Syria - The Cradle Of Civilisation
Posted at 11:19 AM, Jun. 11, 2010
It is now Wednesday 9th June and our six days in Lattakia end shortly as we depart later this evening on a 105 mile overnight passage to Jounieh in Lebanon. There were several organised tours out of Lattakia but the programmes looked very compressed and reminiscent of our experience of very long days for the Cappodocia trip a week or two back. As we had extra days here because of the rescheduling following the cancellation of the Iskenderum visit a group of 12 of us (the antipodean group) hired a 20 seater bus, a driver and a guide from Damascus (located via Lonely Planet) and headed off on a five day tour, taking in Salah Eddin Citadel (Saladin’s Castle), the Dead City at Sarjalleh, Damascus, Palmyra and the famous Crusader castle Krac Des Chevaliers – the latter three being World Heritage sites.
Krac Des Chevaliers Castle
Syria refers to itself as the Cradle of Civilisation which has a certain irony given that its system of democracy is based on electing a President who selects the cabinet and the current President is the son of the last President, with we were told,a controlled press and restrictions on freedom. Despite this the people are very friendly and helpful and in many places came up to us to welcome us to Syria and try out a bit of English on us. They often asked Pam what her name was and also where we were from. The country seems to be quite poor, there are a lot of refugees (it borders Iraq) and the Bedouin Arabs largely still follow the nomadic desert life. We saw many during our trip living in tents in desolate conditions herding a few sheep and goats - a tough life seeing as the temperatures get to 45 in the summer and minus 15 (with snow on the ground) in winter. The Syrian currency is pounds and one of our challenges was finding an ATM machine that worked – many places accepted EUR or USD and in Palmyra one of our party even got counterfeit USD in change and when questioned the shopkeeper said its ok they work in Palmyra.
Our first stop was at Saladin’s (Salah ad-Din) castle (so named after the great General born in 1138 who went on to take control of Syria and Egypt) and then defeated the Crusaders to take control of Jerusalem and as a consequence precipitate the Third Crusade – and thus went head to head with Richard The Lionheart with whom he ultimately signed a peace treaty in 1192. So Saladin was the guy who defeated the Crusaders to take control of the castle. An impressive castle with the moat dug out of solid rock 28 metres deep and 150 metres long.
From here we visited the Dead City of Sarjalleh having first driven across the Al Zawiya mountain range over 2000 metres high (snow in winter) and then wonderful views across the valley below, almost virtually below us, largely turned over to wheat growing it appeared. It sounded as though the growing lots were relatively small so you do wonder at the efficiency of the farming methods. The city of Sarjalleh has been deserted for 15 centuries and is located on a windswept moor with well preserved buildings – the city contains a church, men’s meeting place, bathhouse (hot and cold running water - incredible) private houses, bakehouse, tombs etc. Really quite amazing how sophisticated the people of this time were and the quality of the buildings they erected. No-one seems to know why this city (and many other similar cities) of this era were abandoned but as the region is prone to earthquakes it is a reasonable assumption that this is what happened and the people fled.
The Anzac tour group at the Dead City
Late that first evening we arrived in Damascus without our passports to find that the hotel would not let us check in. So we got lugged off to the tourist police office and under the watchful eyes of four armed guards with their fingers on or close to the triggers we attempted to get permission to stay at the hotel. Eventually the big boss man turned up – shook my hand with a very strong grip, wouldn’t let go and said "hello sailor" while smiling all the time. Draw your own conclusions! But we did eventually get the ok and finally checked into the hotel near midnight.
Damascus is reputedly the oldest continuously occupied city in the world and dates back to at least 3500 BC. Mark Twain wrote in “The Innocents Abroad” in 1869,
“To Damascus, years are only moments, decades are only fitting trifles of time. She measures time, not by days, months or years, but by the empires she has seen rise, and prosper and crumble to ruin. She is a type of immortality.”
The city has a population of 4.5 million in a country with a total population of 23 million. Its early conquerors included King David, Alexander The Great in 333 BC, the Romans in 64 BC (to 330 AD), the Crusaders from 1096 AD to 1187 AD, the Ottoman Turks from 1516 to 1918 and many others in between This was followed by the French mandate from 1920 to 1945 and finally independence as a separate country in 1946. We spent two nights in Damascus getting the senses assaulted from all quarters as we explored on our own and toured with our guide. The souks of the old town extend for miles up, down and around the winding narrow old lanes - and you can buy anything. Spe******ation is evident as there are souks for clothing, foodstuffs, sweets, houseware, plumbing and taps and on it goes. Easy to get lost but the great find was an ice-cream shop that was the busiest I have ever seen anywhere – the ice-cream is apparently made of tapioca, after that a mystery! Many of the souks are covered and the roof of the main souk has many holes in it that our guide said was the result of strafing by French fighter planes when they were trying to suppress riots.
Of the places to visit the most notable was the famous Umayyad Mosque at the heart of the old city. This is a huge and beautiful old mosque that dates back to 705 AD. It was originally a Byzantine cathedral. Towards one end is the large green domed, marble clad shrine of John the Baptist which supposedly holds his head. He is the prophet Yehia to Muslims and this was evident in the way in which many approached the shrine. We spoke to groups visiting from Iran and India – there were many pilgrims. It was an interesting visit and throughout the mosque there were many smaller groups of 20/30 people being spoken (preached) to and in some cases men and women were visibly distressed. Adjoining the mosque is the mausoleum built in 1193 to house one of one of the great heroes of Arab history – Saladin. Nearby is a very elaborate bejewelled Shiite mosque that our guide would not enter (but we did). A most interesting experience which I will not elaborate on here - we have got some good photographs.
