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Gallery of Syrian tour
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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