Galleries

It is impossible to summarise in a few words the beauty and significance of this building. Few other structures from the ancient world speak so eloquently of the many phases of their history—its beginnings as the temple of the early Roman period dedicated to Jupiter (as successor to the Semitic deity, Hadad, god of the […]

How did European and other visitors first build up their picture of ancient and medieval Damascus? Damascus attracted fewer long-term European residents than Aleppo, particularly due to its lower level of commercial exchanges with the West. The first short-term visitors were driven by a desire to fill out the picture in which events of the […]

A visit to Ugarit can be a frustrating experience given the fragmentary state of much of the ruins and the frequent need to cope with overgrown vegetation. However, even a quick visit can give an impression of this important city of the Middle and Late Bronze Age which played such an important role in Mediterranean […]

Built to protect the Crusader route between Tortosa (Tartus and Tripoli (to the south, in modern Lebanon) from attack originating in the Muslim interior through the Homs Gap, Areimeh was built before 1149 and after 1177 entrusted to the  Templars based in Tartus. The castle is divided between three enclosures separated by rock-cut ditches or […]

This site once housed a Byzantine fort (Argyrokastron) during the tenth/eleventh century Byzantine re-occupation of the Syrian coast. Later in the eleventh century it became an Arab fortification (hence the modern name, referring to a traditional southern Arabian tribal grouping, the Bani Qahtan). Initially taken by Tancred in the opening years of the Crusader period […]

Mari a Bronze Age city on the Euphrates River. مدينة من عصر البرونز على نهر الفرات. No photos are available from my archives (either camera malfunction or weather foiled me) but I am indebted to Daniel Demeter for the photographs in the following gallery. للأسف لا تتوفر صور للموقع ضمن أرشيفي، ولكن الصور المعروضة هنا […]

During the period of the Crusader presence in Syria, the coastal mountains took on a role as a refuge for minorities seeking protection from the increasing efforts to advance the cause of Sunni orthodoxy through the main inland cities. The Ismaelis, offshoot of a movement that had split off from Shi`ite Islam, built up their […]