Talk:Al-Masmiyah

Was the temple modified to be used as a church?

"The Praetorium was transformed into a church during the Byzantine era and the structural plan makes it one of the oldest examples of Byzantine church architecture." [Ref: William Pitt Preble Longfellow]"

Nonsensical. Unless a reliable researcher is quoted saying that the temple was modified in order to accommodate the needs of the Byzantine clerus & rites, all we have is a repurposed pagan building, kept as they found it, which can only be an "example of Byzantine church architecture" if those early Christians created rituals, or adapted pre-existing ones, to fit the layout of the existing temple. That would indeed be epoch-making. But we don't know it! Longfellow only briefly states that the rooms inside the building correspond to the known layout of a Greek church. A. that doesn't address the egg/hen question, and B. how authoritative is this Mr. W.P.P. Longfellow and his over a century old cyclopaedia? (We have no article on him.) Either we do have here a phenomenally important building, or we have nothing but a misunderstanding. It must be clarified! Arminden (talk) 14:05, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Hi Al Ameer son. I see now that you have created the article and introduced this passage. I cannot access Longfellow. The emergence of church architecture is a topic that interests me and this statement is quite puzzling - it either hints at a very interesting theory, or it could just be a somewhat inaccurate choice of words. Could you please help out? Thank you. Arminden (talk) 06:45, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Hello Arminden. Please follow this Gbooks link for access to the Longfellow article (it's a half-page entry on 'Musmiyeh'). Is the particular issue here with the word 'transformed'? If so, the intent here (based on the source, which uses 'converted') was to say that temple was converted into a church, as in its use, not that it necessarily underwent an architectural conversion. In any case, please fix as necessary. Regards, --Al Ameer (talk) 15:07, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Hi Al Ameer, and thanks for your quick reply.

No, actually my issue is with the statement that the Praetorium's "structural plan makes it one of the oldest examples of Byzantine church architecture", i.e. it is presented as an archetypical Byzantine church, when in reality it's not, since it was built as a pagan temple.

I've read the Longfellow entry and it leaves me even more puzzled than I already was. It's published in 1895, so it might well not be relevant anymore. Also, it presents the structure as an early template for "mediæval" churches ("it is the oldest example of a construction that gave the type for mediæval architecture"), while dating it to c. 160-170 AD. A 2nd-c. template for medieval architecture? Meaning what, Romanesque, or also Gothic, East, West, both? It's too ambiguous to me.

And not just there. Longfellow does start by stating that it was "converted into an early Christian church", but then he offers it as an option that what he saw could have been "the original arrangement". Meaning what, A) the pagan temple's? Or B), the restructured building after being repurposed as a church? Option A, which is what I believe he meant, would make the structure much more interesting than option B. In any case, he doesn't identify nor suggest/discuss any architectural modification as part of the repurposing process. Did he think the Christians just removed the pagan statuary?

The origin of the early Christian church layouts and their pagan models is a fascinating field, and one should be careful when quoting a 140-years-old source which is less than careful in its statements and wording. To me it looks hardly RS. At the very least, it needs support from a recent authoritative source. In any case, if the pagan temple already contained all elements later present in small early Chr. churches, it isn't quite logical for us to call it in the article an "example of Byzantine church architecture": it's not, at best it's an example of Syro-Roman pagan temple architecture, which apparently became one of the common templates for later small-scale Byzantine churches, and even - so Longfellow - for mediaeval architecture altogether. So the "example of Byzantine church architecture" statement must be thoroughly rephrased, and to do that in a proper manner it takes finding better sources. What do you think? Arminden (talk) 21:24, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Any archaeology left, at least pre-civil war?

Article silent on this. Arminden (talk) 16:02, 28 March 2024 (UTC)