Damascus: A major cultural center of the Arab world

Founded in the 3rd millennium B.C., Damascus was an important cultural and commercial centre, by virtue of its geographical position at the crossroads of the orient and the occident, between Africa and Asia.

The city of Damascus started as an important caravan centre and fertile oasis at the junction of important trade routes, according to ancient Accadian and Egyptian documents. Three major roads led out of the city; the western road led towards Egypt, the southern road led to Mecca, and the eastern road led to Babylon.

As early as 3000 BC, City walls were built around the settled area with “straight wide streets radiating outward from the concentration of public buildings in the centre”. In the 1st millennium BC, Damascus became the capital of an Aramaean principality. However it was the Hellenic era (336-146 BC) that first strongly contributed to the city’s morphological legacy.

Incorporation into the Roman Empire continued the Hellenistic tradition and gave Damascus the enviable status and endowments of a metropolis under Hadrian (ruled 117–138 AD) and of a colonia under Severus Alexander (ruled 222–235 AD).

Damascus became the seat of the Islamic Umayyad Empire, which extended as far as Spain and India between 661 and 750. Decades before Yaqut, in 1185 CE, the Valencian traveller, Ibn Jubayr saw Damascus as one of the friendliest places he had ever visited and said that'it surpasses all other cities in its beauty . . . the paradise of the Orient.

Damascus was described as a glassmaking centre by Ibn Battuta (d. 1377) and Niccolo of Poggibonsi who travelled in the Holy Land in 1345-6.

Damascus: A major cultural center of the Arab world