Al Andarin, ancient Androna, Vol. I, Survey und Excavations 1997-2006, The circuit walls and the barracks, with contributions of Güler Ates and Peter Knötzele

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Christine Strube
• Subject Area: Classical, Roman, Christian and Islamic Archaeology
• Term: from 2013 to 2015
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 249439650

Androna, modern al Andarin, in Central Syria was a mansio by the late 3rd Century and later attested as a village (kome). Its large size (160 ha) and the monumental aspect of its buildings (two circuit walls, ten churches, a public bath) was led back to the creation of an extensive irrigation System in its environment. Androna is the first of more than 300 hundred villages in Central Syria studied by excavations. In 1997 the German team organized an international collaboration between a British team, occupied with the reconstruction of the irrigation system outside the site and a Syrian team, excavating an Early arabic bath in the centre. The main results of the British team are published in a preliminary report -, the final publication is in preparation. The German team began 1997 with the geodetical relevation of the site and intensive surface studies, excavated a greater part of the Kastron, two gates of the inner as of the outer circuit wall and a housecomplex in the northern part of Androna. These are the results of our study of the defensive organisation and monumental layout of Androna : The inner circuit wall (basalt) is the older one and he enclosed a site of about 90 ha, grown up in the fifth Century. The outer wall - combining sunbaken bricks with basalt - enlarged the area of the site up to 160 ha. The chronology of the circuit walls and the question, at which time the inner wall was removed lead to the historical situation of the region in the second half of the fifth century and the decades after the destruction of Antioch 540 n. Chr. The construction of the Kastron (finished 559 A.D.) in the centre of Androna - a donation of Thomas, inhabitant of Androna - is closely linked to the great Syrian cities and at the same time closely bound to local traditions. The combination.of lower rooms with military functions and upper living rooms with rich decorations in imported marble, porphyr and glass-mosaics is of extreme importance for the reconstruction of urban-rural contacts and activities in the second half of the 6th century, Together with the Early Omayyad bath the Kastron informs in inscriptions and small finds intensively about the Situation of Androna in the 7th and 8th Century. With its reuse up to the 14th Century it remains our main source for the history of Androna in arabic times also for the following centuries. The survey about the monumental layout of the main buildings and excavations in the field of the circuit walls and the barracks have created a new base for the history of the site in the fifth and sixth century, for the discussion of its function as one of the « villes de refuge », for the chronology of the irrigation system outside the walls and for the situation of Androna in the time after the arabic conquest of the seventh century.

• DFG Programme: Publication Grants