The main attraction of the region around "al-bara" is the so-called Dead Cities, a series of ancient ghost towns among the limestone hills that lie between the Aleppo-Hama highway in the east and the Orontes River in the west. They date from the time when this area was part of the hinterland of the great Byzantine Christian city of Antioch. There are reckoned to be some 600 separate sites, ranging from single monuments to nearly whole villages complete with houses, churches, baths and even wine presses. Taken together they represent a great archive in stone from which historians can put together a picture of life in antiquity. The great mystery is why the towns were abandoned. Some of the sites, especially Serjilla, have an eerie quality, as though their occupants had just vanished. The most current theory is that these towns and villages were emptied by demographic shifts; trade routes changed and the people moved with them. However, not all the areas are completely abandoned - some of the Dead Cities form part of present -day villages with people inhabiting the ancient ruins or incorporating oddments of antiquity into the structure of their homes