Often arbitrarily called "Arch of Triumph" (*), this monument opens onto the colonnade of the Vicus Rectus (cf. Acts of the Apostles 9:11). It seems to be contemporaneous with the religious and military constructions of Septimius Severus (end of the second and beginning of the third century CE). Near it, the location of one of the ancient churches of the Byzantine period is attested to in the name of a medieval minaret, Bāb al-Kanīsa (Gate of the Church).
(*) Via Recta (the Street Called Straight) was intersected at two points by monumental arches, each composed of three bays, corresponding to the triple entrances of the eastern and western gates of the city. The northern bay of one of them (photo) was uncovered not too long ago at 618 meters west of Bāb Šarqi. It was lying four and a half meters below the present level of the street. The Directorate-General of Antiquities and Museums raised it to the present street level and restored it in 1950. It is a beautiful arch, completely intact, with a few sculptured columns adjoining it. The other monumental arch, known by the Arabs as the Arch of ʾUmm Ḥakīm, was located about 250 meters to the west of this arch, and some remains of it were found about thirty years ago (Sauvaget p. 327-328). According to the Arab historian Ibn Kaṯīr (al-Bidāya wa al-Nihāya, vol 13, p 175), it was pulled down in 646 (AH (1248 CE) to make room for more houses and shops but was not completely dismantled, however, for Porter, who visited Damascus during the middle of the nineteenth century, saw one of its bays which had survived "buried beneath masses of rubbish" (Five Years in Damascus vol. 1, p 57).
Jacques Ghislain de Maussion de Favières. Damascus, Baghdad: Capitals and lands of the caliphs. Translation to English by Edward J. Banks. Librairie orientale (Dar el-Mashreq), Beirut, Lebanon. 1972.
ʿAbd al-Qādir Rīḥāwi. Damascus (translated from Arabic by Paul E. Chevedden 1977). P. 42.
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