Arabic: دِمَشق, romanized: Dimašq) is the capital of Syria, the oldest capital in the world and, according to some, the fourth holiest city in Islam.[8][9][10] Known colloquially in Syria as aš-Šām (الشَّام) and dubbed, poetically, the "City of Jasmine" (مَدِيْنَةُ الْيَاسْمِينِMadīnat al-Yāsmīn),[1] Damascus is a major cultural center of the Levant and the Arab world
.
Situated in southwestern Syria, Damascus is the center of a large metropolitan area. Nestled among the eastern foothills of the
Damascus is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world.[11] First settled in the 3rd millennium BC, it was chosen as the capital of the Umayyad Caliphate from 661 to 750. After the victory of the Abbasid dynasty, the seat of Islamic power was moved to Baghdad. Damascus saw its importance decline throughout the Abbasid era, only to regain significant importance in the Ayyubid and Mamluk periods. Today, it is the seat of the central government of Syria. As of September 2019[update], eight years into the Syrian civil war, Damascus was named the least livable city out of 140 global cities in the Global Liveability Ranking.[12] As of June 2023[update], it was the least livable out of 173 global cities in the same Global Liveability Ranking.
The name of Damascus first appeared in the geographical list of Thutmose III as ṯmśq (𓍘𓄟𓊃𓈎𓅱) in the 15th century BC.[14]
The
Biblical Hebrew. A number of Akkadian spellings are found in the Amarna letters
, from the 14th century BC: Dimašqa (𒁲𒈦𒋡), Dimašqì (𒁲𒈦𒀸𒄀), and Dimašqa (𒁲𒈦𒀸𒋡).
Later
Aramaic spellings of the name often include an intrusive resh (letter r), perhaps influenced by the root dr, meaning "dwelling". Thus, the English and Latin name of the city is Damascus, which was imported from GreekΔαμασκός and originated from the QumranicDarmeśeq (דרמשק), and Darmsûq (ܕܪܡܣܘܩ) in Syriac,[15][16] meaning "a well-watered land".[17]
In
Hijaz facing east, oriented to the sunrise, will find the north to the left. This is contrasted with the name of Yemen (اَلْيَمَنal-Yaman), correspondingly meaning "the right-hand side" or "the south". The variation ش ء م (š-ʾ-m'), of the more typical ش م ل (š-m-l), is also attested in Old South Arabian, 𐩦𐩱𐩣 (šʾm), with the same semantic development.[23][24]
Geography
Damascus was built in a strategic site on a plateau 680 m (2,230 ft)
Ghouta, irrigated farmland where many vegetables, cereals, and fruits have been farmed since ancient times. Maps of Roman Syria indicate that the Barada river emptied into a lake of some size east of Damascus. Today it is called Bahira Atayba, the hesitant lake because in years of severe drought, it does not even exist.[25]
The modern city has an area of 105 km2 (41 sq mi), out of which 77 km2 (30 sq mi) is urban, while
The old city of Damascus, enclosed by the city walls, lies on the south bank of the river
Jabal Qasioun, overlooking the city, already the site of the al-Salihiyah neighborhood centered on the important shrine of medieval Andalusian Sheikh and philosopher Ibn Arabi. These new neighborhoods were initially settled by Kurdish soldiery and Muslim refugees from the European regions of the Ottoman Empire
which had fallen under Christian rule. Thus they were known as al-Akrad(the Kurds) and al-Muhajirin(the migrants). They lay 2–3 km (1–2 mi) north of the old city.
From the late 19th century on, a modern administrative and commercial center began to spring up to the west of the old city, around the Barada, centered on the area known as al-Marjeh or "the meadow". Al-Marjeh soon became the name of what was initially the central square of modern Damascus, with the city hall in it. The courts of justice, post office, and railway station stood on higher ground slightly to the south. A Europeanized residential quarter soon began to be built on the road leading between al-Marjeh and al-Salihiyah. The commercial and administrative center of the new city gradually shifted northwards slightly towards this area.
Yarmouk became a second home to thousands of Palestinian refugees.[27] City planners preferred to preserve the Ghouta as far as possible, and in the later 20th century some of the main areas of development were to the north, in the western Mezzeh neighborhood and most recently along the Barada valley in Dummar in the north west and on the slopes of the mountains at Barzeh
in the north-east. Poorer areas, often built without official approval, have mostly developed south of the main city.
, west along the Barada valley, used to provide the city with drinking water and various sources to the west are tapped by water contractors. The flow of the Barada dropped with the rapid expansion of housing and industry in the city and it is almost dry. The lower aquifers are polluted by the city's runoff from heavily used roads, industry and sewage.
Climate
Damascus has a
rain shadow effect of the Anti-Lebanon Mountains[29]
and the prevailing ocean currents. Summers are prolonged, dry and hot with less humidity. Winters are cool and somewhat rainy; snowfall is infrequent. Autumn is brief and mild, but has the most drastic temperature change, unlike spring where the transition to summer is more gradual and steady. Annual rainfall is around 130 mm (5 in), occurring from October to May.
Carbon-14 dating at Tell Ramad, on the outskirts of Damascus, suggests that the site may have been occupied since the second half of the seventh millennium BC, possibly around 6300 BC.[32] However, evidence of settlement in the wider Barada basin dating back to 9000 BC exists, although no large-scale settlement was present within Damascus' walls until the second millennium BC.[33]
Late Bronze
Some of the earliest
Hattusili III and Ramesses II where the former handed over control of the Damascus area to Ramesses II in 1259 BC.[34] The arrival of the Sea Peoples, around 1200 BC, marked the end of the Bronze Age in the region and brought about new development of warfare.[35] Damascus was only a peripheral part of this picture, which mostly affected the larger population centers of ancient Syria. However, these events contributed to the development of Damascus as a new influential center that emerged with the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age.[35]
Nicolaus of Damascus, in the fourth book of his History, says thus: "Abraham reigned at Damascus, being a foreigner, who came with an army out of the land above Babylon, called the land of the Chaldeans: but, after a long time, he got him up, and removed from that country also, with his people, and went into the land then called the land of Canaan, but now the land of Judea, and this when his posterity were become a multitude; as to which posterity of his, we relate their history in another work. Now the name of Abraham is even still famous in the country of Damascus; and there is shown a village named from him, The Habitation of Abraham.
