Places

Syria has an important network of museums, of which the ones in Aleppo and Damascus are given ‘national’ status and provide a comprehensive range of material from all the main eras and regions of the countryamascus museum is spread over a large number of rooms and halls. Among the highlights are the important collections from […]

The Ottomans moved quickly to set their mark on Syria after defeating the last Mamluks outside Aleppo in 1516. One of their first priorities was to establish infrastructure for the annual Muslim pilgrimage (hajj) to Mecca each year. The Tekkiye was a major prestige project set in an area reserved to handle the tens of […]

A relatively short itinerary that take you west to east across the lower slopes of Jebel Kassyun behind Damascus. This extra-mural quarter was first developed as a refuge for Palestinians fleeing an earlier crisis in Palestine—the Crusaders’ bloody taking of the city in 1099. Salihiye acquired a reputation for holiness given the number of religious […]

This route takes you through the first kilometre or more of the route the pilgrims took from Damascus as they set out on their journey to Mecca for the annual Hajj. While not marked by any spectacular buildings, Midan Street traverses many small examples of piety endowed by the city’s rulers across the centuries from […]

This busy town on the Plan of Dana, south of Jebel Sheikh Barakat, was still noted for several ancient structures in the accounts of late 19th and early 20th century European and American visitors. The only surviving remains is the canopied tomb, with a pyramid roof supported on four columns (probably 3rd or 4th century […]

Dana (South) — the ‘south’ is added to distinguish it from the other village of this name in the Jebel Semaan area — is a thriving modern village around which cluster many remains of an ancient past. The most prominent surviving monuments are the monastery, dubbed ‘Qasr al-Banat’) on the northwestern edge of the village […]

This village, situated on a relatively open area of land in the Jebel Barisha, has recently been studied intensively by French archaeologists, one of the few villages in the area made available for scientific exploration. Also unusually, the centre remained inhabited right into the Arab middle ages (perhaps due to its agricultural resources). Remains of […]