BASHAN, a district east of the Jordan whose bounds cannot be determined with accuracy. On the east it would seem to have been bounded by Jebel Hauran and Salkhad (Salcah) (Deut. 1o, Josh. xii. 4, xiii. I I), on the south by the river Yarmuk (Hier omax) and a line drawn through Dera'a (Edrei) and Salkhad, on the west by the districts Geshur and Maacah (Josh. xii. 5) which may possibly have been strips of territory separating it from the Jordan valley, whilst on the north it stretched out towards the Hermon range (Deut. xxxiii. 22). The extent of the region to which the name Bashan could be applied appears to have fluctuated. In a wide sense it was applied to the northernmost of the three great divisions into which Eastern Palestine fell (Moab, Gilead, Bashan : Deut. iv. 43, II. Ki. x. 33) . In the time of Og, Bashan included Edrei and Salcah (Deut. iii. 1o, etc.) . The graecized name Batanaea was later applied to the southern portion only of the region indicated, other portions being particularized as Auranitis, Golanitis, Trachonitis (Josephus, Antiq. iv. v. 3) . Golan was a "city of refuge" in Bashan (Deut. iv. 43), and is perhaps one of the sites in the modern Jaulan. The Argob (I. Ki. iv. 13) in Bashan was probably a district whose western boundary was the Wady-er-Rukkad with southern extension to include northern Gilead. Whatever the variations of Bashan's area may have been, there seems no doubt that its core was the fertile plain now known as En-Nukra ("hearth-hole") west of Jebel Hauran and the vol canic mass of El Leja or Trachon.
The chief towns of Bashan to which reference is made in the Old Testament are Ashtaroth-Karnaim (Carneas,—now perhaps Tell-'Ashtara or Tell-Ash'ari, both south-west of Sheikh Sa'ad), Edrei (Dera'a, identified probably mistakenly with Aduri of the Amarna letters), Golan (somewhere in Jaulan), Salcah (Salkhad) and Bosra (Bostra, mod. Busra). As the ruins on these sites date from the first century A.D., excavation alone can establish whether they were occupied prior to that time. In this neighbourhood and more especially in the Leja and Jebel Hauran are found the re mains of many deserted towns of a former day. According to Wetzstein the Jebel Hauran has 30o such on its east and south slopes. An edict of A.D. 4o (Herod Agrippa) reveals how the pop ulation lived in caverns and subterranean cities as a protection against Arab nomads, and enjoins them to abandon this "bestial mode of life" (exlpu'vans KaTescravis). The abodes of the people, as the sites testify, were either caverns hollowed out of the moun tain (as on the east of Jebel Hauran), or underground homes en tered by concealed shafts (as west of Jebel ez-Zumla). At Edrei there is an entire city underground, now partially destroyed. Their buildings above ground have been built of huge blocks of black basalt, the almost entire absence of wood being a curious feature, doors, staircases, galleries, roofs, etc., being of basalt. "An awful silence fills the sable ruins, there is never a face nor a flower, nor the flutter of a robe in all the bare black streets" (G. A. Smith) .
Bashan was famous of old for its oaks (Is. ii. 13, Zech. xi. 2, Ezek. xxvii. 6). The Nukra is a treeless plain but on the ridges of Gilzad to the south and on the western slopes of Jebel Hauran trees flourish, amongst them oaks. Bashan was famous too, for its cattle (Deut. xxxii. 14, Ps. xxii. 12). The haughty women of Samaria are likened by Amos to kine of Bashan (iv. I).
