SEISMICITY OF SYRIA ACCORDING TO ARCHITECTURAL-ARCHEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL DATA

The reliable evaluation of intensity of historical earthquakes is one of the main problems in the study of seismicity and seismic hazard for Syria. The Syrian history rich in events and exclusive abundance of historical sources makes it possible to revive the seismic history of Syria in detail. The historical materials usually contains rather exaggerated description of seismic effects, This can be partly minimized by the use of specially constructed local seismic intensity scale. Architectural — archeological data, in opposite, can supply with either equivalent or by underestimated data on the historical seismic intensity, and that is caused by possible unknown restoration works, The special attention was paid to the famous monuments in about ۳۰ different locations. The main types of seismic damages were described. The main complicity was to find out the features of seismic action upon the monuments and to select them from the number of other destruction reasons. Basing upon the gathered references and using the result of the field investigations there was for the first times the catalogue of historical earthquakes and the schemes of maximum observed earthquakes in Syria. Also the map of maximum observed intensity was drawn according to the previous information.