Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Remains of the stone of St. Simeon Stylites
Our next visit was to Qalaat Samaan (St. Simeon's Monastery). This was a former place
of pilgrimage, where Saint Simeon Stylites (Stylites is Greek for pillar) spent 37 years
perched in enforced ascetic isolation on the top of a 15-metre-high pillar through summers
and winters. This was a period of great asceticism amongst monks and worshippers and
there were many imitators of this strange form of both isolation and renunciation of mater-
ial comforts.
Peter with some Circassians and Kurds and lots of horses
