Khirbet Massakeb Sanctuary

Halfway along the ancient road between Suwayda and Si’, beside a reservoir, stand a small sanctuary and a large building with corner towers. The sanctuary was founded at the end of the 2nd century BC and went through two phases: standing stones and carved basalt panels in the first, a small apsed cella in the second. It was abandoned at the end of the 1st century AD or the start of the 2nd. It belongs to the same cult world as the temples of Si’ just outside Qanawat, but it is a separate site with its own excavation.

Where it is

North-east of Suwayda, on the line of the old road towards Qanawat and Si’. North of the ancient road are traces that may be the old hamlet that gave the site its name. To the south the reservoir (birkeh), the sanctuary and the towered building stand together. Its location comes from a single source, so this page carries no map; ask the way in Qanawat.

How long it takes

Forty-five minutes. The sanctuary courtyard is small; most of the time goes on the carvings at the gate and the towered building to the north.

The sanctuary

The sanctuary is a temenos, a walled sacred courtyard, of roughly 17 by 19 metres. Its wall of double-faced polygonal masonry sits on a course of large basalt blocks. Only the eastern and northern stretches survive, up to 170 centimetres high on the east and 130 on the north. An off-centre gate about 150 centimetres wide cuts through the east wall. On its northern jamb is a carved bull’s head, and the façade beside it carries sun discs and short Aramaic graffiti. Laïla Nehmé, who studied them, dates the script to the end of the 2nd century BC, close in style to the writing at Si’; the texts consist only of personal names.

Two phases

In the first phase, from the end of the 2nd century BC to the start of the 1st, a monolithic limestone altar 40 centimetres high stood before the entrance. The destruction layer produced basalt panels carved with chevrons, crossed and wavy lines, or with sun discs, a figure carrying a standard, a bull’s head and a pair of snakes; they are thought to have formed a stepped display base. Fragments of four stelae and a stone bull were found with them. The earliest date comes from a coin of Antiochus IV (175-164 BC) and from Hellenistic lamps imported from Ephesus.

The site then stood empty for a time. The second phase began in the 1st century AD: a small cella with an apsed back wall replaced the old display base, and the old storerooms were filled in. From this phase come a horned altar, a stele with a Corinthian capital like the one at the Baalshamin temple at Si’, and a small niche with vine-scroll ornament and a winged eagle above it. Two coins of Domitian minted at Canatha, today’s Qanawat (94-95 and 96-97), mark the last use of the site.

The towered building

North of the sanctuary, sharing its southern wall, is an enclosure of about 40 by 30 metres. It is built of double-faced polygonal masonry, its base strengthened with a sloping glacis, and its interior is divided into rectangular compartments. Only the core of the tower has been excavated. In its first phase it was a single room roofed around a central support; later it was split in two, and the openings in the dividing wall resemble the mangers in Roman-period houses in the Hauran. The tower was built in the 1st century BC and abandoned in the 3rd century AD.

Do not miss

The seven standing stones set in an L along the north wall. The excavation uncovered them beneath the fill of the second phase. The sources call these uncut cult stones masseboth in Hebrew and ansab in Arabic. At Massakeb they and the later Roman-style cella lie one above the other in the same courtyard: two forms of worship in a single place.

Excavation and after

A team led by Michel Kalos, with Frédéric Renel, excavated the site in 1998 and 1999. The sanctuary had been looted since antiquity. There was limited activity in the 6th century; in the medieval and Ottoman periods the place became a nomad camp and sheepfold.

The site today

The site stood in kermes oak woodland, part of the 653-hectare Dhamna forest reserve declared on 10 June 2001. Local press and Syria Report say the woodland shrank through illegal logging after 2012 and a major fire in 2020, and that most of the remaining trees were cut after December 2024. Suwayda province has been in conflict since July 2025. The present state of the remains and access could not be verified.