The Lajat (/ALA-LC: al-Lajāʾ), also spelled Lejat, Lajah, el-Leja or Laja, is the largest lava field in southern Syria, spanning some 900 square kilometers. Located about southeast of Damascus, the Lajat borders the Hauran plain to the west and the foothills of Jabal al-Druze to the south. The average elevation is between 600 and 700 meters above sea level, with the highest volcanic cone being 1,159 meters above sea level. Receiving little annual rainfall, the Lajat is largely barren, though there are scattered patches of arable land in some of its depressions.
The region has been known by a number of names throughout its history, including "Argob" ( ’Argōḇ, sometimes vocalized as Argov, a biblical word that is translated by Onkelos as = Trachona. For a discussion of whether the Hebrew lexeme ארגב is a common noun or proper noun, see ) in the Hebrew Bible and "Trachonitis" () by the Greeks, a name under which it is mentioned in the Gospel of Luke (Luke 3, ). Long inhabited by Arab groups, it saw development under the Romans, who built a road through the center of the region connecting it with the empire's province of Syria. The pagan cults that predominated in Trachonitis during the Roman and pre-Roman era persisted through much of the Byzantine era, until the 6th century when Christianity became dominant. During Byzantine rule, Trachonitis experienced a massive building boom with churches, homes, bathhouses and colonnades being constructed in numerous villages, whose inhabitants remained largely Arab.
The region was abandoned at some point, only to be repopulated by refugees from other regions of Syria during the Mongol invasions in the 13th century. This earned the region its modern Arabic name, al-Lajāʾ, meaning "the refuge". During early Ottoman rule in the 16th century, al-Lajat contained numerous agricultural villages and farms, but by the 17th century, the region was all but abandoned. Local Bedouin tribes, such as the Sulut, increasingly used the region for grazing their flocks, and Druze migrants from Mount Lebanon began settling the area in the early 19th century. Today, the population is mixed, with Druze inhabiting its central and eastern areas, and Muslims and Melkite Christians living in villages along its western edge.
Etymology
Lajat's ancient name "Trachonitis" signifies the land associated with the trachon, "a rugged stony tract." There are two volcanic districts south and east of Damascus, to which the Greeks applied this name: that to the northwest of the mountain of Jabal al-Druze (Jabal Hauran) is called in Arabic, el-Leja, which means "the refuge" or "asylum".
Geography The Lajat is situated in southeastern Syria, spanning a triangle-shaped area between the 45-kilometer Izra'-Shahba line in the south 48 kilometers northward to the vicinity of Burraq.Gaube 1982, p. 593. It is about 50 kilometers south of Damascus. Its northern border is roughly marked by the Wadi al-Ajam gorge, which separates it from the Ghouta countryside of Damascus. It is bordered to the east by the Ard al-Bathaniyya region, to the southeast by Jabal al-Druze (also called Jabal Hauran), to the south by the Nuqrah (southern Hauran plain) and to the northwest by Jaydur (northern Hauran plain).
Topography The Lajat's average elevation is between 600 and 700 meters above sea level, and it is higher than the surrounding plains.Lewis, p. 631. Many of its volcanic cones are higher than 1,000 meters above sea level, with the highest, just west of Shahba, at 1,159 meters. In general the volcanic cones and mounds rise 20 to 30 meters above the lava fields.Voysey 1920, p. 206.
Much of the Lajat is covered by gray, disintegrated lava fields that form jagged basalt boulders, though there are some areas of smoother, rocky ground punctured with holes.Voysey 1920, p. 208. The holes were formed from gas bubbles caused by cooling lava that flowed over the uneven landscape. Among the mostly barren landscape are depressions with far less rocky ground than the rest of the Lajat. The depressions are called ka′ in Arabic and have average diameters of 100 meters. The depressions are likely the result of earlier volcanic eruptions. The depressions represented scattered patches of arable land among lava and fewer larger areas of fertile ground. The few wadis (dried up streams) of the Lajat are generally shallow and broad. Even fewer than the wadis are deep fissures that form caves or reservoirs.
Water sources Springs and underground water sources in the Lajat are scarce and most water is supplied by cisterns. Shortages of water are particularly severe during the summer months. While during the Lajat's ancient history, its inhabitants stored water from winter rainfall in reservoirs built near homes, by the early 20th century, these reservoirs had long fallen into disrepair.Voysey 1920, pp. 208−209. Thus, by the modern era, every village contained rectangular cisterns to store rainwater, which serves as the main source of water.Voysey, p. 209.
History Antiquity Early history In ancient times, Trachonitis included the regions of Lajat and the Tulul as-Safa to its east. For much of the 1st and 2nd millenniums BC, the region lacked political significance and was influenced by the Damascus-based Arameans and the Israelites. Trachonitis was annexed by the Seleucid Empire in the 2nd century BC. During this period, the region was a frontier zone between the southern Nabataeans and northwestern Itureans, both Arab groupings.
