], the most renowned of their dwellings. It was also no doubt the principal, if not permanent, place of encampment for their troops. About twelve kilometres south of Damascus, the place became a bādiya [see ḥīra ] to which Ya…

, Zankid or Zangid sultan and successor to Zankī (d. 565/1174), who was murdered during the siege of Ḳalʿat D̲j̲aʿbar [ q.v.] in Rabīʿ I 541/September 1146. The succession posed a series of problems since there were four heirs: Sayf al-Dīn G̲h̲āzī, the eldest, represented his father at Mawṣil [ q.v.], the second son, Nūr al-Dīn Maḥmūd, had accompanied his father in the majority of his military operations, the third, Nuṣrat al-Dīn Amīr-Amīrān, was to be governor of Ḥarrān [ q.v.], the fourth son, Ḳuṭb al-Dīn Mawdūd [ q.v.] was to succeed his eldest brother at Mawṣil. There was also …

, the Edrei of the Bible, to-day Derʿa, chief town of Ḥawrān, 106 km. south of Damascus. Situated on the borderline between a basaltic region and the desert, the town, formerly renowned for its wine and oil, was always a great market for cereals and an important centre of trade routes. Before the Assyrian conquest (732 B.C.) the kingdoms of Damascus and Israel contended for it; some scholars have identified it with the Aduri of the Amarna tablets. The capital of Batanea, Adraa was taken by Antio…

, Muʿān , a town of the south of Jordan, lying in lat. 30° 12′ N. and long. 35° 44′ E. at an altitude of 3,523 ft./1,074 m., and the chef-lieu of the governorate which is to the south of the Karak [ q.v.] one and to the east of the Wādī ʿAraba. The name is said to come from Maʿān, son of Lot. The town is surrounded by gardens which form an oasis of the western fringe of the desert plain; to its east are the slopes of the al-S̲h̲arāt mountain chain of granite and porphyry, which rise to 5,665 ft./1,727 m. In Maʿan itself and the neighbourhood are many springs…

, Greek Μασχάνη, from the Syriac Maškenē (cf. Pauly-Wissowa, xiv/1, col. 2963), a small town, now a village, in the northern part of Syria. The name is mentioned by Stephanus of Byzantium in regard to the war of Septimius Severus against the Parthians in 224 A.D. The Arabic geographers and chroniclers of the Middle Ages only mention Bālis [ q.v.] in this region, situated 4 km./2½ miles to the south-east of Maskana. The place is situated in long. 38° 05′ N. and 36° lat. E. at about 100 km./63 miles to the east of Ḥalab [ q.v.] or Aleppo on a Pleistocene terrace which forces the Euphrates (al-Furāt [ q.v…

(a., pl. manāzil ), noun of place and time from the root n - z - l, which expresses the idea of halting, a temporary stay, thence stage of a journey. 1. In the central and western Islamic lands. In the Ḳurʾān (X,5; XXXVII, 39), it appears only in the plural, designating the lunar mansions ( manāzil [ q.v.]). Manzil may also be a stage in the spiritual journey of the soul, in the mystical initiation, see e.g. in the title of ʿAbd Allāh al-Anṣārī al-Harawi’s K. Manāzil al-sāʾirīn . According to the LA, it is the place where one halts ( mawḍiʿ al-nuzūl ), where the traveller dismounts after a day’s march ( mar…

, a place in Ifrīḳiya whose site has been identified as the place called D̲j̲adīda. Under the Ag̲h̲labids [ q.v.] it was the chief town of the administrative district of the peninsula of Cape Bon or D̲j̲azīrat S̲h̲arīk [ q.v.], which al-Idrīsī ( Opus geographicum , 293, 302) calls moreover D̲j̲azīrat Bas̲h̲s̲h̲ū. In the 4th/10th century, it was “an extensive and fertile region”, concerning which Ibn Ḥawḳal (tr. Kramers-Wiet, 69-70) further says: “... The tax yield and the population are both numerous. A small province…

, the plain stretching from the south of the G̲h̲ūṭa and falling within the administrative district of Damascus ( arḍ Dimas̲h̲ḳ ). It holds an important position in the history of Syria because of the many battles occurring there over the centuries and the frequent crossings of it by pilgrims. It provides a convenient stopping place south of Damascus, and because of the good water supply there and excellent grazing, it makes an ideal encampment for any army travelling from the north or the south. To the north it is bounded by the right bank of the Nahr al-Aʿwad̲j̲, which drops d…

