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[Beehive] Villages of North Syria

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Paul W. Copeland
Paul W. Copeland*
Affiliation:
Aleppo College
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Extract

Peculiar to the red clay plain of northwest Syria are the ‘beehive’ villages called ‘Campo di Melle’ by the early Venetian and Genoese traders. The characteristic beehive name and shape is a purely Western concept as the local beehive is a small mud cube. These village houses, built of mud brick, are ideally adapted to their environment ; they are warm in winter and cool in summer. The villages cluster about ancient ‘tells’ or dot the plains from Aleppo south to Homs, occupying a total area of roughly thirty by one hundred and fifty miles (PLATES v and VI). To the north and east this distinctive type of building gives way to the square mud brick house with flat mud roof supported on poles and brush, while to the west the rocky outcrops of the Lebanon range provide an easily worked stone for houses and barns.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 29 , Issue 113 , March 1955 , pp. 21 - 24
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1955

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References

1 Drummond, Alexander : Travels. W. Strahan, London, 1754.

2 Thevenot : Travels of Monsieur de Thevenot. H. Clark, London, 1686, p. 32.

3 Maundrel, Henry : A Journey from Aleppo to Jerusalém. W. Meadows, London, 1749.

4 Pinkerton, John : A General Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. X, Asia. Longman, et al., London, 1811).

5 Woolley, Sir C. Leonard : Ur of the Chaldees . Charles Scribners’ Sons, N.Y., 1930.

6 Smith, E. Baldwin : The Dome. Princeton Univ. Press, 1950, p. 62.

7 Three anthropologists, two men and a woman, from the University of Michigan, U.S.A., lived in beehives last winter in spite of temperatures well below freezing. I am deeply indebted to Mr James Young, member of this group, for introducing me to village life and patiently answering my innumerable questions ; and to Mr Ilhan T’Chelebi, landlord, for welcoming me as an honoured guest to his villages.