BSY_FB_29-43_b

43

V
Dêr il-Kahf About an hour and a half to the south of
Iἡât, well into the desert, and beside one of
the ancient caravan routes, is an ancient
fortress or camp of the well known Roman plan.
It is well preserved - being a huge square
structure about an open court. The pier angles
are strenghtened by square towers of 3 stories
the W.N. and E. have each a tower in the middle
that to the E. being the tower of the entrance.

There are residences of at least 3 periods of building
before Saracenic times The S.E. angle and pasrt of the
S. wall being constructed in part of drafted masonry.
The six remaining towers and the ^outer^ walls some clay then
belong apparently to the next period, the inner walls
some clay the towers and forming numerous apartments
are later probably late Christian (6th Cent.) A church in
within the enclosure stands on the site of a temple, fragments
of which (COL's etc) are built into its walls. An inscription
in Greek records the building of the reservoir (ɅAKKOC)
and the aquaduct (ATWTOL) near the S.W. angle.
Inscr's of Valenturian, Gratian, Epoch. Agrippa [elè|etc].