01The project
This site is published under the authority of the Directorate-General of Antiquities and Museums and the Ministry of Tourism.
It is part of Touristech — a JCI Beroea initiative for the digitisation of Syrian heritage — and it was developed by Raizer.
02How it handles what it does not know
Anything marked in a tinted, dashed style is a placeholder: a value we do not yet have. We publish the empty field rather than a plausible guess, because on a site carrying a ministry's name an invented figure that looks like a fact is worse than no figure at all.
Where the record is genuinely unsettled, the page says so instead of choosing the more convenient answer.
03Facts held open
The start of construction
The published accounts give 473 and 476. They agree the main church was complete by about 490.
Open — held for DGAMThe roofing of the octagon
Whether the central octagon carried a timber dome or was left open to the sky is not settled in the published literature.
Open — held for DGAMThe height of the column, and the years on it
About eighteen metres — roughly thirty-six cubits — is the figure most often given; a competing tradition says forty cubits, about twenty metres. The years he spent on it are given as thirty-six or thirty-seven; we use thirty-six, which is what the dates 423 to 459 yield.
Open — held for DGAMThe events of 985 and 986
The available sources narrate the destruction and the siege in different terms and with different actors. Recorded here as dates and outcomes only.
Open — held for DGAM2023 earthquake damage
No assessment of damage to the complex from the February 2023 earthquake has been confirmed for this site.
Open — held for DGAM04Images
Photographs are credited individually where they appear, and are used under their stated licences.
05Corrections
If something here is wrong, tell us and we will fix it and say that we did. That applies particularly to anyone who has been to the site recently.