Damascus Countryside, (SANA)- The national archeological mission working near the site of Mar Taqla (St. Thecla) in Ein Mnin in Damascus Countryside Province, discovered a number of rock-carved halls and some Roman and Byzantine cemeteries dating back to the period between the 1st and 4th centuries.

Head of the mission and Director of Archeology Department of Damascus Countryside Mahmoud Hammoud told SANA that one of the halls was found to include three altars at which religious rituals of a nearby temple were held.

The mission also unearthed a number of well-like cemeteries carved into rocks, one of which is a collective cemetery containing 5 tombs. Bronze bracelets and rings were found in the cemeteries among pieces of funereal furniture.

Hammoud said those archeological findings together with the set of other finds discovered earlier in the same region make a distinctive collection of exhibits in an archeology museum the Province is planning to establish near the site of Mar Taqla Mountain.

He pointed out that Mar Taqla site includes a number of rock-carved temples from the Roman Era and that the oldest housing layers in Ein Mnin date back to the first millennium B.C. and to the Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine periods.

R. Raslan /Haifa