Gallery 58--Pictures of Syria

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Palmyra sits halfway between Damascus and the Euphrates River.

The administrative language in Damascus was Greek from the time of Great Alexander and only toward the end of the 7th century did Arabic become more common.

The Temenos wall of the temple of Zeus forms the outer wall of the great mosque of Damascus.

Papyri from upper Egypt records the fact that craftsmen were summoned to Damascus to build the great mosque in 709 A.D. Al Walid I apparantly wrote to the emperor of Byzantium asking, "Send me Greek architects and 200 Greek crastsmen for I want to build a mosque the likes of which my predecessors have never constructed, nor will my successors ever raise such a building."

The architecture of the great mosque of Damascus set an example. The builders of later mosques adopted and modified these ideas.

The great mosque imitated the Greek church architecture of late antiquity.

After seven decades of common usage by both Muslims and Christians alike, the basilica of John the Baptist in the center of Damascus was rased by the new rulers in 706 and the great mosque built on the same site.

However, the Christian relic of the head of John the Baptist in still venerated today in the tabernacle that's integrated into the building.

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