History.—In Numbers xxi. 33 seq. we are told how the Is raelites defeated Og at his frontier city Edrei and took his land. The territory of Bashan was assigned to the half-tribe Manasseh (Deut. iii. 13, iv. 43; Josh. xiii. 29) . It was one of Solomon's commissariat districts (I. Ki. iv. 13), and was smitten by Hazael (II. Ki. x. 33) . Judas Maccabaeus, in a victorious campaign against the Greeks and their native allies, penetrated to Bosra. From 84-81 B.C. Bashan was under the rule of Alexander Jan naeus, but the rest of the land to the east belonged to the Nabataeans. Pompey and his legions drove the latter southward (64 B.c.) and Bosra and Salcah became their northerr_most towns. Herod who had conducted war in this region (32 B.C.) was made its ruler by Augustus. By means of fortresses and a garrison of 3,000 legionaries he maintained a precarious peace and by proclaiming freedom from taxation attracted an ample population. Herod's son succeeded to a tetrarchy comprising Gaulanitis, Batanaea, Trachonitis, Auronitis (4 B.e.) which later passed to Herod Agrippa (A.D. In A.D. Io6 Trajan brought the whole Nabataean kingdom under the empire in creating the province of Arabia with Bosra as capital, thus en suring within the frontier, extended far eastwards, security for the fertile plains of Bashan. Cities rapidly grew out of villages, boasting that which was Rome in colonnaded streets, basilicas, theatres, aqueducts, only to sink back into oblivion when the frontier had been broken, the Roman power had passed away, and the desert had resumed its invasion of the town. When southern Arabian Christian stems founded the Ghassanid king dom (A.D. 200) Bashan bloomed again. Bosra eventually be came the ecclesiastical capital of the Hauran (cathedral built in 512) and as a trading centre was second only to Damascus. Thither came Mohammed from Mecca with his camel-train to learn in the intervals of trade all he knew of Christianity. By 635 Damascus had fallen to the Arabs and a blight had settled permanently on the broad acres of Bashan and on ruined cities in whose deserted streets bewildered nomads still wander. The crusaders made two expeditions to Bosra (1 1 13 and I 1 19). Bashan they called the territory of Suhete or Suete (Suweida?) but they made no settlement there. To-day the Hauran is one of the strongholds of the Druses (q.v.) of whom it shelters some 5o,000. The independence of the territory of Jebel ed-Duruz (Jebel Hauran) was recognized by the Mandatory power (France) in an agreement with Druse chiefs (1921). Its independence was officially proclaimed on April 5, 1922.
Archaeology.—French control of the Hauran district has given a stimulus to archaeological investigation. A fine basalt lion of Syro-Hittite style, discovered long ago at Sheikh Sa'ad (north of Dera'a), has been removed to the museum at Damascus. At Kanawat, a church in the middle of a temple of the Roman epoch, at Shuhba (Philippopolis) a great temple, theatre and a Roman villa with mosaics claimed to be the finest yet found in Syria, have been laid bare. At Suweida, the capital, where is now a lapidary museum, a small church and a Roman villa have been excavated. An archaeological survey of the region has been carried out by the French and a large number of new inscriptions (400 Greek texts and 30o Safaitic as well as some Nabataean) along with monuments have been brought to Suweida (1925).
BIBLIOGRAPHY.-U. J. Seetzen, Reisen durch Syrien, Palastina, etc. Bibliography.-U. J. Seetzen, Reisen durch Syrien, Palastina, etc. (1854) ; J. L. Porter, Giant Cities of Bashan (1865) ; J. G. Wetzstein, Reisehericht fiber Hauran and die Trachonen (186o) ; R. F. Burton and C. T. Drake, Unexplored Syria (1872) ; G. Schumacher, The Jaulan (1888), and Across the Jordan (1886) ; G. A. Smith, Historical Geography of the Holy Land (1897, etc.) (bibliog.) ; U. Kahrstedt, Syrische Territorien in hellenistischer Zeit (1926) (maps) ; R. Dussaud, Topographie historique de la Syrie antique et Medievale (1927) (maps, bibliog.). For Archaeology—W. H. Waddington, Inscriptions grecques et latines de la Syrie (187o) ; W. Ewing, "A Journey in the Hauran," Pal. Expl. Fund Quart. Stat. (1895) ; R. Dussaud et F. Macler, Voyage archeologique au Sofa et dans le Djebel ed-Druz (1901) ; E. Littmann (and others) in Publications of Princeton University Archaeological Expedition to Syria in igo4-1905 and rgo9 (1907, etc.) vols. iii. and iv. ; M. Dunand, "Mission dans le Djebel Druze: Syria" (1925 and 1926). (E. Ro.) the name given to a species of irregular mounted troops employed by the Turks, which earned notoriety during the i 9th century. They were armed and maintained by the Government but did not receive pay nor wear uniform. Their uncertain discipline and temper sometimes made it necessary for the Turkish regular troops to disarm them by force, but they were often useful in the work of reconnaissance and in outpost duty. They were accused, and generally with justice, of robbery and maltreatment of the civil population, resembling in those things, as in their fighting methods and value, the Croats, Pandours and Tolpatches of i8th-century European armies. The term was also used of a mounted force, existing in peace time in various provinces of the Turkish empire, which performed the duties of gendarmerie.