Al-Dumayr
Government
Ad Dumair, also Dumayr, Dmeir (Arabic الضمير, DMG ad Ḍumair ), is a small town in the Duma district within the province Rif Dimaschq in southwestern Syria. Here is one of the best preserved monuments in the country from Roman times.
Location
Ad Dumair located in the southern part of the Syrian desert steppe, 40 kilometers east of Damascus on the road to Palmyra and in Iraq. Agriculture is only to a small extent with artificial irrigation in oases possible and limited to olive trees and cereals. The water supply comes from deep wells and to a lesser extent by qanats, which secured the water supply already in Roman times. The village lies on the eastern edge of the settlement zone in middle Syria and had therefore since the Roman period a task as a transit point for goods that were exchanged between the urban merchants from Damascus and the nomadic Bedouins of the Eastern Syrian Desert. Ad Dumair had significance as the last great station to supply water to the Roman road to the oasis of Palmyra and on about Resafa the Euphrates.
History
Under the restored Roman temple in the city center was an altar of the Semitic god Baalshamin, which is dated to 94 BC and probably belonged to a temple of the Nabataeans. The Roman temple was created as part of an intense building activity in the 3rd century AD It is dedicated to Zeus Hypsistos, a post-classical form of Asia Minor Zeuskults. A relief on the southern tympanum could show images of Marcia Otacilia Severa and Philip the Arab.
Al- Mundhir III ibn al - Harith (reigned 569-582 ) left on the outside the city, former Roman fortress an inscription.
1963 took the Ba'ath Party to power and the then Lieutenant Colonel Hafez al -Assad was given command of the Seventh Airborne Brigade of Dumair, the designated Lucien Bitterlin as the only Airborne troops intervention in Syria.
Cityscape and Economy
For the Bedouin ad Dumair is still a cattle market. In 2005, about 30,000 residents were estimated to include about 5,000 ranchers who live seasonal only in the area of the city. The low rainfall in the winter months allow Schafnomadismus in the desert steppe. Your trails are 50 to 200 km. However, livestock plays only a minor role in the economy. The main employer is the nearby military airfield, which together with state pensions and remittances from abroad is the main source of income of the inhabitants. Some commuters travel daily to Damascus.
The expressway to Palmyra travels around the city center in the north in one to two kilometers away. The Roman temple located in the center of the old town, which is characterized in ad Dumair more than in other small towns on the edge of the desert steppe or by streets, in which traditional flat houses have received from mud bricks. These homes include courtyards with shady trees or vines that are protected by the street stock factory high walls from onlookers. On small open spaces between the houses and along roadsides grow olive trees. A traditional souq is not present; along the main road has been created with style -less, two - and three-story houses line a new business district.
Roman Temple
The building located in a dense residential area was exposed in 1983 five meters below the present ground level. The excavation is secured by a wall with a fence, to the entrance of the temple leads down a flight of stairs. The rectangular building made of limestone blocks joined clean is accentuated at the base area and at the eaves by a frieze which forms on the narrow sides a triangular pediment. A vertical layout is done by phantom pilasters with Corinthian capitals at the corners and two each in the middle of each side. Both narrow sides were originally opened by high arched gates. This construction is contrary to the usual system of a temple, which is otherwise aligned with an altar. At the southern corner of the entrance on the east side performs a carefully restored stone staircase with several landings up to the roof.
Several inscriptions have been found which describe the building as Naos, or " sanctuary ." Water pipes from the Roman period on the outer walls suggest that here on a watering place, a sacred well was built. It is believed a monumental rebuilt, dear waterhole.
A dedicatory inscription on the architrave over the inner door of the eastern entrance of the room was for the possible dating of importance. The inscription implies that a stator of a commander in the Roman army ( is not sufficiently appreciated by the usual translation " groom " ), have paid the architrave. It was first published in 1899 by Rudolf Ernst Brünnow. With the construction of possibly AD has already begun in the 1st century, the official opening was 245 and falls in the reign of Emperor Philip the Arab, who was born near the present-day town of Shabwa in the Hauran region.
During the Islamic period, the gates were bricked up to use the building as a fortress. The coarser stone blocks and the battlements, with which the roof was raised, also date from the Islamic period. The lining of the gateways has not been removed for static reasons.
View from the northwest
Interior partition after today's small entrance door to the east
Other buildings from Roman times
Three kilometers east of the city lie in the direction of Palmyra seen from the road on the right side, the sandstone remains of a badly preserved Roman fort dating from the 2nd century AD, parts of the south gate and the stockpile are still about two feet upright. There are also the remains of a Roman dam of basalt.