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DOCUMENTING, IDENTIFYING AND PROTECTING A LATE ROMAN-BYZANTINE FORT AT TABUS ON THE EUPHRATES

A ruined fort rises at Tabus on the north-eastern edge of Jebel Bishri in Central Syria. The fort which is situated c. 25 km north-west of the city of Deir ez-Zor along the road to Aleppo overlooks the Valley of the Euphrates. The fort is roughly triangular in layout covering c. 300 m x 80 m x 100 m. It is connected with a graveyard and two separate towers in one kilometre’s distance. The fort obviously belongs to the network of the Roman eastern limes and is hardly ever mentioned in encyclopedias of the ancient world. The fort has, however, been associated by early travellers, inter alia, with the Alalis of Ptolemy’s Geography and the Gothic legionary fort of Helela/Elela mentioned in Notitia Dignitatum. The new documentation of the fort by SYGIS -the Finnish archaeological survey and mapping project of Jebel Bishri - is a step towards studying the origins of the fort and to protecting the site. Since 2004, the project has recorded and documented the site with GPS, EDM, GPR and the location has been mapped with a rectified Landsat-7 ETM satellite image. The remains were also photographed, documented on special computerized site data record forms and the potsherds lying on the ground surface were collected. The layout of the fort is reminiscent of the fortress of Zenobia rebuilt by Emperor Justinian on the Euphrates, and the pottery types and stamps offer datings from the Late Roman to the Byzantine era. In order to study the connection of the fort with the nearest Late Roman forts, such as Mambri and Qreiye, we carried out an experimental GIS viewshed analysis to test the intervisibility of the forts and hence elucidate their dating, function and connection. The origins of the fort in its present form seem to date to the Late Roman – Byzantine periods. The inner courtyard of the fort is filled with robbers’ pits that would need a rescue excavation. The walls and towers require consolidation, anastylosis and conservation to preserve the site for the future. Protection work would need the defining of a buffer zone, closing the fort and building a special high terrace for visitors overlooking the site with its unique landscape.