Basufan ( ar, باصوفان) (sometimes spelled Bassoûfâne, Bassoufane, Bosoufane, Bāşūfān) is an ancient village located in northwestern Syria. According to the Syria Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), it had a population of 901 in the 2004 census.General Census of Population and Housing 2004
Syria Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS). Aleppo Governorate. The village is notable for being the site of a former fifth-century church dedicated to

Saint Phocas Saint Phocas, sometimes called Phocas the Gardener (Greek:Φωκᾶς), is venerated as a martyr by the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches. His life and legend may have been a fusion of three men with the same name: a Phocas of Antioch, a Pho ...

Location

The village of Basufan is located in

Aleppo Governorate Aleppo Governorate ( ar, محافظة حلب / ALA-LC: ''Muḥāfaẓat Ḥalab'' / ) is one of the fourteen governorates of Syria. It is the most populous governorate in Syria with a population of more than 4,867,000 (2011 Est.), almost 23% of ...

, about 30 kilometers northwest of the city of Aleppo. It is built at an altitude of 632 meters, and is located to the east of

Mount Simeon Mount Simeon or Mount Simon ( ar, جبل سمعان Jabal Simʻān ), also called Mount Laylūn ( ar, جبل ليلون, is a highland region in Aleppo Governorate in northern Syria. The mountain is located in the Mount Simeon and Aʻzāz distr ...

Description

The village hosts several vestiges of the

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantin ...

-era settlement which are dated between the fifth and the seventh centuries.

Howard Crosby Butler Howard Crosby Butler (March 7, 1872 Croton Falls, New York – August 13, 1922 Neuilly) was an American archaeologist. Butler graduated from Princeton University, and later pursued special studies at the Columbia School of Architecture and at th ...

, in 1905, at the head of an archaeological expedition from the American University of Princeton, mentioned a large Islamic cemetery located around the ancient church. He also mentioned having found the remains of another church, older and completely destroyed. The church dedicated to Saint Phocas was probably part of a monastic complex. The same year,

Gertrude Bell Gertrude Margaret Lowthian Bell, CBE (14 July 1868 – 12 July 1926) was an English writer, traveller, political officer, administrator, and archaeologist. She spent much of her life exploring and mapping the Middle East, and became high ...

crossed Basufan and found the village mainly inhabited by

Kurds ug:كۇردلار Kurds ( ku, کورد ,Kurd, italic=yes, rtl=yes) or Kurdish people are an Iranian peoples, Iranian ethnic group native to the mountainous region of Kurdistan in Western Asia, which spans southeastern Turkey, northwestern Ir ...

, who rented their houses during the hot summer months to Christians and Jews of Aleppo who had come on vacation.

Church of St. Phocas

St. Phocas Church, now in ruins, was a

basilica In Ancient Roman architecture, a basilica is a large public building with multiple functions, typically built alongside the town's forum. The basilica was in the Latin West equivalent to a stoa in the Greek East. The building gave its name ...

with three naves separated by columns. According to an inscription on the south wall, the building was dedicated to

and erected in 491-492. The nave was 24 meters long and 15.4 wide. The arches of the

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-typ ...

rested on columns, while the outer walls were reinforced by

pilaster In classical architecture, a pilaster is an architectural element used to give the appearance of a supporting column and to articulate an extent of wall, with only an ornamental function. It consists of a flat surface raised from the main wal ...

s. To the east, the

chevet In architecture, an apse (plural apses; from Latin 'arch, vault' from Ancient Greek 'arch'; sometimes written apsis, plural apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome, also known as an ''exedra''. I ...

was composed of two rectangular apses framing a semicircular central apse. The two rectangular apses connected to the lateral aisles, and the south room was also open to the central apse, serving as a

martyrium A martyrium (Latin) or martyrion (Greek), plural ''martyria'', sometimes anglicized martyry (pl. martyries), is a church or shrine built over the tomb of a Christian martyr. It is associated with a specific architectural form, centered on a cent ...

. The building bore a resemblance to the church of Qal'at Sem'an which could result from an imitation of the architecture of the latter. Access to the nave was through a door in the middle of the south façade, and a second access was on the west gable.Howard Crosby Butler: ''Early Churches in Syria. Fourth to Seventh Centuries.''

Princeton University Press Princeton University Press is an independent Academic publishing, publisher with close connections to Princeton University. Its mission is to disseminate scholarship within academia and society at large. The press was founded by Whitney Darrow, ...

, Princeton 1929, , 69 (Plan), 70

Photographs by Gertrude Bell

Church of St. Phocas - Kurdish girl in doorway, carved lintel.jpg, Basufan Church of St. Phocas - Apse and arch of Prothesis - Corinthian columns with spiral fluting and wind blown capital. Kurdish man seated in foreground.jpg, Church of St. Phocas - Syriac inscription in S wall with adjoining window.jpg,

References

{{Cities of Syria Kurdish communities in Syria Populated places in Afrin District Towns in Aleppo Governorate Dead Cities