The Origins of Damascus

The inhabitants of Damascus and Aleppo dispute for their respective towns the honor of being the oldest in the world. Perhaps Aleppo's claim is closer to reality but those boasts are wildly exaggerated even within the confinements of geographical Syria which was dominated in the Bronze Age by three cities: Mari, Ugarit, and Ebla. The first mention of Damascus -and it was only in passing- was in the 15th Century B.C. during the reign of the Pharaoh Thutmose the 3rd as recorded in the registers of Karnak and Amarna (14th Century B.C.). The land of Damascus was far from ideal to settled agriculture on a wide scale back in the 2nd Millennium B.C. as it was far from trade routes for one thing and as Barada's waters were largely wasted in marshes surrounding a ridge by the river and ideal for endemic diseases such as malaria and typhoid. The emergence of Damascus on the world stage had to await the Aramean age when two seminal events took place: the first was an agricultural revolution made possible with the distribution of Barada's water via man-made canals and the second was a commercial one that manifested itself with the domestication of the camel at the turn of the first millennium B.C. The Agricultural Revolution created the Ghouta whereas the Commercial Revolution transformed Damascus into a hub of transportation along the caravan routes; both created the city's prosperity and diffused its fame far and wide.

Damascus: A History
Ross Burns
ISBN: 9780415413176