Middle East - Anthony Ham [416]
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APAMEA
Don’t miss Apamea (note that Arabic speakers do not use the sound ‘p’, so they pronounce it ‘Afamia’). If it weren’t for Palmyra’s unsurpassable magnificence, the ruins of Apamea (adult/student S£150/10) would be famous as one of the great ancient sites of the Middle East. As it is, Apamea is like a condensed version of the pink-sandstone desert city, but executed in grey granite and transposed to a high, wild grassy moor overlooking the Al-Ghab Plain. Although little remains of the city’s temples and other public buildings, its grand colonnade is one of the most extensive and beautiful in the region.
The main feature of the ruins of Apamea is the north–south cardo (main street), marked out along much of its length by parallel colonnades. At 2km, Apamea’s cardo is longer than the one at Palmyra. Many of its columns, originally erected in the 2nd century AD, bear unusual carved designs and some have twisted fluting, a feature unique to Apamea. Visitors to this site as recently as 50 years ago would have seen nothing of this; in what’s termed ‘reconstructive archaeology’, the columns have been recovered from where they once lay, scattered and overgrown with weeds, and have been re-erected by a Belgian team that’s been working here since the 1930s.
North of the main junction, parts of the cardo still retain its original paving, visibly rutted by the wear of chariot wheels. The other monuments, such as the nymphaeum (monumental fountain) and agora (forum), require considerable imagination. There are ticket offices at both ends of the cardo.
Microbuses (S£40, 40 minutes) and minibuses (S£30, 40 minutes) regularly run the 45km from Hama to the village of Suqeilibiyya, where it’s necessary to change to a microbus for Qala’at al-Mudiq (S£30, 10 minutes), the hilltop village adjacent to Apamea. The whole trip takes about an hour, except on Friday, when you can wait ages for a connection.
It’s also possible to arrange a car and driver in either Aleppo (Click here; a day trip could be combined with a trip to the Dead Cities and even Qala’at Samaan) or Hama (Click here).
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ALEPPO
021 / pop 4.2 million
The Old City of Aleppo (Haleb in Arabic) can seem like an evocation of The Thousand and One Nights, and once lost in Aleppo’s magical and labyrinthine souqs, you won’t want to be found. But Aleppo has so much more, with the lovely and predominantly Christian district of Al-Jdeida, and it’s here and in the Old City that you find some of Syria’s best restaurants and boutique hotels. The city is outwardly more conservative than many of Syria’s other cities (you’ll see more women wearing the chador than elsewhere), but beneath the surface there are plenty of friendly fun-loving locals keen to introduce travellers to the city’s many charms.
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HISTORY
Written archives from the ancient kingdom of Mari indicate that Aleppo was already the centre of a powerful state as long ago as the 18th century BC, and the site may have been continuously inhabited for the past 8000 years. Its pre-eminent role in Syria came to an end with the Hittite invasions of the 17th and 16th centuries BC, and the city appears to have fallen into obscurity thereafter.
With the fall of Palmyra to the Romans, Aleppo became the major commercial link between the Mediterranean Sea and Asia. The town was destroyed by the Persians in AD 611 and fell easily to the Muslims later during their invasion in 637. The Byzantines overwhelmed the town in 961 and again in 968, but they could not take the citadel.
Three disastrous earthquakes also shook the town in the 10th century and Nureddin (Nur ad-Din) subsequently rebuilt the town and fortress. In 1124 the Crusaders under Baldwin laid