Bab al-Qandil, the Central Arch of Bosra

Walk north from the theatre and, just before you reach the main street, you pass under a basalt arch with three openings. It is called Bab al-Qandil, the Gate of the Lantern. It stands where the theatre street meets the main street and was the monumental entrance to the theatre street. Only part of it is standing, but no other structure sums up Bosra’s Roman town plan — street, portico and the link to the theatre — as well as this one.

Where it is and how to get there

Directly north of the theatre, at the crossing of the two streets. From the citadel gate it is a few minutes’ walk north; the arch stands in the middle of the road and you cannot miss it. The South Baths are to the east, the Central Baths to the north-east.

What to see

The arch is built on two axes at right angles. The main axis follows the theatre street and has three openings: the wide central passage for vehicles, the side ones for the pavements and porticoes. The secondary axis is the walkway of the south portico of the main street. The portico came in from east and west and rested against the half-columns on the sides of the arch, so the arch was part of the street’s colonnade.

Profiled archivolts frame the vaults, and Corinthian pilasters stand at the corners of the piers. Consoles projecting from the pilaster shafts once carried commemorative statues. Semicircular and rectangular niches open inside the central passage. At Palmyra, small arches leading from the main street to the theatre did the same job.

When it was built

The sources differ here. Ifpo, the French archaeological institute, treats the lower storey up to the architrave as the first phase. It is contemporary with the street porticoes, so no later than the first half of the 3rd century. The upper part was rebuilt in the Byzantine or medieval period. French Wikipedia instead describes it as an eight-pier arch from the reign of Philip the Arab, now reduced to its north face. Both views place the arch in the 3rd-century building of the city.

What not to miss

As you walk through, look to the sides rather than up. On the side faces of the piers are the traces of the half-columns the portico leaned against. In early 20th-century photographs the transverse vaulted passages were still standing; from those traces you can picture the part that is missing today.