Syria ANCIENT SYRIA
Unavailable
Figure 2. Ancient Syria
Roman ruins at Palmyra
Courtesy Embassy of Syria
The first recorded mention of Greater Syria is in Egyptian
annals detailing expeditions to the Syrian coastland to log the
cedar, pine, and cypress of the Ammanus and Lebanon mountain
ranges in the fourth millennium. Sumer, a kingdom of non-Semitic
peoples that formed the southern boundary of ancient Babylonia,
also sent expeditions in the third millennium, chiefly in pursuit
of cedar from the Ammanus and gold and silver from Cilicia. The
Sumerians most probably traded with the Syrian port city of
Byblos, which was also negotiating with Egypt for exportation of
timber and the resin necessary for mummification.
An enormous commercial network linking Anatolia, Mesopotamia,
Egypt, the Aegean, and the Syrian coast was developed. The
network was perhaps under the aegis of the kingdom of Ebla ("city
of the white stones"), the chief site of which was discovered in
1975 at Tall Mardikh, 64 kilometers south of Aleppo
(see
fig. 2).
Numerous tablets give evidence of a sophisticated and powerful
indigenous Syrian empire, which dominated northern Syria and
portions of lower Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and Iran. Its chief
rival was Akkad in southern Mesopotamia, which flourished circa
2300 B.C. In addition to identifying another great cultural and
political power for the period--and an independent Syrian kingdom
at that--the discovery of Ebla has had other important
ramifications. The oldest Semitic language was thought to have
been Amorite, but the newly found language of Ebla, a variant of
Paleo-Canaanite, is considerably older. Ebla twice conquered the
city of Mari, the capital of Amurru, the kingdom of the Semitic-
speaking Amorites. After protracted tension between Akkad and
Ebla, the great king of Akkad, Naram Sin, destroyed Ebla by fire
in either 2300 or 2250. Naram Sin also destroyed Arman, which may
have been an ancient name for Aleppo.
Amorite power was effectively eclipsed in 1600 when Egypt
mounted a full attack on Greater Syria and brought the entire
region under its suzerainty. During the fifteenth and fourteenth
centuries, the area was in tremendous political upheaval because
of the growing Assyrian power pressing from the east and
invasions from the north of Hittites who eventually settled in
north and central Syria.
Another Semitic-speaking people, the Canaanites, may have
been part of the same migration that brought the Amorites into
Syria from northern Arabia in approximately 2400. The Amorites
came under the influence of Mesopotamia, whereas the Canaanites,
who had intermarried with indigenous Syrians of the coast, were
probably under the initial influence of Egypt.
The descendants of the intermarriages between Canaanites and
coastal Syrians were the Phoenicians, the greatest seafaring
merchants of the ancient world. The Phoenicians improved and
developed iron tools and significantly advanced the art of
shipbuilding. Their mastery of the seas allowed them to establish
a network of independent city-states; however, these entities
were never united politically, partially because of the continual
harassment from Hittites to the north and Egyptians to the south.
The name given to their land--Canaan in Hurrian, Phoenicia in
Greek--refers to the fabulously valued purple dye extracted from
mollusks found at that time only on the Syrian coast. From this
period purple became the color of the robes of kings because only
they and other small groups of the ancient Middle Eastern elite
could afford to purchase the rare dye. The wealth derived in part
from the dye trade sparked the economic flame that made it
possible for Greater Syrian city-states to enjoy a wide measure
of prosperity.
Many of Greater Syria's major contributions to civilization
were developed during the ancient period. Syria's greatest
legacy, the alphabet, was developed by Phoenicians during the
second millennium. The Phoenicians introduced their 30-letter
alphabet to the Aramaeans, among other Semitic-speaking people,
and to the Greeks, who added vowel letters not used in Semitic
grammatical construction.
The Phoenicians, somewhat pressed for space for their growing
population, founded major colonies on the North African littoral,
the most notable of which was Carthage. In the process of
founding new city-states, they discovered the Atlantic Ocean.
The Aramaeans had settled in Greater Syria at approximately
the end of the thirteenth century B.C., the same time at which
the Jews, or Israelites, migrated to the area. The Aramaeans
settled in the Mesopotamian-Syrian corridor to the north and
established the kingdom of Aram, biblical Syria. As overland
merchants, they opened trade to Southwest Asia, and their capital
Damascus became a city of immense wealth and influence. At Aleppo
they built a huge fortress, still standing. The Aramaeans
simplified the Phoenician alphabet and carried their language,
Aramaic, to their chief areas of commerce. Aramaic displaced
Hebrew in Greater Syria as the vernacular (Jesus spoke Aramaic),
and it became the language of commerce throughout the Middle East
and the official language of the Persian Empire. Aramaic
continued to be spoken in the Syrian countryside for almost 1,000
years, and in the 1980s remained in daily use in a handful of
villages on the Syrian-Lebanese border. A dialect of Aramaic
continues to be the language of worship in the Syrian Orthodox
Church.
