Page 39 - Edessa, 'The Blessed City'-01, by J. B. Segal (Oxford, 1970). Chapters 1-3

26 EDESSA UNDER THE KINGS
Citadel mount which would have commanded a fine bird's-eye view of the
river. It was there that the king built his winter house, and it was there that,
according to legend, the Apostle Addai addressed the people of Edessa
assembled at the invitation of the king.1 Beth Sahraye, where the nobles
constructed their mansions, was probably the eastern portion of the present
Citadel mount2 and the high land further to the east and north. In the
vicinity is the cave in which was found the Family Portrait mosaic; the
dignified mien of the personages in this mosaic marks them as noblemen
living in easy circumstances.3
The 'tower of the Persians', from which Abgar examined the floods for
the second time, must have been near the palace or even inside the palace.
Possibly it was on the site of the tower that still stands, south of Birket
Ibrahim.4 The Christian Church of Abgar's time—later it was called the
Old Church—was evidently well known to the narrator, since he mentions it
without introduction or explanation. It must have been situated east of the
palace and on low ground. If we assume that the mosques of present-day
Urfa stand on the site of Christian churches, the most probable location of
the church would be Makam Ibrahim.5
Nothing is left today of the 'charming and beautiful buildings' of the city
of Edessa at the time of Abgar the Great. Of Abgar's palace and the mansions
of the nobles all that survives are the fish-pools, and the two graceful columns
standing high on the Citadel mount among ruined towers and arches and
fallen debris. The two columns are on bases that were subsequently rein-
forced, and their twenty-seven courses are each two half-drums of stone,
with bosses to aid the builders to hoist them into position.6 The style of
their Corinthian capitals assigns them to the late Roman period, and this
date is confirmed by the script of the Syriac dedication to Queen Shalmath
on the eastern column. Shalmath may well have been the wife of king Abgar
the Great at the end of the second and beginning of the third century. Her
statue, like the inscription, must have faced the city. We may assume, then,
that the columns stood at the northern entrance to the complex of buildings,

1 See p. 78 below and PL 36. have survived in the eastern provinces. The
2 Cf. p. 188 below, on the constructions at space between the columns at Urfa is 1,040 cm.
Edessa in the time of Justinian. From the present surface of the ground the
3 Plan II and PL i. height of the base of the eastern column is 255
4 Modern writers have maintained that this cm., of the western column about 275 cm.—the
tower stands on the place where once was the surface of the ground was evidently uneven
famous School of the Persians; the hypothesis also at the time of the erection of the columns;
is possible since here was erected a Jacobite the other dimensions of the bases are 415 X 507
Church of the Mother of God, p. 185 below. cms., and 375 X 390 cm., respectively. The
5 Plan I and PL 326. height of the courses is irregular, ranging be-
* In the second century A.D., bosses for ween 41 cm. and 48 cm., with an average of
lifting heavy stones were probably no longer about 45 cm. The total height of the columns,
used in the West, but they were employed by including the bases, capitals and copings, is
builders in Hellenistic times and may well therefore about 15 metres. PL 96.

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