3-053-584 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Giant Cities of Bashan - Um es Zeitoon, 1873. 'Um Zeitun is one of the many ruined towns, some of which are uninhabited, on the eastern edge of the Ledja. A little to the east is the hill Shiehan, an extinct crater, one of the landmarks of the Hauran, on the top of which is a wely, and a little below the wely a solitary olive-tree. Um Zeitun signifies "the mother of olives" but the town is not remarkable for its olive-trees now. At the foot of the hill is a quantity of black sand. From the top the whole of the Ledja, with its many ruined towns, and the wilderness beyond up to Mount Hermon, were distinctly seen. Between the town and the hill is the Lowa, a winter torrent coming down from the mountains, and, after running along the eastern side of the Ledja, finally losing itself in the marshy ground east of Damascus. Under the Romans Um Zeitun was a place of importance, home of its public edifices, as inscriptions state, were built in the time of Alexander Severus and Probus...The present Sheikh, Zobilan Aamr, a middle-aged, merry Druse, is an extremely kind and hospitable man'. From "Illustrated London News", 1873.