Roofing in Syria

Syria holds several very different roof traditions in a small area: conical mud domes in the villages of the north, basalt slabs carried on corbels and arches in the volcanic Hauran of the south, and red-tiled roofs on 19th-century central hall houses. Many of these buildings have been damaged or abandoned since the war that began in 2011.

Climate and hazards

Northern and eastern Syria have very hot, dry summers; Syria's beehive houses stay cool in desert heat and hold warmth in winter. The Hauran is a volcanic basalt landscape where timber was scarce. Earthquakes have shaped the region's buildings: a major earthquake in 747 AD destroyed Umm el-Jimal just across the Jordanian border.

Roofing history

Neolithic and ancient. The Lebanese architect Fadlallah Dagher has suggested that the beehive building technique of northern Syria could date back to the Neolithic, about 8,000 years ago.

Roman and late antique Hauran. Builders in the Hauran roofed buildings with long, thin basalt slabs laid on rows of projecting corbels or on transverse stone arches. Bosra's South Bath (2nd-3rd century AD) has a semidome under a flat basalt slab, and Bosra Cathedral was built in 512-513. See hauran-basalt-corbelled-roofs.

Ottoman era. The central hall ("Lebanese") house appeared in the second half of the 19th century in Syria as well as Lebanon, roofed with red Marseille tiles on a wooden frame; ceilings were carried on timber or metal beams, sometimes with decorative plaster on lath (baghdadi).

Modern. Flat concrete roofs often replaced the earlier tiled roofs and their wooden frames.

Traditional and vernacular roofs

• Beehive houses: conical or domed houses of mud mixed with straw, built for thousands of years in northern Syria, for example at Umm Amuda Kabira in Aleppo province, which once had about 200 mud houses. They need regular upkeep; since the war many skilled builders have left, and abandoned houses are decaying. Similar houses survive across the border at Harran (see harran-beehive-houses).
• Basalt slab roofs: in the Hauran, corbel-and-slab and arch-and-slab stone roofs.
• Central hall house: pyramidal or hipped red Marseille-tile roofs over a timber frame.

Roofing today

Flat concrete roofs replaced many traditional tile and earth roofs.

Notable roofs

• Bosra: late antique basalt buildings with stone slab roofs.
• Beehive villages of Aleppo and Hama provinces.

Local roofing terms

• baghdadi - plaster ceiling on timber lath in a central hall house

Sources and gaps

Detailed climate data, data on current roofing materials and information on modern roofing practice, codes and industry: published information is limited. The war has disrupted documentation.