Images The village of Dehes

In Dehes (one of the so-called Syrian "Dead Cities"), seven eulogies of Saint Simeon were found inside the roof of a 7th century wine press. They were mingled with dirt and the straw which was used to fix the tiles of the press. This discovery could lead to two – opposite – explanations: the peasants have built this press inserting an eulogy for protection, which would mean that Saint Simeon’s figure was still very much known at that time; or the peasants have melted these eulogies with dust without paying much attention, and this would mean that Saint Simeon had fallen into oblivion. Archaeologists will need to discover more cases to choose between one of these two theories.