SYRIA - LIBANON - JORDAN
The fertile archaeological crescent
SYRIA:
The "Damascus Street" was unchanged in the centuries Character of inhabitants fiery, full of passions, vibrational, perpetual, hereditary. DAMASKUS: Desert Port", a caravan center with the most famous "souk" (markets) of the East. AMMAN: "Rome of the Desert" STONE: The Rhodian State LEBANON: The ancient country of the Phoenicians Paris of the Near East Political and religious problems of a Mediterranean Las Vegas. A French influence protectorate. Collapse of the rich rich nation. The civil war that broke the country. Population with features of European populations Traveling to these three countries is a journey full of mystery and surprises. In the "fertile crescent", where many people left their mark, among them Greeks, Romans, Phoenicians and Ottomans, were born religions, cultures and alphabets. Cities such as PETRA or "Rose City", AMAN or "White City", PALMYRA, from the most famous archaeological sites of the east, BIBLOS, TYROS and SIDON seal this unique journey that you sometimes travel to past with their monuments and traditions, and sometimes returning to the present with their impeccable tourist infrastructure. Conquerors, merchants, Greeks, Phoenicians, Arabs, Crusaders, Genoese, Turks, Hermits and Roman Knights have left indelible traces in Lebanon, the "Gate of the East". Here the desert spirit meets with Mediterranean humanism: everything is ancient, everything has millennia and everything seems to be reborn every day. At the same time, there is the reality of a country that, with its people defending the mountains, managed to keep intact the traces of the most ancient East. PALMYRA The ancient Palmyra, founded by Solomon in the Syrian desert oasis, halfway between the Mediterranean Sea and the Euphrates, was on the passage of the Caravans, which from central Asia traveled to Egypt or the Mediterranean arrived as the Gulf belt. Today, Palmyra is no longer passing the caravan road, but an oil pipeline that transports Iran's oil into the Mediterranean Sea. Palmyra was a Roman colony, completely destroyed by Trajan and rebuilt by Adrianus, then became the center of an independent state between the Roman Empire and the Persian Empire until it was definitively enslaved by Aurelian. Before the Romans, the Seleucids kept it under their influence, bringing here Hellenism, but it did not eliminate either the local traditions or the local language: the Aramaic. The archaeological excavations brought to light a large part of the city, emphasizing its mixed character, which on the one hand was Hellenistic and Parthian. Architectural monuments such as the large colonnade, Bell's sanctuary with the temple, the theater, the sanctuary of Ba Al-Saham, the market, the seraph, the temple of Naupus are many and imposing. The epigraphic wealth of Palmyra is important and includes great bilingual monuments. Regarding its sculptural wealth, Palmyra was the richest city of antiquity. BALBAKK The city, founded by the Phoenicians, was the center of worship of Baal and later became the Greek colony of Heliopolis and the Roman Julia Augusta Felix. Her greatest peak was during the Antonine period. It is built at an altitude of 1170 at the foot of the southwest side of Antilivanos, near the left bank of Litani. The relics of the majestic temple of the Heliopolitan triad (Zeus, Aphrodite, Hermes), are interesting and imposing built during the Antonine era. The also well preserved monument is the neighboring octagonal temple of Bacchus, dating from the middle of the 2nd century. In the central part of the Roman colony one can find the round temple of Aphrodite, the first half of the 3rd c. X. century. |