Locating Aramean Damascus

Aramean Damascus occupied a far smaller area than its Roman successor. What can be said with reasonable certainty is that it was located at a short distance—a few hundred meters—south of the Baradā. Through a careful inspection of the landscape, we can identify four tells, or artificial mounds, labeled on the map as a, b, c, and d:

Tell a is located north of Via Recta in the Christian Quarter of Bāb Tūmā. Tell b is to be found south of Via Recta on the east side of the Old City (formerly the Jewish Quarter). Tell c is in the Šāġūr Quarter in the southwest part of Damascus, whereas Tell d is adjacent to the ʾUmayyād Mosque in the southeast direction. 

Tell d, in all likelihood, corresponds to the Aramean City, a hypothesis supported by its situation contiguous to the Temple and near the river, though no material evidence is available. Excavation works in a city teeming with people and abounding with priceless historical monuments accumulated over thousands of years, a city that has been continuously inhabited since time immemorial, are practically impossible. 

Damascus currently gets clean water for drinking and domestic usage through ʿAyn al-Fīǧā, harnessed for the first time shortly after the beginning of the 20th century. The Aramean City had to rely on Baradā and its derivatives, the most ancient of which, according to Jean Sauvaget's interpretation of the Old Testament (2 Kings 5:12), would be Bānīās: 

Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? may I not wash in them, and be clean?

Bānīās, with (later) the Roman Qanawāt, provides Damascus with the majority of its water needs. It enters the city heading from west to east to pass through the Citadel, where it gives a branch to the south called Nahr Qulayṭ. As the city's chief temple from time immemorial, the ʾUmayyād Mosque receives its water from both Bānīās and Qanawāt. 

Richard Lodoïs Thoumin. Géographie humaine de la Syrie centrale. Librairie Ernest Leroux, Paris 1936.