| The first town of the province
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Apart from the ones at Bosra, the monuments at Qanawat are the most impressive and richly decorated in this region of the Jabal al Arab where so many ancient stones are strewn on the ground or built into the fabric of present-day dwellings, or else soar up sometimes as haughty columns, all cracked and broken, and yet superb!
The site where Qanawat stands enhances the interest of the
rui
ns. The
town lies stretched along the crest of a hill and straggles off down the side of a valley
where trees have been planted, gardens cultivated and meadows kept. After crossing the
Bashan plateau, all black and bare, the relief of the land here and the green are like a
touch of coquetry. High stone walls bound each piece of land, rough enclosures from blocks
of Basalt gathered round about, and amongst the blocks here and there the drum of a
column, a Corinthian Capital or a finely chiseled architrave piled together at a random,
some straight, some slanting, some up-turned…
The first town of the province
Named Qanat or Nobah the bible and Canatha in Nabatean and Roman times, ancient Qanawat was the most important city in the land. In the sixties B.C. it belonged to the Decapolis League of merchant cities, all situated in Trans-Jordan in Syria, of which Damascus was for a time the chief, and which survived until the end of the 2nd century. This past importance explains the wide spread of the remains. The ruins fall into three main groups.
At the entrance to the present village, coming from Soueida, in the hollow of the valley on the left, a cluster of columns rises from the bushes; they belong to a 2nd-century temple dedicated to Helios. A little further on, the village square certainly stands on the spot where the ancient agora (or forum) stood. Old paving-stones still cover part of the ground and remnants of columns are built into the facades of the houses. The street up the hillside leads up to the principal edifices: the Temple of Zeus (2nd century) and the group known as "the serail" or "Es-sérail".
The temple occupied as a spur with a view over the whole valley. Mulberries and other fruit trees provide a foil to the half dozen columns that still stand capped by magnificent Corinthian capitals with broad entablatures, whose shafts a third of the way up bear consoles (as at Palmyra) which are also finely chiseled. Other capitals and fragments of architraves left where they lie on the pavement allow one to look closely at the work of the forgotten sculptor whose skilful hand carved these scrolls of acanthus and vine out of the hard basalt. The big monumental group known as "the serail" stands on the highest point in Qanawat. A big clump of trees marks the spot, a little wall surrounds it and a closed gate is supposed to keep visitors out when the keeper is not there.
It is an interesting collection of Roman and Christian buildings. The columns with console of a temple can still be seen. One of the walls of the temple was used in the 4th of 5th century to support a basilica. The floral decoration of the lintel and the portal of the Christian building, by its elegance, is evidence of very great refinement. This flowery style is found elsewhere on other parts of the building and on many of the fragments lying on the ground, whereas other stones from the same sanctuary have a geometrical design: key-patterns or stars.
The right slope of then valley also has some interesting ruins: a few steps of a small theatre or Odeon, the remains of a nymphaeum and of an aqueduct, the foundations of a square tower and of a round one.
Going up the valley, a winding path leads 4 km south-east to the isolated ruins of ancient Sia: thermae, paved terraces temples built in the period from the 1st century B.C. to 2nd century A.D.