Who Built Qal'at Sim'ān?

Abstract:Qal'at Sim'ān, the cult site dedicated to Symeon the Stylite the Elder (died 459), is one of the largest building projects completed in late Roman Syria and was a premier pilgrimage destination in Late Antiquity. Scholars have proposed that the emperors Leo I (reigned from 457 to 474) or Zeno (reigned from 474 to 491) provided funding for construction, but no textual sources record imperial patronage. This article provides a comprehensive examination of evidence for patronage at Qal'at Sim'ān in order to shift attention to the local context. This article does not rule out the possibility of imperial patronage, but instead it expands previous historiography to include the initiatives of local actors in the construction of the complex. I evaluate the scholarship on and evidence for imperial benefaction, advance previously unexplored evidence from the hagiographical record, and situate this evidence within the economy and society of northern Syria's limestone massif. This article lays the foundation for a more complex interpretation of the pilgrimage site than previously undertaken by scholars. It contextualizes construction within the religious practices of Syriac Christianity. Finally, it weighs the dynamics of imperially-commissioned projects alongside the multiple agents who shaped religious architecture in the eastern Roman Empire.