Sabbatical Year Earthquakes
Bosra is
listed among the settlements devastated during the
earthquake sequence of January 749 CE by two
later
Syriac
chroniclers,
Michael the Syrian
and
Chronicon Ad Annum
1234.
These two accounts are not independent, as the
Chronicon Ad Annum
1234 and
Michael the Syrian
are thought to have shared many sources, and their
descriptions of the earthquake sequence are closely
related.
Both authors describe Bosra in terms
of catastrophic structural destruction. Michael the Syrian states that Bosra was "swallowed up completely,"
whereas the
Chronicon Ad Annum
1234
reports that Bosra was "razed to its foundations."
The
Holy Desert Quake
North appears to be the most likely source of the reported damage.