'The Expedition for the survey of the rivers Euphrates and Tigris, carried on by order of the British government, in the years 1835, 1836, and 1837; preceded by geographical and historical notices of the regions situated between the rivers Nile and Indus. In four volumes. With fourteen maps and charts, and embellished with ninety-seven plates, besides numerous wood-cuts. Volume the first.' [‎421] (502/905)

CHAP. XVIII.] KHANAT AND AQUEDUCT.
421
the remains of its surrounding walls and ditch, mark the Architectural
limits of the Muslim city; within which are four large remain8 "
cisterns, a fine sarcophagus, and, among other ancient remains,
the scattered ruins of an acropolis, and those of two temples.
Of the smaller, the enclosure and portions of seven columns
remain; but it seems to possess little interest, compared with
the larger, which may have been that of the Assyrian and
Phoenician Astarte, 1 or Astroarche (queen of stars), which
afterwards becailie the Syrian Atargatis, 2 or Venus Decerto. 3
Amongst the remains of the latter are some fragments of
massive architecture, not unlike the Egyptian, and 11 arches
form one side of a square paved court, over which are scat
tered the shafts of columns and capitals displaying the lotus.
A little way westward of the walls there is an extensive Ancient roads
Necropolis, which contains many Turkish, with some Pagan, an(1 a<lueduct
Seljukian, and Syriac tombs; the last having some almost
illegible inscriptions in the ancient character.
From this quarter may be traced the two roads which led
to the Zeugmas; also the remains of a Khanat running in
the direction of the Sajur, from whence this work, so peculiar
to the Assyrians, probably brought a supply of water. East
ward of the city is the extensive aqueduct which, at a later
period, supplied the town from the range of hills about seven
miles to the south-south-east, called Jebel-Dana-Tagh. Two
miles southward are the tents of the Beni-Said-Arabs, whose
flocks occupy the pasture-grounds which extend from Balis to
the Sajur. From this river to Bireh-jik the country is
cultivated by fixed Kurds and Turkomans of the Barak tribe.
Along the different routes which have been traversed between
the latter place and the shores of the Mediterranean, successive
villages and hamlets of clay or stone are met with at short
intervals, but very few places possess any particular interest.
1 There were temples of this goddess in Palestine.—Jos. Ant., lib. V., c.
xiv. 8; at Tyre : ibid.; against Apion, lib. I., s. 19; and atSidon, 1 Kings,
c. v., and v. 33. 2 Strabo, XVI., p. 748.
3 Herod., lib. I., c. cv., mentions the temple of Venus at Askalon, which, in
Diod. Sic., lib. II., is called that of Decerto ; there was another temple to
Venus, or Atargatis, at Joppa.—Plin., lib. V., c. xiii. and xxiii. ,