Dead Cities

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about archaeological sites in Syria. For the album by The Future Sound of London, see Dead Cities (album).

The Dead Cities are a group of 700 abandoned settlements in northwest Syria between Aleppo and Hama. They date back to before the fifth century B.C and contain many remains of Christian Byzantine architecture. Important dead cities include Qal'at Sim'an, Serjilla and al Bara. Chris Wickham, in the authoritative survey of the post-Roman world, Framing the Early Middle Ages(2006) argues that these were settlements of prosperous peasants which have few or no specifically urban features. The impressive remains of domestic architecture are the result of the prosperity of peasants who benefited from a strong international trade in olive oil at the end of Antiquity.