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Syria.Damascus

 Damascus by Jacopo d' Angiolo, Florence, 1470.

( Cliche Bibliotheque nationale, FR)

There is an honored old tradition that 

the immense gardens in which Damascus stands
was the Garden of Eden...

...Damascus measures time not by days 

and months and years,
but by the empires she has seen rise

 and prosper 

and crumble to ruin.

She is a type of immortality...

...Though another claims the name, 

old Damascus
is by right, the Eternal City.” 

 

Mark Twain
The Innocents Abroad, 1869

 


Old Damascus New City Souqs History

  • The Wall and Gates

  • The Umayyad Mosque

  • The Azem Place

  • The Damascus Citadel

  • Bimaristan Al-Noury

  • St.Paul’s Church

 

  • The National Museum

  • Al-Takieh Al-Suleimaniyeh

  • Salhieh

 
  • Souq Al-Hamidiyeh
  • Souq Midhat Pasha
  • Souq Al-Harir
  • Souq Al-Bzourieh

  •  Via Recta 

 

 

 

History

 

Damascus has been known as al Fayha' (the fragrant city), al Sham, and the "Pearl of the Orient"- the Emperor Julian's epithet for the city. The oldest continuously inhabited city in the world, Damascus is mentioned in the holy Qur'an as "the many columned city of Aram, whose like has been never known".

Damaski (Damascus) as confirmed by the Ebla tablets wielded great economic influence in the third millennium BC. 

Ancient Pharaonic text refer to the city as "Damaska ". In the second millennium the city enjoyed renown as "Dar Misiq"- the irrigated house. 

Her original earliest inhabitants were the Aramites; these people spoke Syriac- the language spoken by Christ.

Modern Damascus bears the stamps of her many occupiers: the Greeks, the Romans, the Byzantines, the Ottomans and the French.

In 661 AD., Damascus was the capital of the first Umayyad. The Umayyad organized its souqs and districts, improved its water supply and erected palaces and hospitals in the city.

 

Articles about Damascus

1-Breathing life into old Damascus (BBC News).

 

 

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