Tuesday, 13 March 2012

Ancient Antioch

    
  
1   Mount Staurin.
2   The citadel on Mount Cassius.[1]
3   Mount Silpius.
4   Ruins of walls.
5   The Iron Gate.
6   The torrent of Parmenius.
7   The Grotto of St Peter.
8   The site of the theatre (not excavated).
9   Aqueduct (Memekli Köprü).
10 The torrent of Phyrminus.
11 Christian cemetery in Byzantine times.
12 The site of the Daphne Gate.
13 The site of the Cherubim Gate.
14 The Colonnaded Street (from the Cherubim Gate to the Eastern Gate).
15 The approximate location of the Middle Gate. Besides this place mosaics were found where the Hilton Museum Hotel is being built. This is believed to have been the centre of ancient Antioch.
16 The approximate site of St Paul's Gate.
17 The approximate site of the Eastern Gate.
18 The point where the Orontes split in two branches forming a big island in the middle of the river.
19 Ruins of the big hippodrome.
20 Temple ruin.
21 The location of the imperial palace.
22 Ruins of the Dog Gate.
23 Dried up riverbed of the eastern branch of the Orontes.
24 The location of the western wall at the time of the Crusades.
25 The approximate location of the Duke's Gate at the time of the Crusades.
26 The market area. The street of Singon (or Siagon) where Paul used to preach[2] may have been in this area.
27 The Bridge
28 The Ulu Cami. Formerly the Church of the Forty Martyrs.
29 Ancient wall, Perhaps originally a pagan temple.
30 The Habib-i Neccar Mosque. Perhaps originally the Church of John the Baptist. It contains sarcophagi with the names of the prophet Jonah, John the Baptist and Simeon the Pure (Sham'on al-Safa). On a building opposite the mosque there is an inscription from the time of the Mameluke Sultan Baibars.
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[1] Procopius, Buildings – Book 2, Ch. 10:15, 16: “Two precipitous mountains rise above the city, approaching each other quite closely. Of these they call the one Orocassias and the other is called Staurin. Where they come to an end they are joined by a glen and ravine which lies between them, which produces a torrent, when it rains, called Onopnictes.