Jabal Sais
Syrian desert fortificaton
Jabal Sais (Arabic: جبل سايس also known as Qasr Says is a Umayyad desert fortification or former palace in Syria which was built 707-715 AD. The fortification sits near an extinct volcano. Jabal Says is mountain peak next to the fortification which sits 621 meters above sea level.
History
Built from 707-715 AD and located in the Syrian Desert. The location was dependent on the seasonal supply of water which pooled next to the volcano crater. The palace is now just a vestige. The settlement at Jabal Says has existed since 528 AD. According to the historian Jere L. Bacharach, al-Walid I built Jabal Says, likely as a Bedouin summer encampment between his base of operations in al-Qaryatayn and another of his desert forts, Qasr Burqu'.
Jebel Usays inscription
The site contains a famous inscription known as the Jebel Usays inscription composed either in 528 or 532/3 AD. It describes the Jafnid leader Al-Harith ibn Jabalah with the leader al-malik, corresponding to how the title is spelt in Syriac texts from the time.
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This entry incorporates text from “Jabal Sais” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.