Damascus is first documented as an important city during the arrival of the
Aramaeans, a Semitic people, in the 11th century BC. By the start of the first millennium BC, several Aramaic kingdoms were formed, as Aramaeans abandoned their nomadic lifestyle and formed federated tribal states. One of these kingdoms was Aram-Damascus, centered on its capital Damascus.[40] The Aramaeans who entered the city without battle, adopted the name "Dimashqu" for their new home. Noticing the agricultural potential of the still-undeveloped and sparsely populated area,[41] they established the water distribution system of Damascus by constructing canals and tunnels which maximized the efficiency of the river Barada. The same network was later improved by the Romans and the Umayyads, and still forms the basis of the water system of the old part of the city today.[42] The Aramaeans initially turned Damascus into an outpost of a loose federation of Aramaean tribes, known as Aram-Zobah, based in the Beqaa Valley.[41]
The city would gain pre-eminence in southern Syria when
Ben-Hadad II was captured by Israel after unsuccessfully besieging Samaria. As a result, he granted Israel trading rights in Damascus.[43]
Another possible reason for the treaty between Aram-Damascus and Israel was the common threat of the
King Ahab of Israel, in the Battle of Qarqar against the Neo-Assyrian army. Aram-Damascus came out victorious, temporarily preventing the Assyrians from encroaching into Syria. However, after Hadadzezer was killed by his successor, Hazael, the Levantine alliance collapsed. Aram-Damascus attempted to invade Israel, but was interrupted by the renewed Assyrian invasion. Hazael ordered a retreat to the walled part of Damascus while the Assyrians plundered the remainder of the kingdom. Unable to enter the city, they declared their supremacy in the Hauran and Beqa'a valleys.[43]
By the 8th century BC, Damascus was practically engulfed by the Assyrians and entered a Dark Age. Nonetheless, it remained the economic and cultural center of the Near East as well as the Arameaen resistance. In 727, a revolt took place in the city, but was put down by Assyrian forces. After Assyria led by
Neo-Babylonians, but the status of Damascus under Babylon is relatively unknown.[45]
Hellenistic period
Damascus was conquered by
hippodamian system and renamed it "Demetrias".[46]
Roman period
In 64 BC, the Roman general Pompey annexed the western part of Syria. The Romans occupied Damascus and subsequently incorporated it into the league of ten cities known as the Decapolis[47] which themselves were incorporated into the province of Syria and granted autonomy.[48]
The city of Damascus was entirely redesigned by the Romans after Pompey conquered the region. Still today the Old Town of Damascus retains the rectangular shape of the Roman city, with its two main axes: the Decumanus Maximus (east-west; known today as the Via Recta) and the Cardo (north-south), the Decumanus being about twice as long. The Romans built a monumental gate which still survives at the eastern end of Decumanus Maximus. The gate originally had three arches: the central arch was for chariots while the side arches were for pedestrians.[25]
In 23 BC,
Zenodorus by Caesar Augustus[49] and some scholars believe that Herod was also granted control of Damascus as well.[50]
The control of Damascus reverted to Syria either upon the death of Herod the Great or was part of the lands given to Herod Philip which were given to Syria with his death in 33/34 AD.
It is speculated that control of Damascus was gained by
Herod Philip in 33/34 AD and the death of Aretas in 40 AD but there is substantial evidence against Aretas controlling the city before 37 AD and many reasons why it could not have been a gift from Caligula between 37 and 40 AD.[51][52] In fact, all these theories stem not from any actual evidence outside the New Testament but rather "a certain understanding of 2 Corinthians 11:32" and in reality "neither from archaeological evidence, secular-historical sources, nor New Testament texts can Nabatean sovereignty over Damascus in the first century AD be proven."[53] Roman emperor Trajan who annexed the Nabataean Kingdom, creating the province of Arabia Petraea, had previously been in Damascus, as his father Marcus Ulpius Traianus served as governor of Syria from 73 to 74 AD, where he met the Nabatean architect and engineer, Apollodorus of Damascus, who joined him in Rome when he was a consul in 91 AD, and later built several monuments during the 2nd century AD.[54]
Damascus became a metropolis by the beginning of the 2nd century and in 222 it was upgraded to a colonia by the Emperor Septimius Severus. During the Pax Romana, Damascus and the Roman province of Syria in general began to prosper. Damascus's importance as a caravan city was evident with the trade routes from southern Arabia, Palmyra, Petra, and the silk routes from China all converging on it. The city satisfied the Roman demands for eastern luxuries. Circa 125 AD the Roman emperor Hadrian promoted the city of Damascus to "Metropolis of Coele-Syria".[55][56]
Little remains of the architecture of the Romans, but the town planning of the old city did have a lasting effect. The Roman architects brought together the Greek and Aramaean foundations of the city and fused them into a new layout measuring approximately 1,500 by 750 m (4,920 by 2,460 ft), surrounded by a city wall. The city wall contained seven gates, but only the eastern gate, Bab Sharqi, remains from the Roman period. Roman Damascus lies mostly at depths of up to five meters (16 feet) below the modern city.