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Qasr Serīj—A Sixth Century Basilica in Northern Iraq

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

David Oates
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Extract

Qasr Serīj lies five kilometres south-west of Tell Hugna, and some sixty kilometres north-west of Mosul, on gently undulating ground at the southern foot of Jebel Qusair. It is watered by a small perennial stream, now used to irrigate the fields of the modern village of Qusair just to the north of the ancient site. The ruins were visited by the writer in 1956 in the course of a survey sponsored by the Stein-Arnold Fund of the British Academy, and will be more fully published in the forthcoming account of that work. I am greatly indebted to Father John Fiey, of the Dominican community in Mosul, who subsequently called my attention to documentary evidence for the foundation of a monastery, and a church dedicated to St. Sergius, in this region by Mar Ahudemmeh, Metropolitan of the monophysite church in Mesopotamia A.D. 559–575, and suggested that this church was Qasr Serīj, an identification which is amply confirmed by the evidence. The purpose of this brief article is to entertain readers of Iraq with an unusually well-documented episode in a little known period of Mesopotamian history, the last century of Sassanian rule before the coming of Islam.

The church stands in the middle of a ruin field extending half a kilometre to the east of the watercourse. The other buildings, although some at least may be contemporary, were apparently built of mortared rubble in the common medieval tradition of the region, and are so far buried in their own debris that no coherent plan can be recovered. The church, on the other hand, was constructed of carefully dressed limestone blocks, and parts of the structure stand to nearly their original height. The plan (Plate XXVII), which is unique among the existing monuments of Iraq, is that of a small basilica of North Syrian type, of which many well-preserved examples exist farther to the west. It is an approximate rectangle c. 23 by 14 m., with a central nave flanked by aisles and terminating in an inscribed semi-circular apse.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 24 , Issue 2 , Autumn 1962 , pp. 78 - 89
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1962

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References

1 Sumer, 14, pp. 125–27 and Figs. 1–5Google Scholar. The site was recorded in the course of a survey sponsored by the Directorate General of Antiquities, Government of Iraq, in 1958; see Iraq, V, Pt. 2, p. 148Google Scholar.

2 Tchalenko, G., Villages Antiques de la Syrie du Nord, pp. 17 and 297, n. 1Google Scholar.

3 Lassus, J., Sanctuaires Chrétiens de Syrie, pp. 162 ff.Google Scholar, first pointed out the significance of this architectural variation, the origin of which he dates to the early fifth century (p. 177).

4 Better preserved Syrian examples show that the church was only the most prominent feature of the architectural ensemble of the monastery, and cannot fully be understood in isolation from it.

5 The siting of doorways seems to have been governed largely by practical considerations of access from adjacent parts of the monastery, and they do not conform to any standard pattern; in the North Church at Brad (Tchalenko, op. cit., pl. XI, 4) there was no west door, and many churches of comparable size had only one. It is possible that there were three at Qasr Serīj, since it was a copy of the larger basilica of St. Sergius at Resafa (see below, p. 87).

6 Butler, H. C., Early Churches of Syria, pp. 198–9Google Scholar. The internal narthex is comparatively rare in Syrian and Palestinian churches. In hotter climates its function, as a place to which the unbaptised withdrew during the Eucharist, could readily be served by an open portico (Crowfoot, , Early Churches in Palestine, p. 54Google Scholar).

7 E.g. at Taqle, Tchalenko, op. cit. pl. IX, 2; Bamuqqa, Tchalenko, pl. XCIX.

8 The headman of the village of Qusair informed Fr. Fiey that the building had been used in his grandfather's time, but the rubble and mortar repairs seem too extensive to have been undertaken by the comparatively poor modern inhabitants, and I suspect that they may date to the late Abbasid period when the Christian communities of the Mosul region were still flourishing.

9 Tchalenko, , Villages Antiques, p. 17Google Scholar.

10 Loc. cit., n. 3.

11 Lassus, , Sanctuaires Chrétiens, pp. 163–167Google Scholar.

12 Butler, , Early Churches of Syria, p. 201Google Scholar. Tchalenko, , Villages Antiques, p. 297, n. 1Google Scholar.

13 For conditions of life in northern Mesopotamia at this period see Segal, J. B., “Mesopotamian Communities from Julian to the Rise of Islam’, Proceedings of the British Academy, XLI, pp. 109–159, especially p. 129Google Scholar.

14 Nau, F., Les Arabes Chrétiens de Mésopotamie et de Syrie du VIIe au VIIIe Siècle, pp. 36–49Google Scholar. Hitti, P. K., History of the Arabs, pp. 78–84Google Scholar.

15 Procopius, , Wars, I, xvii, 47 ff.Google Scholar; Theophanes, , Cbronographia, ed. Boor, de, 240, 14Google Scholar.

16 Menander, , Fragmenta, Teubner, ed., p. 24, ll. 16–28Google Scholar, translated Ure, P. N., Justinian and his Age, p. 99Google Scholar.