Womens section of the Damascus Shiite mosque
We also visited the National Museum which is set in attractive grounds full of antiquities that cannot be housed in the museum itself. The most important exhibit is probably the smallest – a piece of rock on which is engraved the first alphabet. So who could deny the claim to the Cradle of Civilisation as this is where the forerunner to our alphabet came from.
A bit more on the rally – I omitted to mention that there are also several Amel ketches in the rally. One rally boat (a German boat I will not name) has been expelled from Syria as the guys wife had visited Israel about 5 years ago and had an Israeli stamp in her passport. We had been warned several times in the lead up to the rally that this was a huge no no but they must have forgotten. The position in Israel is such that our visit to Egypt is in doubt although the rally committee are working to overcome this – we do not know much but we do get the reports of various events in this part of the world.
From Damascus we drove NW about 60 K’s and visited the town of Maalula. This is a town carved out of the mountain hillside and one of only three villages where the language spoken is Aramaic – the language spoken by Jesus Christ. The Syrian government have established an Institute for Aramaic where the language is studied as it is only recently it has become a written language. It is an older language than Arabic. We visited the Christian church of St Seguis (originally a pagan church built in the 3 BC) and a local woman had us sit down in the small chapel, partly carved out of the bedrock, and recited the Lord’s Prayer in Aramaic - it would be hard not to be moved by this experience.
Pitstop in the desert on way from Damascus to Palmyra - very windy.
From Maalula we drove for several hours eastwards across the desert to Palmyra (Tadmor in Arabic) arriving there in time to catch the sunset from the castle – but it was very hazy unfortunately. We stayed here in a “traditional hotel.” This in our case mean’t no hot water, one towel, no soap and a torn sheet on the bed – and we stayed two nights! The drive across the desert left us about 100k’s from Iraq and it was strange to drive past sighposts pointing to Bagdad. The desert is not sand but rather a golden coloured soil which we were told is very fertile – this drive was around 300k’s and in times gone by was a cedar forest. We have learn’t little as a civilisation it seems and maybe the climate change guru’s should arrange a visit to Syria by the Brazilians and Indonesians.
Looking down on Palmyra from the castle
Palmyra is a World Heritage Site, and there is a smallish “new” town built adjacent to the site. Palmyra was a great trading centre at the cross roads (in fact on the Silk Road) between China and India to the east and Europe to the west. It is at the midpoint between the Euphrates River in north and east Syria and the Mediterranean and is sited where a fresh water spring provides plenty of water. It was historically a wealthy and important town until it finally succumbed to an earthquake in 1089 AD although its importance had dramatically reduced since Zenobia’s time. As with many places in Syria there were a succession of rulers at Palmyra but the most notable was Zenobia. Her husband (Odainat) was assassinated in 267 AD so she took over as Queen in the name of her son – it seems she somewhat over reached as after taking over Egypt she declared independence from Rome and slaughtered 600 Roman soldiers. This was definitely a bad call as the then Roman boss (Aurelian) called off proposed settlement negotiations, eventually besieged Palmyra and got control in 272 AD. I can only describe Palmyra as incredible so look at the photos in the blog – although I think we could get “rocked” out by the end of the rally!
Australian friend Gail rides a camel down main street of Palmyra
From Palmyra the following day we drove eastwards across the desert on a more northerly road to take us to the Krac Des Chaveliers the great Crusader castle. This is a well preserved castle and in its time housed 2,000 men and 5 years food supply. The Crusaders occupied the small fortress in 1110 AD and then set about building new fortifications to protect them during their 162 years of occupation. There were four earthquakes during the 162 years so rebuilding during the different periods is evident. Saladin besieged the castle in 1163 but it was not until 1271 that the Moslems were able to celebrate after King al-Zaher Baybars conquered the Crusaders and took control.
One aspect of Syria that is disconcerting is the amount of rubbish around. It seems it is fair game to simply throw everything onto the road or street. Taxi drivers throw empty drink bottles out of the window (maybe not all of them) so plastic rubbish is everywhere as rubbish bins are rare. At both Palmyra and Krac Des Chaveliers the amount of rubbish around what are World Heritage Sites can only be described as disgraceful. It is a great shame that the people do not have more pride. Rubble is also a huge issue as it seems that the way to dispose of this is to drive along the road to an empty spot and up goes the tip on the truck.
The street in front of our hotel in Palmyra - hotel to the right.
Overall however we found the Syrian people very friendly, helpful and interested in us as visitors. It is a poor country with a dependence on agriculture (self sufficient in wheat and oil) with some recent natural gas finds in the desert. Also olive oil is huge with over 100 million olive trees according to Abdullah our guide. But ultimately we will remember Syria for the huge historical impact it has had over the millennia and maybe for the fact that of our group of 12 several of us (6) missed food for at least 24 hours.
Cheers
Keith
PS: going sailing later today. Great but 15 knots on the nose forecast.
PPS: posting this from Lebanon - there is a manned tank at the gateof the marina!