, the name of a plain near Damascus famous in Islamic history on account of the battles which took place there. According to Ibn Ḥawḳal, “a mard̲j̲ is a wide expanse of land with numerous estates where large ¶ and small cattle and beasts are raised”. For M. Canard ( H’amdânides , 204), a mard̲j̲ is “the place where agriculture and gardens cease to be found”. Beyond the mard̲j̲ lies the ḥamād , the sterile terrain. Mard̲j̲ is a term which, in reference to Damascus, denotes a semicircular zone situated between the G̲h̲ūṭa [ q.v.] and the marches of ʿUṭayba and Ḥid̲j̲d̲j̲āna, and the desert…

, Dimas̲h̲ḳ al-S̲h̲ām or simply al-S̲h̲ām , (Lat. Damascus, Fr. Damas) is the largest city of Syria. It is situated at longitude 36° 18′ east and latitude 33° 30′ north, very much at the same latitude as Bag̲h̲dād and Fās, at an altitude of nearly 700 metres, on the edge of the desert at the foot of Diabal Ḳāsiyūn, one of the massifs of the eastern slopes of the Anti-Lebanon. To the east and the north-east the steppe extends as far as the Euphrates, while to the south it merges with Arabia. A hundred or more kilometres from the Mediterranean behind the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, a doubl…

(a dialectal contraction of Bayt al-Dīn derived from the Syriac Bēt̲h̲-Dīnā), a place with 800 inhabitants, situated 800 ms. above sea-level and 45 kms. from Bayrūt; the terraces surrounding it grow chiefly vines and olives. Bteddīn constitutes with Dayr al-Ḳamar, a Maronite administrative enclave in the Druze region of S̲h̲ūf. It owes its fortune to the fact that the amīr Bas̲h̲ir II S̲h̲ihāb [ q.v.] (1788-1840) chose it as his residence in 1807 and brought the water of the Safa there by means of a viaduct between 1812 and 1815. Hence a certain number of ad…

, chef-lieu of a ḳaḍāʾ of North Syria comprising the southern half of the D̲j̲abal Zāwiya, which consists of the ¶ southern part of the Be lus massif with numerous villages. Maʿarrat al-Nuʿmān, famous as the birthplace of the blind poet al-Maʿarrī [ q.v.], is situated at about 500 m. altitude, in lat. 35° 38′ N. and long. 36° 40′ E. Falling within northern Phoenicia, two days’ journey to the south of Ḥalab or Aleppo (70 km.), it is situated on the eastern fringe of a massif rich in archaeologic…

, a fortress situated on the Syrian coast. The name of al-Markab, from the root raḳaba “observe, watch”, denotes any elevated site from which it is possible to see and observe,’ such as the summit of a mountain, of a fortified castle or of a watch-tower ( LA, ed. Beirut 1955, i, 424-8; Yāḳūt, ¶ ed. Beirut 1957, v, 108-9). Arab authors generally call this stronghold al-Marḳab; also found are Ḳalʿat Marḳab and Ḥiṣn Marḳab. There are also Arabic transcriptions such as Mār Kābūs for Markappos, Mār Kābān for Marckapan, Mār G̲h̲ātūm for Margathum or Mārg…

, S̲h̲araf al-Dīn Abū Saʿd ʿAbd Allāh b. Muḥammad b. Hibat Allāh b. Muṭahhar al-Tamīmī al-Mawṣilī, later al-Ḥalabī and finally al-Dimas̲h̲ḳī, was the most important S̲h̲āfiʿī scholar of his time. He was born in Rabīʿ I 492 or 493/February 1099 or 1100 at Ḥadīt̲h̲a, studied at Mawṣil and then at Wāsiṭ, with Abū ʿAlī al-Fāriḳī, and at Bag̲h̲dād, particularly with Asʿad al-Mayhanī and Ibn Burhān (see the list of his teachers in al-Nuʿaymī, Dāris , 400). From 523/1129, he taught at Mawṣil, then went to settle in the region of Sind̲j̲ār and was appointed ḳāḍī of Sind̲j̲ār, Niṣībīn and Ḥarrān.…

, in Turkish Cezire-i Ibn Ömer or Cizre , today a frontier town between Turkey and Syria, is said to have been founded by and named after al-Ḥasan b. ʿUmar b. al-K̲h̲aṭṭāb al-Tag̲h̲libī (d. ca. 250/865). Its construction is attributed also to Ardas̲h̲īr Bābakān. The ancient town was called in Aramaic D̲j̲azarta d’Kardū, a name which re-appears in Christian texts of the 16th and 17th centuries. It has been identified with the ancient Bāzabdā, where Alexander the Great crossed the Tigris; later This was one of the foremost points …

