Lajat
The Lajat (Arabic: اللجاة/ALA-LC: al-Lajāʾ), also spelled Lejat, Lajah, el-Leja or Laja, is the largest lava field in southern Syria, spanning some 900 square kilometers. Located about 50 kilometers (31 mi) southeast of Damascus, the Lajat borders the Hauran plain to the west and the foothills of Jabal al-Druze to the south. The average elevation is between 600 and 700 meters above sea level, with the highest volcanic cone being 1,159 meters above sea level. Receiving little annual rainfall, the Lajat is largely barren, though there are scattered patches of arable land in some of its depressions.
Lajat
Al-Lajaʾ, Trachonitis, Argob | |
|---|---|
The landscape of the Lajat (pictured) largely consists of gray, volcanic rock with scattered patches of arable land | |
Lajat Location of the Lajat in Syria | |
| Coordinates: 32°58′10″N 36°27′10″E | |
| Location | Daraa Governorate and as-Suwayda Governorate, Syria |
| Part of | the Hauran |
| Area | |
| • Total | 90,000 hectares (220,000 acres) |
| Elevation | 600–700 m (2,000 ft–2,300 ft) |
The region has been known by a number of names throughout its history, including "Argob" (Hebrew: ארגוב ’Argōḇ,) in the Hebrew Bible and "Trachonitis" (Greek: Τραχωνῖτις) by the Greeks, a name under which it is mentioned in the Gospel of Luke (Luke 3, Luke 3:1). Long inhabited by Arab groups, it saw development under the Romans, who built a road through the center of the region connecting it with the empire's province of Syria. The pagan cults that predominated in Trachonitis during the Roman and pre-Roman era persisted through much of the Byzantine era, until the 6th century when Christianity became dominant. During Byzantine rule, Trachonitis experienced a massive building boom with churches, homes, bathhouses and colonnades being constructed in numerous villages, whose inhabitants remained largely Arab.
The region may have been abandoned at some point, only to be repopulated by refugees from other regions of Syria during the Mongol invasions in 13th-century. This earned the region its modern Arabic name, al-Lajāʾ, meaning "the refuge". During early Ottoman rule in the 16th century, al-Lajat contained numerous agricultural villages and farms, but by the 17th century, the region was all but abandoned. Local Bedouin tribes, such as the Sulut, increasingly used the region for grazing their flocks, and Druze migrants from Mount Lebanon began settling the area in the early 19th century. Today, the population is mixed, with Druze inhabiting its central and eastern areas, and Muslims and Melkites living in villages along its western edge.