The Temple of Aram-Damascus

The history of Damascus' dominant religious edifice spans three millennia, starting with the Temple of Hadad under the Arameans and going all the way to the ʾUmayyād Mosque, with the Roman shrine of Jupiter and St. John the Baptist's Byzantine Church in between.

There exists no shortage of palpable evidence for the Roman temple. Colossal remnants of its once magnificent propylaeum are still visible in the west, and recycled columns with beautiful Corinthian capitals are still in use in the temple's most recent Muslim reincarnation.  Vestiges of the Hellenistic and Aramean eras, on the other hand, are practically nonexistent.

The orthostat as it appeared in situ

A sensational discovery was made in the late 1940s, during restoration works near the northeast corner of the mosque. The findings were published by Emir Ǧaʿfar ʿAbd al-Qādir. The location is point C on the above diagram, where a basaltic orthostat was found encrusted under the north wall in the third row under the Hellenistic foundation. This priceless treasure was disengaged and transferred to the National Museum of Damascus, where it currently resides.

The orthostat's dimensions are 80 cm x 70 cm, with a variable thickness of 31 cm to 51 cm. It represents a winged sphinx that bears clear Egyptian influence with notable exceptions:

1. The upper part of the double crown is horizontal.
2. The shape of the beard.
3. The double wings.

 Those elements bear a striking resemblance to a Samaritan sphinx made of ivory as well as a few ivory artifacts found at ʾArslān Ṭāš that are currently preserved at the Louvre Museum in France and deemed of Phoenician provenance.

The similarities suggest an equally Phoenician origin of the Damascene sphinx, to be dated in all likelihood to the ninth century B.C. and the reign of King Hazael. The resemblance also implies that the rulers of Israel and Damascus occasionally solicited the services of Phoenician artisans.

Emir Djafar Abd El-Kader. Un orthostate du temple de Hadad à Damas. Syria. Archéologie, Art et histoire. Année 1949 (26-3-4)  pp. 191-195.