17 Duchesne, L., ‘Les protegés de Theodora’, Mélanges d'archéologie et d'histoire, XXXV, pp. 57–79Google Scholar. Procopius, , Anecdota, x, 13 ffGoogle Scholar.

18 Devreesse, R., Le Patriarchat d'Antioche, p. 75Google Scholar.

19 Devreesse, op. cit., p. 78, n. 6.

20 Devreesse, op. cit., pp. 96 and 281, n. 3. Segal, , ‘Mesopotamian Communities’, pp. 121–22Google Scholar.

21 Labourt, J., Le Christianisme dans l'Empire Perse, p. 199Google Scholar. A growing number of monophysites had taken refuge in al-Hira of their own accord, to escape Byzantine persecution (Nau, , Les Arabes Chrétiens, p. 40Google Scholar).

22 History of Mar Ahudemmeh, ed. and trans. Nau, , Patrologia Orientalis, Vol. III, pp. 8, 10Google Scholar.

23 Joseph was patriarch from 552 to 565, having attained this dignity through his influence with Khusrō, whose physician he was. According to the monophysite Bar Hebraeus (Chronicon Ecclesiasticum, ed. Abbeloos, and Lamy, , IIIGoogle Scholar, cols. 96–98), he tyrannised over his clergy, and would order a visitor of humble station to be tethered to a manger in his stables. He was eventually deposed.

24 Ephesus, John of, Ecclesiastical History, trans. Smith, R. Payne, pp. 418–19Google Scholar. John, after a formal apology for eulogising a Zoroastrian and an enemy of his country, praises Khusrō's wisdom and beneficence.

25 Bar Hebraeus, Chronicon Ecclesiasticium, cols. 100–102. Beth ‘Arbaye was the northern plain of Mesopotamia between Nisibin and Jebel Sinjar, bounded on the west by the Khabur and on the east by the Tigris.

26 Patrologia Orientalis, III, p. 27Google Scholar.

27 Patrologia Orientalis, III, pp. 29–30Google Scholar.

28 Sumer, 14, p. 126Google Scholar.

29 Publications of the Princeton Archaeological Expedition to Syria, II, B, Architecture, III. 340Google Scholar. Corrected plan in Tchalenko, Villages Antiques, pl. XI, 4.

30 p. 83 above. For the basilica of St. Sergius at Resafa, see Spanner, H. and Guyer, S., Rusafa, pp. 22 ff. and 56 ffGoogle Scholar.

31 Menander, , Fragmenta, Teubner, ed., pp. 21–22Google Scholar, trans. Ure, , Justinian and his Age, pp. 97–99Google Scholar.

32 The same motive led al-Nu’man of al-Hira, in the early fifth century, to tolerate Christian worship and the building of churches among his subjects, who were flocking to the pillar of St. Simeon the Stylite in Northern Syria. Our authority, Cosmas, had this story from a Syrian official, Antiochus, who in time of peace had been invited to dine with al-Nu’man in his encampment near Damascus; in conversation al-Nu’man displayed great curiosity about St. Simeon, and finally revealed the reason for his questions (Assemanus, Bibliotheca Orientalis, I, 247Google Scholar). The students of Nisibis university were forbidden by statute to enter Byzantine territory, although the regulation could hardly be enforced (Segal, , ‘Mesopotamian Communities’, p. 127Google Scholar).

33 We may recall that one of the pretexts for the outbreak of war in 540 had been the complaints of an Armenian embassy to Khusrō about Byzantine oppression (Bury, J. B., History of the Later Roman Empire, II, pp. 92–3Google Scholar).

34 This incident is a pleasing example of muddle in Byzantine bureaucracy. Justin II, who had succeeded Justinian, wrote a letter to the governor of Syria, with instructions to invite al-Mundhir to visit him and then to have him executed; the emperor also drafted the invitation. Unfortunately the letter ordering his execution was addressed to al-Mundhir, and the invitation to the governor. It was a very long time before al-Mundhir could be persuaded to speak to any Byzantine official (John of Ephesus, Ecclesiastical History, trans. Smith, Payne, pp. 372–73Google Scholar). The motive for this piece of treachery may not have been entirely logical, for the moronic Justinian apparently retained fearsome memories of the majestic appearance of al-Harith on his visits to Constantinople. In his moments of insane frenzy, his chamberlains used to quiet him with the threat ‘Al-Harith will come!’ (John of Ephesus, op. cit. p. 168).

35 It is interesting also to observe the marked contrast between the eulogy of Khusrō by John of Ephesus (op. cit. pp. 417–23), who was a leading monophysite, and the account given by Procopius, the orthodox, semi-official historian, who depicts him as a cruel and faithless tyrant.