Qanawat () is a village in Syria, located 7 km north-east of al-Suwayda. It stands at an elevation of about 1,200 m, near a river and surrounded by woods. According to the Syria Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), Qanawat had a population of 8,324 in the 2004 census.[Betts, 2010, p. 22.]
History
Qanawat is one of the earliest cities in the
Bashan and
Hauran areas. It is probably evidenced in the
Hebrew Bible as Kenath (Hebrew: קְנָת, , ). Possible earlier evidence, is from
documents like the
execration texts (second group) of the 20th-19th century BC, and the
Amarna letters of the 14th century BC (as Qanu, in EA 204).
Hellenistic and Roman history
The ancient Hellenistic-Roman city of
Canatha (also
Kanatha, Κάναθα in
Ancient Greek), is mentioned for the first time in the reign of Herod the Great (1st century BC), when
Nabatean Arab forces defeated a Jewish army. It remained an issue of contention between the two powers. From
Pompey's time until
Trajan's, it was a city of the
Decapolis, a loose federation of cities allowed by the Romans to enjoy a degree of autonomy. In the 1st century AD it was annexed to the Roman province of Syria, and in the 2nd century it was rechristened Septimia Canatha by Septimius Severus, a
Roman colony, and transferred to the province of Arabia.
[Burns, 2009, pp. 246-247]
At S'ia, near Canatha, Herod patronized the temple of Baalshamin perhaps as late as 9 BCE.
Bishopric
Only one of the bishops of Canatha is known by name: Theodosius took part in the
Robber Council of Ephesus in 449, in the Council of Chalcedon in 451, and in a
synod called by Patriarch Gennadius I of Constantinople in 459 against
simony.
[Michel Lequien, Oriens christianus in quatuor Patriarchatus digestus, Paris 1740, Vol. II, coll. 867-868][Pius Bonifacius Gams, Series episcoporum Ecclesiae Catholicae, Leipzig 1931, p. 435]
No longer a residential bishopric, Canatha is today listed by the Catholic Church as a titular see.[ Annuario Pontificio 2013 (Libreria Editrice Vaticana 2013 ), p. 857]
Early Islamic era
A center of Christianity in the area, Canatha was captured by the Muslim Arabs in 637, and declined in importance until in the 9th century it was reduced to a poor village.
Ottoman era
In 1596 Qanawat appeared in the
Ottoman Syria tax registers as part of the
nahiya (subdistrict) of Bani Nasiyya of the
Hauran Sanjak. It had a population of twelve Muslim and five Christian households. Among the inhabitants were a group of settled
Bedouin. The villagers paid a fixed tax rate of 20% on various agricultural products, including wheat, barley, summer crops, goats and/or beehives; a total of 4,750 akçe.
[Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 218.] Qanawat was abandoned between the 17th and 18th centuries. However, by the 1820s, it was among the first villages in the Jabal Hauran to be repopulated by
Druze migrants from
Mount Lebanon.
[Firro 1992, p. 149.] At the time, five or six Druze families settled the village.
[ Because of its Roman past, Qanawat already had paved pathways, readily available empty houses and water sources.][Firro 1992, p. 151.] However, its population had only incrementally increased between 1830 and 1850.[ Though during that period it became the home of Druze religious sheikhs, it was not until the 1850s that was Qanawat established as the seat of the preeminent shaykh al-aql (Druze religious leader) and the center of local Druze politics.][ Following further Druze migration to the area after the 1860 Mount Lebanon civil war, Qanawat grew into a large village.][
]
The first shaykh al-aql of Qanawat was Ibrahim al-Hajari who played a key role in mobilizing Druze resistance to the conscription orders of the Egyptian governor Ibrahim Pasha in the late 1830s.[Firro 1992, p. 182.] Ibrahim died in 1840 and was succeeded by his son Husayn.[ Qanawat at the time was under the control of the Al Hamdan, the leading Druze family of the Hauran.][ However, under Husayn’s leadership, the Hajari family formed the mashaykat al-aql, which gradually became the main religious institution recognized by the Druze of Hauran.][ The Al Hamdan used it to further their influence among the Druze,][ but lost Qanawat to the Al-Atrash in the 1860s.][Firro 1992, p. 183.] The latter only nominally controlled Qanawat with the al-Hajari family running the village’s affairs independently through the mashaykhat al-aql.[Firro 1992, p. 184.]
Main sights
The city's extensive ancient ruins are 1500 m in length and 750 m in breadth. Among them are a Roman bridge and a rock-hewn theatre, with nine tiers of seats and an orchestra nineteen meters in diameter, also a nymphaeum, an aqueduct, and a large prostyle temple with portico and colonnades. North-west of the town is a late 2nd- or early 3rd-century peripteral temple, built on a high platform surrounded by a colonnade. For years, this temple was believed to honour Helios, but an inscription discovered in 2002 shows that it was dedicated to a local god, Rabbos.[Burns, 2009, p. 249]
The monument known as Es-Serai (also Seraya, "palace") dates from around the 2nd century AD and was originally a temple, and then, from the 4th/5th centuries, a Christian basilica. It is 22 m long, and was preceded by an outside portico and an atrium with eighteen columns.
The German explorer Hermann Burchardt visited the town in 1895, taking photographs of its antiquities, photographs which are now held in the Ethnological Museum of Berlin.[ General view of Qanawat (click on photo to enlarge); Qanawat, Serail (click on photo to enlarge).]
Gallery
Al Quanawat-Kanatha - GAR - 8-01.jpg|Roman building, Al Quanawat in 2008
Al Quanawat-Kanatha - GAR - 8-02.jpg|Roman building, Al Quanawat in 2008
Al Quanawat-Kanatha - GAR - 8-03.jpg|Window reliefs
Al Quanawat-Kanatha - GAR - 8-05.jpg|Temple of Rabbos, Al Quanawat in 2008
Al Quanawat-Kanatha - GAR - 8-04.jpg|Roman nympheum, Al Quanawat in 2008
File:Al Quanawat-Kanatha - GAR - 8-06.jpg|Roman tower, Al Quanawat in 2008
See also
Bibliography
External links
