The Euphrates River, as seen from the Greco-Roman fortress of Dura-Europos.
(Frederick Deknatel)Photos (1 of 1)
Syria: Where war hides history
By Frederick Deknatel | Contributor 08.26.09
• A local, slice-of-life story from a Monitor correspondent.
DURA-EUROPOS, SYRIA – Syria is Damascus to the growing number of Western tourists here. A short trip to the Greek desert city of Palmyra, about halfway to the Euphrates from the capital, is often as far east as visitors go.
Down the highway, however, where the Euphrates greens a strip of the rocky landscape, is a corner of the country less known for historical sights than for its proximity to war-torn Iraq. It is from here that militants have entered Iraq since the American invasion in 2003. The conflict has left Dura-Europos largely unseen by tourists.
But on a cliff overlooking the Euphrates less than 30 miles from Iraq, where Roman soldiers once watched for invading Persians, it’s possible to imagine life in the fortified desert city of Dura-Europos 2,000 years ago. Founded in 300 BC by Seleucus, one of Alexander the Great’s generals, it was a cosmopolitan outpost; first Hellenistic, then Roman – home to Greeks, Syrians, Christians, and Jews.
The synagogue on a side street by the still-standing mud-brick walls was preserved under sand, like so much of Dura, for more than 1,500 years. British soldiers coming from recently occupied Iraq stumbled upon the city in 1920; an American archaeologist excavated the synagogue in 1932.
Shipped to Damascus, where it was rebuilt, the synagogue is one of the oldest and most unique Jewish monuments in antiquity – on display at the Syrian National Museum. Its frescoed walls depict such vibrant biblical scenes that it was originally thought to be a Greek temple.
Today a Syrian guide, while prohibiting flash photographs to preserve the murals’ original colors, happily explains the scriptural stories and the history of the synagogue’s discovery.
Downstream from Dura-Europos, approaching the border town of Abu Kamal, sits the ancient Sumerian and Amorite city of Mari, circa 4,000 BC. Abu Kamel’s notoriety is due to the American helicopter raid from Iraq last fall that killed eight Syrians in a nearby village. Damascus said they were all civilians – farmers and fisherman – while Washington said they were terrorists.
More than 3,500 years ago, when Mari was at its peak under the ruler Zimri-Lim, whose vast, 300-room palace was the envy of the region, Hammurabi invaded from Babylon and sacked the city. But the deep walls and hallways of Zimri-Lim’s Mari palace remain today, protected for millenniums under sand.
In this eastern corner of Syria, whose life is the river, antiquities compete with politics and the border with Iraq. Farther upstream near Deir ez-Zor, the regional capital, are the remains of a possible nuclear facility, bombed by Israel in 2007.
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2. Nikola | 08.26.09
It’s always a shock to me — to be reading something about such a huge sweep of time on the Internet’s endless now. Very nice piece.
3. EdG | 08.26.09
OliverW’s commentary couldn’t be more true. I’ve been to Syria four times, and it’s always worth the trip.
4. Petra | 08.27.09
I also visited Syria and did go to Aleppo. There is so much history in Syria and so much to see. I cant wait to return some day soon.
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1. Oliver W | 08.26.09
I visited the sites mentioned in 2006. I was the only person there. Syria has got so much to offer. Its music, its cuisine, its crusader castles, its lakes and pine forested mountains, ten thousand years of ancient ruins and running through the north a string of abandoned byzantine cities now populated only by birds, goats and the wind. The Afrin Valley north of Aleppo contains some of the most well preserved Hittite temples anywhere. its the people, from the Kurds in the north to the Bedouin of the desert to the Arabs of Damascus and the Armenian diaspora of Aleppo that made it for me. Syria’s people are the most friendly of any country I’ve ever visited. Its got to be the one of the best countries for tourists in the world. I never once felt unsafe, uncomfortable or harassed (even in the markets of Aleppo and Damascus!). I visited the Umayyad mosque and saw the synagogue at the national museum. After a month I still had much to see and do. I made friends that will last a lifetime and I never ever will forget Syria. What a country!