BSY_FB_16-80

80

From Kinnisrin we traveled eastward a day
into the Djebel Ḥâss making our first
stop at Mektebeh. From this point a number
of ruins were visited.

At first glance, one notices many differences
between the ruins of this district and those of
the mountains further west. The buildings
are not nearly so well preserved owing to the
material of which they were constructed and
the manner in which they were built.

The building stone of all this locality is
a hard black basalt, difficult to quarry
and still more difficult to carve. It was
almost impossible to cut the stone in large
quadratic blocks and in consequence the
buildings were constructed with walls of small
irregular blocks laid in clay in the manner
of the rough polygonal style which we have
seen in the western mountains. The door lintels
and jambs were usually of monoliths cut
smooth on two sides and left very rough on the
others. Other details such as columns, caps