Damascus claims to be the oldest continually inhabited city on the planet. Here is a list of cities on Wikipedia that also share the same claims. Note the 'continually' statement here. There are older cities but none that have managed to avoid falling by the wayside at some point. For a list of other cities check out the Wikipedia reference here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_continuously_inhabited_cities
It has other names: Dimashq, ash-Shām, Dammeśeq, Dar Meshq. It has many faces, and has worn many guises over the millennia, the is an ancient city, with an an old soul, and it has seen many kingdoms rise and fall. Mark Twain - in his book The Innocents Abroad - wrote of the place "no recorded event has occurred the world but Damascus was in existence to receive news of it. Go back as you will into the vague past and there has always been a Damascus... She has looked upon the bones of a thousand empires and will see the tombs of a thousand more before she dies." Yes. This city is old.
There are references to a settlement here as far back as 15thC BC from deciphered Egyptian tablets. It was once a great Oasis in the middle of the desert, watered by the Barada, an ocean expanse of green, incongruent against the empty desert. It is said the prophet Mohammed passed by Damascus on a journey from Mecca and, looking down from the Jebel Qassioun, refused to enter the city as he wanted to enter paradise only once, and that was when he died.
... It is hard to conjure such evocative imagery to my mind as I sit on a bus into Damascus,
stuck in a traffic-jam into the city on a bus from Hama. Everywhere around me is a jungle, but not a luscious green expanse of trees; instead concrete roads, under-passes, over-passes, and bypasses snake out in all directions. High rise buildings loom to the south, and east. Everywhere horns are beeping, the sun is shining. The bus is packed and the heaters are on full blast. Everyone is sweltering and the curtains are pulled closed, to try and block the sun from beating down - even in the month of November it is still hot; even despite the city being 580 metres above sea level (sea level being the Mediterranean 80 km to the east - beyond war-torn Lebanon). The radio is blaring Arabic music. A musky smell hangs in the air. Someone has spices in a bag. I can smell fresh cumin, ginger, and something else I can't quite place. I turn my attention back to my book...The first firm reference to this place was with the onset of the Armorite period circa 2000BC, however not much remains of the Aramean city as much of area has since been built upon. The Arameans came from the north and their language was a forerunner to what was to become Aramaic. In fact one of the major Aramaean temples - dedicated to the God Hadad. Is thought to be buried beneath the Great Ummayyad mosque. Between the period of 1720 to 1570BC it fell under Egyptian rule and then again to be ruled by the Arameans for a long time during their wars with the Assyrians and the Israelites. Ash-Shām was mentioned in Genesis as existing at the time of the war of the Kings - King David, Nebuchadnezzar, Abraham is mentioned as ruling in Damascus, after coming from the land of Babylon.
Alexander, in 333BC, first brought western occupation to Damascus as he romped through most of Asia on whilst he pursued his personal hobby of conquering the known world as a young man - most kids smoke pot-pourri and go to mosh-pits - in his wake, many followed. The Middle East became open to western influence and everyone wanted a piece of it: The Seleucids waged war against the Hellenistic Egyptians - the Ptolemaics - for control of Syria, and many other empires joined in the fun. Then the Romans arrived.
... I look up from my book to see we have arrived in the city's northern bus station. As usual it is chaos. mini-buses, coming and going from and to destinations unknown to me, are beeping and emptying and filling up, all through the station. People are shouting, police are directing
traffic. Touts are shouting out destinations as buses pull out. Taxis are queuing up for fares. We step down from out bus into the melee. We retrieve our luggage and don our 70 litre rucksacks on our backs and 3o litre day-packs on our chests and march into the throng like soldiers into war. We are met with a tumultuous greeting from people vying for business. No taxi driver will take us for a reasonable fare. We try to explain we are not American (and therefore not rich). A policeman gets involved in our conversation. He offers to show us an alternative route. We wade through the crowd until we find an antiquated bus that will take us into town. The fare is 5p. I settle back down and continue reading...The Romans efficiently took control of Damascus in BC 64 and turned it into a military base for armies of legionnaires in there conquest of the Middle East and there war in the north, against the Persians. The city itself became annexed. It was declared a Metropolis by Hadrian II and given a great deal of Independence. All this occurred around the time when, 400km to the south, history was being written into the very fabric of modern Christianity. By the 2nd century AD, under the reign of Alexander Severus, it became a Roman colony. Christianity swept through the Roman Empire during the next 200 years and Damascus became a major focal point for worship. With the fall of the Roman Empire in 395AD - like so many Arabic cities - the Byzantine Empire took up the mantle, as it were, and its influence was to remain on the Damascenes until the rise of Islam 300 years later.
