The Ain Dara Temple

Ain Dara is an Iron Age temple standing on a mound above the Afrin valley. It was in use from about 1300 to 740 BC. It entered the archaeological literature for two reasons: a plan that matches the description of Solomon’s Temple in the Hebrew scriptures to a striking degree, and the giant human footprints carved into the paving at its entrance. It was heavily damaged in 2018.

Getting there

50 km north-west of Aleppo, in the Afrin district. The road is mountainous and winding, so the short distance still takes about an hour and a half by car. The mound rises out of the plain and the temple stands on the upper city.

What to see

The temple measures 30 by 20 metres and faces south-east. It is built of basalt blocks on limestone foundations; the superstructure is thought to have been mudbrick with wooden panelling, and none of that survives. The sequence is simple: a portico, a middle room, and at the back a main hall of 16 by 16 metres. Lion reliefs and false windows are carved into the wall panels, and sphinxes and lions once flanked the portico.

What not to miss

The footprints in the portico paving. Close to a metre long, with each toe cut separately, they trace a figure walking into the temple, and there is nothing else like them in Syria. The photograph circulates everywhere, but the scale only registers on site.

What remains

In January 2018, during the Afrin operation, the temple was hit in an airstrike; the whole front facade came down and much of the structure was reduced to rubble. The basalt lion that had become its emblem was removed from the site in December 2019. Satellite imagery shows that by 2022 the upper and lower mounds had been bulldozed, apart from the stone temple complex itself. So you go here not to see a temple but to see what is left of one. Ask about access before you travel; conditions change through the year.