Damascus History Unfolded

Carbon-14 dating analysis carried out at Tell Ramad, situated near Damascus, suggests that the site could have been populated since the latter part of the seventh millennium BC, around 6300 BC.

As per the accounts of the first-century historian Joseph ben Matityahu, the establishment of Damascus is attributed to Uz, a son of Aram, who is in turn the son of Shem, descended from Noah.

The earliest reference to the town's name, 'ta-ms-qu,' is discovered on a wall at the Karnak Temple in Luxor, inscribed during the reign of Thutmose II. This same spelling is also evident in a fourteenth-century list attributed to Amenophis II.

The names 'Dimaski' or 'Dimasqa' later appear in the Tell al-Amarna tablets on three occasions. Around 1260 BC, the Damascus region, like the rest of Syria, became a battleground between the Hittites from the north and the Egyptians from the south.

During the era of Alexander the Great, Damascus occupied a pivotal position as the most significant city in Syria and, remarkably, managed to largely avoid the ravages of war.

In the second and first millennia BC, Damascus emerged as a major city within a series of kingdoms.

In 635 AD, Damascus fell under the conquest of the formidable Muslim-Arab general Khalid ibn al-Walid. Twenty-seven years after the city's capture, Muawiyah, the first khalifah of the Umayyad, designated it as the seat of his government and the capital of the Arab-Muslim Empire from 661 to 750.
Damascus History Unfolded

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

Ancient history of Latakia (Syria)

Latakia is an ancient seaport and a strategic gateway between East and West: built by Seleucus I Nicator in the second century BC on the site of a Phoenician settlement.

Like most other cities of the Levantine coast, Latakia was occupied by all of Syria’s conquerors, playing a role in the Arab Conquest and in the Crusades. It only came to prominence in the wake of Alexander the Great conquest, when it was transformed into a major city of the Seleucid empire.

In the late Bronze Age of the second millennium BC the site was small Phoenician settlement called Ramitha, one of fifty prosperous Phoenician coastal colonies along the Mediterranean coast.

Initially, the settlement was dependent on the nearby city of Ugarit, a powerful metropolis and the first international port. With the arrival of the marauding tribes, known as the Sea Peoples at the beginning of the Iron Age, around 1200 BC the region was thrown onto chaos but the Phoenician colonies survived.

The original settlement became part of the Assyrian Empire, later falling to the Persians, who incorporated it into their fifth satrapy Abar Nahara.

It was taken in 333 BC by Alexander the Great, just after the great battle with the Persians at Issus not far to the north. After the death of Alexander in Babylon in 323 BC, Northern Syria fell under the control of Seleucus I Nicator.

Seleucus built the town of Latakia under the name of Laodicea, in honor of his mother.

In 638 AD, Latakia was lost to Byzantium after the Arab armies swept into Syria. The Byzantines mounted a devastating road in 705 but it was not until 968hat they reasserted their control in the area.
Ancient history of Latakia 

Ancient city of Palmyra

Palmyra, the name given by the Geeks to a great and splendid city of Upper Syria. Its original Hebrew name was Tadmor, which, like the Greek word means ‘city of palms’.

According to the writers of Book of Palmyra Kings and Chronicles, the city was built by Solomon in the 10th century BC.

The city had long been a vital caravan city for travellers crossing the Syrian Desert and was known as the ‘Bride of the Desert’.

It soon became an important emporium of commerce and must have been a splendid place when it was sacked by Nebuchadnezzar 600 BC, together with Jerusalem and Tyre.

The first author of antiquity who mentions Palmyra is Piny the Elder. Afterwards it was mentioned by Appian, in connection oath a design of Mark Anthony to let his cavalry plunder it.

The Seleucids took control of Syria in BC, and Palmyra was left to itself and became an independent state. In the first century AD, Palmyra was already an important trade centre. There is early testimony of trade with Seleucia on the Tigris from 19 AD.

After the end of the Nabataean kingdom in 106 AD, Palmyra became Rome’s most important resupply base for the Eastern trade with Parthia and India.

In the second century AD, it seems to have been beautified by the emperor Hadrian. In the beginning of the third century AD, it became a Roman colony under Caracalla (211 - 217 AD) and received the jus Italicum.
Ancient city of Palmyra