Deir Mar Mousa:

Its location is at al-Nabk, 81 km north of Damascus.

After a long period of neglect, the sixth century monastery and chapel of Mar Mousa (an Ethiopian saint revered in the Syrian rites) is being restored through the efforts of an Italian Jesuit "Paolo dell'Oglio" and the Syrian Catholic communities of Nabk and Damascus. The church contains extraordinary frescoes dating back possibly as far as the 7th century. Dating, however, is not easy as the style employed is rather untutored and naïve, thus offering little opportunity for stylistic analysis. The state of preservation is not good but the effect of the frescoes in their remote and forbidding location, in the gloomy confines of the chapel, is striking.

The monastery is said to be founded by Mar Mousa (St. Moses the Ethiopian). In addition to the early frescoes, there are others of the 11th century in a peculiarly Syrian style. The monastery was abandoned in the 17th century. From the terras, there is a superb view eastwards into the desert below the escarpment.