Origins of Damascus

 

The inhabitants of Damascus and Aleppo dispute for their respective cities the honor of being the oldest in the world; perhaps Aleppo's claim is closer to reality, but both allegations are probably exaggerated even within the confines of geographical Syria, dominated in the Bronze Age by three towns: 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 III as recorded in the Karnak inscriptions. The second was in the 14th century B.C. in the ʿAmārnā correspondence. The land of Damascus was far from ideal for settled agriculture on a wide scale back in the 2nd millennium B.C. For one thing, it was distant from major trade routes; another dilemma consisted in the largely wasted water in marshes surrounding a ridge by the Baradā River, an ideal environment 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 Baradā's water via man-made canals; 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 Ġūṭā, and the Commercial Revolution transformed Damascus into a hub of transportation along the caravan routes; both enhanced the city's prosperity and diffused its fame far and wide.

Ross Burns. Damascus, a History. Routledge 2005.