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Text Pages: Deir Mar Musa al-Habashi - Standing Stones in Syria
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Submitted by Andy B on Wednesday, 10 March 2010 Page Views: 956
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 Site Name: Deir Mar Musa al-Habashi Country: Syria Type: Standing Stones
Nearest Town: Damascus
Latitude: 34.021670N Longitude: 36.842220E
Condition:| 5 | Perfect | | 4 | Almost Perfect | | 3 | Reasonable but with some damage | | 2 | Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site | | 1 | Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks | | 0 | No data. | | -1 | Completely destroyed |
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Ambience:| 5 | Superb | | 4 | Good | | 3 | Ordinary | | 2 | Not Good | | 1 | Awful | | 0 | No data. |
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Access:| 5 | Can be driven to, probably with disabled access | | 4 | Short walk on a footpath | | 3 | Requiring a bit more of a walk | | 2 | A long walk | | 1 | In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find | | 0 | No data. |
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Accuracy:| 5 | co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates | | 4 | co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map | | 3 | co-ordinates scaled from a bad map | | 2 | co-ordinates of the nearest village | | 1 | co-ordinates of the nearest town | | 0 | no data |
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Internal Links:  
External Links:        Possible stone circles, stone alignments and burial chambers in Syria. Deir Mar Musa al-Habashi (the monastery of Saint Moses the Abyssinian has stood at the eastern fringes of the Anti-Lebanon mountains since at least the sixth century. Thought to have been built on the remnants of a Roman watchtower, today it resembles a storybook castle perched on the edge of a steep precipice overlooking the Syrian desert.
The archaeological project at Deir Mar Musa al-Habashi, involves survey of the catchment of the wadi together with excavation at selected sites. The region is presently extremely arid, and comprises a ridge of limestone, scattered with caves.
For Dr. Robert Mason, an archaeologist with the Royal Ontario Museum, it all began with a walk last summer. Mason conducts work at the Deir Mar Musa al-Habashi monastery, out in the Syrian Desert. Finds from the monastery, which is still in use today by monks, date mainly to the medieval period and include some beautiful frescoes.
Dr. Mason explains that he “went for a walk” into the eastern perimeter of the site - an area that hasn’t been explored by archaeologists. What he discovered is an ancient landscape of stone circles, stone alignments and what appear to be corbelled roof tombs.
Source: University of Toronto and The Independent
Note: Look, it's "Syria's Stonehenge" (give me strength) Report of "early example of the stone landscapes seen at places like Stonehenge" (or probably not)
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86.8km W 274° Aphaca Holy Well or Sacred Spring
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Neolithic stone circles, alignments and possible tombs discovered (Score: 1)
by Andy B on Wednesday, 10 March 2010
(User Info | Send a Message) | For Dr. Robert Mason, an archaeologist with the Royal Ontario Museum, it all began with a walk last summer. Mason conducts work at the Deir Mar Musa al-Habashi monastery, out in the Syrian Desert. Finds from the monastery, which is still in use today by monks, date mainly to the medieval period and include some beautiful frescoes.
Dr. Mason explains that he “went for a walk” into the eastern perimeter of the site - an area that hasn’t been explored by archaeologists. What he discovered is an ancient landscape of stone circles, stone alignments and what appear to be corbelled roof tombs. From stone tools found at the site, it’s likely that the features date to some point in the Middle East’s Neolithic Period – a broad stretch of time between roughly 8500 BC – 4300 BC.
It is thought that in Western Europe megalithic construction involving the use of stone only dates back as far as ca. 4500 BC. This means that the Syrian site could well be older than anything seen in Europe.
At a recent colloquium in Toronto, Canada, Mason described his shock at discovering the apparent tombs, stone circles and stone alignments: “I was standing up there thinking, oh dear me, I’ve wandered onto Salisbury Plain,”
At the southern end of the landscape there are three apparent tombs. They are about eight metres in diameter and each of them “actually has a chamber in the middle”. The roof is corbelled which suggests that beneath them is “something you would want to seal in.” Each of these corbelled structures had a stone circle beside it, which is about two meters in diameter.
Dr. Mason cautioned that the team did not have the chance to do more than survey the area, so it’s still possible that these corbelled structures could have a purpose other than burial. More work also needs to be done to get a precise date of construction.
Read more, with a photo, in the Independent (and don't forget, it's "Syria's Stonehenge" folks!)
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/archaeology/news/syrias-stonehenge-neolithic-stone-circles-alignments-and-possible-tombs-discovered-1914047.html | [ Reply to This ]
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" Syria's Stonehenge" Neolithic stone circles, alignments and possible tombs (Score: 1)
by Andy B on Wednesday, 10 March 2010
(User Info | Send a Message) | | Whilst I'm sure this is a potentially important discovery, Dr Mason has (whether deliberately or not) so blatantly pandered to those headline sub-editors we know and love that I am finding it difficult to take this story seriously beneath the red mist... | [ Reply to This ]
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