Roman period In 24 BC, the Roman Empire conquered Syria and assigned the region of Trachonitis, which was inhabited by nomadic marauders and cattle herders living in caves, to the authority of Herod the Great, king of Judaea.Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, xv, x, i; The Jewish War, i, xx, 4 The area was not part of Herod's original kingdom in 40 BCE but was given to him by the Romans by the end of 27 BCE. To address the issue of local brigands, Herod settled 3,000 Idumaeans in Trachonitis.Syon, Danny (2014). Gamla III: The Shmarya Gutmann Excavations, 1976–1989. Finds and Studies (PDF). Vol. 1. Jerusalem: Israel Antiquities Authority Reports, No. 56. . p. 8 "Herod’s activities in Northern Transjordan consisted mainly of occasionally fighting the Nabateans and of efforts to eradicate the bands of brigands in the Trachon (Trachonitis), first by settling Idumeans in the region, and later, Babylonian Jews." Later, around 7 BCE, Herod invited Zamaris, a Jew from Babylonia, and his contingent of 500 mounted archers to settled the village of Bathyra in Batanea (possibly near modern-day as-Sanamayn), giving them an exemption from taxation. This settlement, led by the family of Zamaris, was tasked with protecting the people of Batanea from Trachonite brigands and ensuring the safety of Jewish pilgrims traveling from Babylonia to Jerusalem. According to Josephus, these troops were accompanied by settlers from various places who were dedicated to the "ta patria of the Jews". With Herod's death in 4 BCE, Trachonitis was given to his son Philip the Tetrarch. After the latter's death, circa 34 CE, the area was incorporated into the province of Syria.
During the Roman era, Trachonitis' inhabitants gradually became settled and gained exemption from taxation. Under emperor Trajan, the region was transferred to the province of Arabia. The Romans built a road that passed through the center of Trachonitis and connected with the Roman road system in Syria. Several towns and villages sprang up in Trachonitis between the 1st and 4th centuries AD. Many of these settlements had theaters, colonnades and temples. There are almost twenty sites in the Lajat that contain ruins and inscriptions from the Roman period, including Phillipopolis (modern-day Shahba) and Sha'ara (ancient name unknown). The town of Zorava (modern-day Izra') was the political center of Trachonitis and its earliest inhabitants were Nabatean Arabs.Trombley, p. 359. The main Nabatean tribes of the town were the Sammenoi and the Migdalenoi (migrants from nearby al-Mujaydil). The inhabitants practiced a Roman pagan cult as early as 161 AD. In the 3rd century, they built numerous houses and baths from basaltic stone, and the town had a relatively urban character.
Byzantine period
The Romans were succeeded by the Byzantine Empire in Syria during the mid-4th century AD. For the following three centuries, Trachonitis saw a huge uptick in settlement and building activity. Among the major Byzantine-era settlements were Bosor (modern Busra al-Harir), Zorava, Jirrin, Sur, Deir al-Juwani, Rimea, Umm al-Zaytun, Shaqra and Harran.Trombley, pp. 365–371. There are at least thirty sites in the Lajat with ruins tracing back to the Byzantine era. The Byzantine era saw the expansion of Christianity in the regions surrounding the Lajat, but there archaeological evidence indicates that Christianity only affected a few Lajat villages, particularly those along its southwestern edges, until the mid-6th century.Trombley, p. 367. One of the earliest known Christian communities in Trachonitis was Sur (ancient name unknown), which had a Christian edifice dated to 458.Trombley, p. 366.
Zorava was the cosmopolitan capital of Byzantine Trachonitis. Its pagan temple was replaced by the martyrium of Saint George in 515 and the town became a bishopric in 542.Trombley, pp. 359–360. There are no earlier indications of a Christian presence in Zorava. In addition to its Arab inhabitants, the town had a Greek-speaking community (Greek was the lingua franca of Byzantine Syria), made up mostly of army veterans, who themselves were likely ethnic Arabs recruited from the province. By the mid-6th century, the Arabs of Trachonitis had largely become Christians with the cult of Saint Elijah being predominant; the cult of Saint Sergius was dominant in Trachonitis' neighboring regions. In Harran, a bilingual Arabic-Greek inscription dated from 568 describes the construction of a martyrium built by a local Arab phylarch.
Middle Ages The region's modern name "Lajah" was first recorded during the Middle Ages, and the region was only mentioned by later Arab geographers, indicating that it had likely been abandoned prior to the 13th century. In the early 13th century, during Ayyubid rule, the Lajat was said to contain a "large population" and numerous villages and fields, according to Syrian geographer Yaqut al-Hamawi. According to historian H. Gaube, the Lajat was likely settled by refugees from other parts of Syria due to the pressures of the Mongol invasions. There are at least thirteen sites in the Lajat that contain Islamic-era ruins, most of which date to the 13th century.
Ottoman period The Lajat contained some populated places during early Ottoman rule, which began in 1517, but other than a few Christian-populated villages along its western periphery, the region was abandoned by at least the 17th century.