, important Umayyad agricultural settlement in the Syrian desert at the foot of the Ḏj̲abal Bis̲h̲rī, about 100 km. NE of Palmyra and 65 km. S of Ruṣāfa-Sergiopolis. It lies at the intersection of the road joining Mayyadīn on the Euphrates to Palmyra and Ḥimṣ with the one leading from Ḥalab to Rusāfa and permitting to reach Bag̲h̲dād and Baṣra by crossing the pass of Tayyibe, situated at 14 kms. to the N—NE. The village of Tayyibe is usually identified with Oriza mentioned in the Annals of Assurbanipal (ʿUrḍ of the Middle Ages). Many travellers who took that route between the 14th and t…

(European transcriptions: Lattaquié, Latakia), a major Syrian port, was known by the Greek name of Λαοδίκεια ἡ ἐπι θαλάσση, and later by the Latin name of Laodicea ad Mare, whilst the Crusaders called it La Liche. In the second millenium, the settlement bore the name of Ramitha of the Phoenicians and was dependent, before taking its place, on Ugarit, a powerful metropolis lying 8 miles/12 km. to the north. It was in 327 B.C., or six years after the death of Alexander that Seleucus Nicator (301-281 B.C.) founded on this site ¶ a city to which he gave the name of Laodicea in honour of h…

(D̲j̲abal), mountain which forms part of the Anti-Lebanon and rises to the northwest of Damascus [see dimas̲h̲ḳ ]. Two tributaries of the Baradā [ q.v.], the Nahr T̲h̲awra and the Nahr Yazīd, up until the middle of the 20th century used to irrigate the orchards of Nayrab, which rose in tiers on its southern flank. This mountain has a sacred character because God is said to have spoken to it and also due to ancient traditions which relate to some grottoes opening in the midst of the slope. Three of them, Muṣallāt al-K̲h̲iḍr, Mag̲h̲ārat al-D̲j̲awʿ and…

, ancestor of the Banū Ḥamza who for several generations held the office of naḳīb al-as̲h̲rāf [see s̲h̲arīf ] in Damascus, with the result that in the end the family was named Bayt al-Naḳīb . As early as 330/942 a representative of this house, Ismāʿīl b. Ḥusayn b. Aḥmad al-Natīf, was acting as naḳīb . Several of his descendants distinguished themselves through their ability and learning. Two sons of ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn ʿAlī b. Ibrāhīm, the sayyid Nāṣir al-Dīn Muḥammad and the sayyid S̲h̲ihāb al-Dīn, left their names in the history of Damascus. The former, called al-Zurayḳ o…

(“Fortress of the Kurds”), a castle in Syria known in Europe by the name of “Crac des Chevaliers”. The castle crowns a rounded and almost isolated summit, mount K̲h̲alīl, the last southerly inclination of the D̲j̲abal Anṣāriyya, some 60 km. to the north-west of Ḥimṣ. Situated like an eagle’s nest at a height of 750 m. on a spur flanked by two ravines on the north-east and north-west, it overlooks from a height of 300 m. the plain of the Buḳayʿa [ q.v.] which extends eastward and southeastward. In the Frankish period this very fertile cultivated region contained numerous farms…

, referred to by Naʿamān the leper (Kings, ii, 5, 12) by the name of Abana, and by Greek and Latin authors called Chrysorrhoas, is the most important perennial river of the eastern slopes of the Anti-Lebanon. It has determined the site of Damascus and permitted the development of the G̲h̲ūṭa. It owes its existence to the high peaks which dominate the gap between Zabadānī and Sarg̲h̲āya. At the foot of a limestone cliff over 1,000 m. high, a copious Vauclusian spring forms a vast lake on the Western side of the Zabadānī hollow at the foot of the …

, the name of several places in the Near East. According to the LA, the root n-m-r has, amongst its meanings, that of sweet, drinkable, abundant water, suitable for beasts and for irrigating crops. This explains why a certain number of settlements, provided with a ḥawḍ [ q.v.] and which have developed around a source of water, a well or a natural reservoir of water ( birka ), are called Namāra, Nāmir, Namr or Nimrā. R. Dussaud and F. Macler noted that during Antiquity, there were in Syria a good number of sites bearing this name. The best …