page_title: Hauran
section_title: Surveys
hierarchical_section_title: Hauran / Architecture / Surveys
caption_attribution_description: English: Ancient temple, Sanamayn Hauran-Liste 1895: Sanamen, alter Tempel; Is-Sanamen (von Oppenheim); Sanamein; Sanamein. Alter Tempel (Tagebuch H.B.); Südsyrien, A.s-.sanamain. Tychaion, Cella, SO-Ecke (Dr. K. Freyberger; DAI, Damaskus)
context_page_description: The Hauran also spelled Hawran or Houran is a region that spans parts of southern Syria and northern Jordan. It is bound in the north by the Ghouta oasis, eastwards by the al-Safa field, to the south by Jordan's desert steppe and to the west by the Golan Heights. Traditionally, the Hauran consists of three subregions: the Nuqrah and Jaydur plains, the Jabal al-Druze massif, and the Lajat volcanic field. The population of the Hauran is largely Arab, but religiously heterogeneous; most inhabitants of the plains are Sunni Muslims belonging to large agrarian clans, while Druze form the majority in the eponymous Jabal al-Druze and a significant Greek Orthodox and Greek Catholic minority inhabit the western foothills of Jabal al-Druze. The region's largest towns are Daraa, al-Ramtha and al-Suwayda.
  From the mid-1st century BCE, the region was governed by the Roman Empire's Herodian and Nabatean client kings until it was formally annexed by the empire in the 2nd century CE. The Hauran prospered under Roman rule and its villages functioned as largely self-governing units, some of which developed into imperial cities.
context_section_description: The earliest surveys of the Hauran's archaeological sites were taken in the 19th century by the French archaeologist Melchior de Vogüé between 1865 and 1877, S. Merrill in 1881 and Gottlieb Schumacher in 1886 and 1888. The most thorough and abundant documentation was recorded in surveys carried out by Butler and his team from Princeton University in 1903 and 1909 and then published periodically between 1909 and 1929. In 1913, Butler also surveyed Umm al-Jimal, which contained numerous ruins, some as high as three storeys high. The period in which these surveys were carried out coincided with the Hauran's mass resettlement. This resulted in the partial damage of some sites due to their occupation as homes or as a source of masonry for new buildings, a process which continuously increased in later years.
  Renewed interest in the Hauran's ancient sites began in the 1970s. Umm al-Jimal was surveyed between 1972 and 1981 by the French archaeologist Bert de Vries and reports from that expedition were published in 1998. Surveys of the Hauran plain in Syria were carried out by French expeditionary teams led by François Villeneuve in 1985 and Jean-Marie Dentzer in 1986. Early photographs of Hauran's archaeological sites, taken in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by the German explorer and photographer Hermann Burchardt, are now held at the Ethnological Museum of Berlin.
caption: Ancient temple, al-Sanamayn, photographed by Hermann Burchardt in 1895
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