The plethora of city-states in Greater Syria could not
withstand the repeated attacks from the north by the powerful
Assyrian Empire, which under the leadership of Nebuchadnezzar
finally overwhelmed them in the eighth century. Assyrian
aggressors were replaced by the conquering Babylonians in the
seventh century, and the then mighty Persian Empire in the sixth
century. Under Persian aegis, Syria had a measure of self-rule,
as it was to have under a succession of foreign rulers from that
time until independence in the twentieth century. When Alexander
the Great conquered the Persian Empire in 333, local political
powers--which probably would have continued to contest for
control of Greater Syria--were effectively shattered, and the
area came into the strong cultural orbit of Western ideas and
institutions.
At Alexander's death, the empire was divided among five of
his generals. General Seleucus became heir to the lands formerly
under Persian control, which included Greater Syria. The
Seleucids ruled for three centuries and founded a kingdom with
the capital at Damascus, which later became referred to as the
Kingdom of Syria. Seleucus named many cities after his mother,
Laodicea; the greatest became Latakia, Syria's major port.
Enormous numbers of Greek immigrants flocked to the Kingdom
of Syria. Syrian trade was vastly expanded as a result of the
newcomers' efforts, reaching into India, the Far East, and
Europe. The Greeks built new cities in Syria and colonized
existing ones. Syrian and Greek cultures synthesized to create
Near Eastern Hellenism, noted for remarkable developments in
jurisprudence, philosophy, and science.
Replacing the Greeks and the Seleucids, Roman emperors
inherited already thriving cities--Damascus, Tadmur (once called
Palmyra), and Busra ash Sham in the fertile Hawran Plateau south
of Damascus. Under the emperor Hadrian, Syria was prosperous and
its cities, major trading centers; Hawran was a well-watered
breadbasket. After making a survey of the country, the Romans
established a tax system based on the potential harvest of
farmlands; it remained the key to the land tax structure until
1945. They bequeathed Syria some of the grandest buildings in the
world, as well as aqueducts, wells, and roads that were still in
use in modern times.
Neither the Seleucids nor the Romans ruled the area without
conflict. The Seleucids had to deal with powerful Arab peoples,
the Nabataeans, who had established an empire at Petra (in
present-day Jordan) and at Busra ash Sham. The Romans had to face
the Palmyrenes, who had built Palmyra, a city even more
magnificent than Damascus and the principal stop on the caravan
route from Homs to the Euphrates.
By the time the Romans arrived, Greater Syrians had developed
irrigation techniques, the alphabet, and astronomy. In A.D. 324
the Emperor Constantine moved his capital from Rome to Byzantium,
renaming it Constantinople (modern Istanbul). From there the
Byzantines ruled Greater Syria, dividing it into two provinces:
Syria Prima, with Antioch as the capital and Aleppo the major
city; and Syria Secunda, ruled frequently from Hamah. Syria
Secunda was divided into two districts: Phoenicia Prima, with
Tyre as the capital; and Phoenicia Secunda, ruled from Damascus.
(Most of Phoenicia Prima is now Lebanon.) The ruling families of
Syria during this period were the Ghassanids, Christian Arabs
loyal to Byzantium, from whom many Syrians now trace descent.
Byzantine rule in Syria was marked by constant warfare with
the Persian Sassanian Empire to the east. In these struggles,
Syria often became a battleground. In 611 the Persians succeeded
in invading Syria and Palestine, capturing Jerusalem in 614.
Shortly thereafter, the Byzantines counterattacked and retook
their former possessions. During the campaign the Byzantines
tried to force Greek orthodoxy on the Syrian inhabitants, but
were unsuccessful. Beset by financial problems, largely as a
result of their costly campaigns against the Persians, the
Byzantines stopped subsidizing the Christian Arab tribes guarding
the Syrian steppe. Some scholars believe this was a fatal
mistake, for these tribes were then susceptible to a new force
emanating from the south--Islam.
The Byzantine heritage remains in Syria's Christian sects and
great monastic ruins. In the fourth century A.D., Roman Emperor
Theodosius destroyed the temple to Jupiter in Damascus and built
a cathedral in honor of John the Baptist. The huge monastery at
Dayr Siman near Aleppo, erected by Simeon Stylites in the fifth
century, is perhaps the greatest Christian monument built before
the tenth century.
Data as of April 1987
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