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SYRIA
This page and
the accompanying photo gallery is about our Saga
Holidays archaeological tour of Syria
in February 2011.
Syria has generally been on the list of preferred
holidays only for relatively adventurous western tourists yet it has a great
number of wonderful historical sites for the informed traveller to feast upon.
In the past few years it started to open up to the extent that a conservative
holiday company like Saga put accompanied tours to Syria into its brochure. We were
lucky to be able to take part shortly before the shutters well and truly came
down in March 2011.
As a
counterpoint to the violence currently (Dec 2011) taking place in the country I
have put this page and the photos on my site so that folk whose interest in
Syria has been aroused by the news reports can see something of the wealth of
history now inaccessible to visitors. We became aware of the difficulties
facing the country from a fast growing population and from water resource
issues in some parts but the apparently happy locals that we saw gave no
indication of the turmoil that was to come in the months after we left. We
didn’t start it – honest! We did however, notice that
every house, mud brick hovel or tent had a satellite dish. These could tune to
Al Jazeera and to the BBC Arabic channel – the result of which we were told was
a big beneficial effect on the quality of State TV! (and
no doubt helped spread the idea of the Arab Spring). As we were blissfully
ignorant of any political issues we had a happy and incredibly interesting tour
sampling the historic sites of Syria
from prehistory to the present day. It also gave a glimpse into the development
of the Abrahamic monotheistic religions.
For a full
appreciation it is necessary to learn something of the timeline of
civilisations and influences in the twelve thousand years of Syrian History and
Prehistory. I do not propose to even try to begin to go into that here. For the
benefit of the casual enquirer I will just list some of the places that were
highlights of our tour.
Starting in Damascus, the
oldest continually occupied city in the world, we visited the great Umayyad
mosque which for a time in the 7th Century was serving both Islam and
Christendom and which lies in the shadow of the ruins of the Roman temple of Jupiter which preceded it. (Which in
turn was built on the site of the iron age temple of Hadad). We walked the “Street called
Straight” that the bible says was visited by St Paul and we visited the nearby house of
Ananias where he recovered from his blindness. We saw numerous khans or
caravanserai and souks along with an Ottoman
Palace and a fascinating
museum.
In the south
of Syria lies the
magnificent sprawling Nabatean and Roman city of Bosra
where a citadel built in Saladin’s time surrounds and preserved a complete
Roman theatre. In Bosra you can also see the Basilica where, as a boy of 10 or
12, Muhammad met and was possibly influenced by the Christian Monk called
Bahira. In the centre of Syria
is the great Roman oasis city of Palmyra built, like Las Vegas, in the middle of a desert. Here a
vast temple complex several hundred metres square with 18 metre high colonnades
was developed by the Romans. It was built to favour the god Bel on the site of
Greek and earlier structures. Nearby are tombs from the 2nd century both above
and below ground with statues, carvings, paintings and heavy limestone doors on
bronze pivots. The doors, whilst a little stiff and heavy, still function after
nearly 2,000 years.
In the west,
on the way to Homs
we stopped at the massive crusader castle
of Krak des Chevaliers
which was taken from the Knights Hospitaller only through a deception.
A little north
of Homs is Hama, recorded
as once being subject to the rule of King Solomon. This city is famous for the
water wheels which since ancient times have lifted water from the Orontes river into aqueducts for
irrigation.
Another great
ruined roman city called Apamea was
next. Here the colonnaded main street is nearly two kilometres long.
Avoiding
collision with the locally made pickup trucks which cheekily bear Mercedes
radiator grills and Hyundai branded side panels and are known as “chariots of
death”, we travelled on via a museum of beautiful mosaics to the northern city
of Aleppo. This second city of Syria
has a large citadel complex which was rebuilt by Saladin’s son Ghazi but has
ruins dating back to the Hittites of 1,700BC. Aleppo too has colourful souks and a great
mosque on a Christian site. The fascinating museum has as its entrance the
1,000 BC gateway from the Tel Halef desert settlement. We also visited a 14th C
mental hospital which practiced music therapy and a 13th C public bath house
which is still in use.
At St Simeon is the 5th C church
celebrating the monk who lived on top of a pillar and which has views out over
the hills of the dead cities.
Next was the
2,500 BC bronze age city of Ebla
where a library of cuneiform tablets was found.
Then finally a
trip through the fruit growing areas and up into the hills to visit to the town
of Maaloula where the Aramaic language of
Jesus still lives on and we heard it used in prayer. Here we explored hermit
cells cut into the cliffs and a 5th C church that is still in use.
As you see we
were very enthusiastic about this (Saga) tour, led by an extraordinarily good
local guide and a English archaeologist. Their
differing viewpoints added an extra dimension of interest.
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