635AD saw the arrival of the Muslim armies under Khaled Ibn-al-Walid, who annexed Damascus (and Syria) to the Muslim Empire. Mass conversion to Islam followed, but although the Christians and Jews became minorities, they were still treated very well and with complete tolerance. This led to the Golden Age of Damascus started which began in 661AD, when Muawiyah Bin Abi Sufian established himself as fifth Caliph (or successor of the Prophet Mohammad), thus founding the Umayyad Dynasty which ruled for about a century over the Muslim Empire, of which Damascus became the capital, making it the most important cultural, economic and political centre in this extensive empire, stretching from Spain and the shores of the Atlantic ocean, all the way to Iran and India. No less than fourteen Umayyad Caliphs ruled Damascus during this period. Sadly, the Golden Age ended abruptly in 750AD when the Abbassids (powerful Arabian family settled in Iran) murdered the Umayyad Caliph, putting an end to the Umayyad Caliphate and occupying Damascus. The Abbassids destroyed countless of the numerous monuments built by their predecessors and proceeded to eradicate all traces of the Umayyad era. They moved the capital to Baghdad, in the process, plunging Damascus in 300 years of unrest, civil strife and successive assaults. The great city was almost completely burned down...
The bus has pulled up at Shia Basha. We don't know this yet, but it is right by the hotel we
wish to stay at. We are a little disorientated and try to pinpoint are whereabouts by using the Lonely Planet map. This is much like trying to nail jelly to a ceiling. We end up wandering around looking for a landmark. I finally manage to ask a shoe-shiner, in broken Arabic, how to get to the train-station. He takes Marcus and I on a jaunt up the road to point it out to us; for some baksheesh of course - which he complains about. We finally figure out the road we are looking for is by where we alighted from the bus - in Souq Saroujah. This turns out to be a narrow, leafy, shia, far from the madding crowd, with small shops on either side and climbing plants that tumble lazily down from the Ottoman style merchant houses above us. cafes with outside tables are situated at the top of the street. Nargile smoke wafts down toward us scented with apple. We head into the hotel El Arabi and check in...After this things get a little bit complicated. Suffice to say over the next 500 years power passed hands between the Turkish, Egyptians, and the Aleppo dynasties. In 1069AD The city fell under the first crusader siege. During the funboy wars it again changed hands several times.
The Tartars briefly occupied Damascus in 1260, the same year in which the Memluks captured it, under Sultan Baybars. The Memluks ruled over Damascus in much prosperity until disaster struck in 1400 in the form of Tamurlane, leader of the Mongols. The Mongol invasion of Damascus (and other places) was notoriously bloody and Memluk Damascus would never fully recover from this fatal blow.
Between the the early 16th century to the 20th Century Damascus was under control by the Ottoman empire, there were attempts to seize control by Lebanon and Egypt but none were successful. The Ottoman Empire was finally brought to an end by events during the Great War which sucked Syria into the conflict. Sherifi Hussein of Mecca lead an Arabic revolution which liberated Syria for the first time in 4 centuries. It was to be short lived though: negotiations between Syria's independence were not honoured. The English and the French had secretly concluded the Sykes-Picot agreement, in which they carved up the Middle East, both geographically and politically, for themselves. The French occupied Syria and imposed their mandate for the next 25 years. It wasn't until WWII that France finally recognised Syria's independence - but even then they failed to bugger off. Not until they were finally ousted in April 17th 1946. Even then, in a show of bitterness, they bade farewell to the city by peppering the roof of the old city with bullets from their fighters..
I close the book and stretch lazily on the bed. I am now itching to explore this fascinating place. We have managed to check into the wrong hotel. The El Arabi is a very ornate, and picturesque building - with a wonderful open courtyard. But winter is descending on Damascus, and open courtyards and airy rooms, with high ceilings, are not cosy dwellings for the winter. Tomorrow Marcus will check into El Haremain. I will join him a day later, after first meeting Merryl. She flies into Damascus tomorrow afternoon. For now though, we are heading off to explore the citadel, the souq, and maybe have a nargile or two...
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