Damascus
A History
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Book Description
Damascus, first published in 2005, was the first account in English of the history of the city, bringing out the crucial role it has played at many points in the region’s past. It traces the story of this colourful, significant and complex city through its physical development, from the its emergence in around 7000 BC through the changing cavalcade of Aramaean, Persian, Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Arab, Turkish and French rulers to independence in 1946. This new edition has been thoroughly updated using recent scholarship and includes an additional chapter placing the events of the Syrian post-2011 conflict in the context of the city’s tumultuous experiences over the last century.
This volume is a must-read for anyone interested in the sweep of Syrian history and archaeology, and is an ideal partner to Burns’ Aleppo (2016). Lavishly illustrated, Damascus: A History remains a unique and compelling exploration of this fascinating city.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
List of Maps
Foreword
Abbreviations
Introduction
Four Roads to Damascus
The setting
Legends of a birth
For want of a spade
PART ONE
Chapter 1 – The Emergence of Damascus (9000 – c1100 BC)
The first villages
Ta-ms-qu in Upi
The mother of all battles
A wider catastrophe
Chapter 2 – Dimashqu – Damascus from the Aramaeans to the Assyrians (c1100 – 732 BC)
After the turmoil
An Aramaean Empire (Eleventh Century–733 BC)
Aram-Damascus vs Israel
Neo-Assyrian Empire (964–c800 BC)
The city of the god
Damascus in Aramaean Times
The temple
Resurgent Assyria (8th century BC)
Epilogue: An altar for Jerusalem
Chapter 3 – A Greater Game – Assyrians, Persians, Greeks (732 – c300 BC)
Assyrian Rule (732–636 BC)
Neo-Babylonians (Chaldean Rule) (626–539 BC)
Persian (Achaemenid) rule (539–333 BC)
Damascus during the twilight of the Ancient Near East
After Issus (333–331 BC)
A Hellenic millennium
Chapter 4 – The Sowing of Hellenism – Ptolemies and Seleucids (300 – 64 BC)
Ptolemaic rule – Third Century BC
Damascus between rival dynasties
Seleucid rule – second century BC
The persistence of the plan
A Greek city
Temple of Zeus
A Hellenistic civilisation?
Chapter 5 – Towards a Pax Romana (64 BC – AD 30)
Rome Intervenes
Pompey’s settlement
The east Mediterranean theatre
Damascus and the struggle for empire
Stabilising the Damascus region
Urge to monumentalise
Civic works
Chapter 6 – Metropolis Romana (AD 30 – 268)
Who were the Syrians?
The city and temple of Jupiter
Importance of cult centres
First Christian mission
An imperial city
Syrian consorts
The eastern question
Population
City and country
Chapter 7 – Holding the Line (AD 269 – 610)
Nature of the Persian threat
Hard and soft frontiers
A Christian city
Cathedral of Saint John
Decline and disintegration
Who were the Arabs|?
‘Do it yourself’ defence doctrine
Chapter 8 – ‘Farewell, Oh Syria’ (611 – 661)
Damascus – The First Bulwark
The great field army perishes
Arab aims
Heraclius retreats
Arab administration
Chapter 9 – The Umayyads (661 – 750)
Muʿawiya and the new order
The Umayyad prism
The ʿAlite revolt
Acquisition of the Church of Saint John
The building of the Mosque
The fantastic garden
Threshold of Paradise
A ninety year empire
A glorious failure?
PART TWO
Preface to Part Two - When did the ancient end?
Chapter 10 – Decline, Confusion and Irrelevance (750 – 1098)
Ostracism (750–877)
Teaching Damascus a lesson
Sullen revolt
Turkish inroads, Tulunids (877–905)
Shiʿism
Fragmentation (905–964)
Fatimids (969–1071)
Seljuks (1055–1104)
Arrival of the Burids (1104)
First madrasas
Chapter 11 – Islam Resurgent (1098 – 1174)
Bulwark Against the Crusaders?
Early Burids (Tughtagin r. 1104–28)
Burids versus Zengids (1128–48)
Jerusalem-Damascus-Aleppo
The Second Crusade (1148) – ‘Fiasco’
Citadel of the faith
Jihad!
Nur al-Din (1154–74)
Nur al-Din’s monuments
A new ‘Golden Age’
Chapter 12 – Saladin and the Ayyubids (1174 – 1250)
Saladin’s rise
Hattin (1187)
‘The last victory’
The Ayyubid succession
Al-Muazzim ʿIssa (1218–28)
Jerusalem betrayed
Al-Ashraf (1229–38)
Back on the periphery (1238-50)
Courtly society
Chapter 13 – Mamluks (1250 – 1515)
The Central Asian threat
Baybars (1260–77)
Return of the Mongols
The Mamluk system
A new prosperity
Foreigners
Mamluk building
Tengiz’s governorship (1312– 40)
Decline (1341-82)
Burji Mamluks (1382–1516)
Siege of Tamerlane (1401)
A Venetian window
Collapse
Chapter 14 – The First Ottoman Centuries (1516 – 1840)
Military rule
The Hajj
Midan
Stability of population
Reshaping Damascus
Municipal services
A new role (1706–58)
‘Age of the aʿyan’
Cathedrals of commerce
Acre’s rise – and fall
European ambitions – Egypt intervenes
Chapter 15 – Reform and Reaction (1840 – 1918)
Tanzimat – reform and reaction
1860 massacre
A ‘Little Istanbul’
Telegraph, road and rail
To Mecca by train?
The great fire of 1893
Suq al-Hamidiye
The Damascus house
Command for monument protection
Arab awakening
‘To Damascus!’ – the great ride
Whose Damascus?
Chapter 16 Epilogue – Countdown to Catastrophe (1919–2011)
1919
1925
1940
1948
1970
2011
Glossary of Terms and Names
Maps of City and Environs
Bibliography
Index
Author(s)
Biography
Ross Burns was in the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs for 37 years until his retirement in 2003, including as Ambassador to Syria from 1984 to 1987. After his retirement, he completed a PhD at Macquarie University in Sydney on ‘The Origins of the Colonnaded Streets in the Cities of the Roman East’. He is the author of Aleppo (2016) and Monuments of Syria (3rd edition, 2009).
Reviews
'Despite widespread interest in Damascus due to the Syrian Civil War, little has been written about the city in English. First published in 2004, Burns’ Damascus: A History remains the only English language volume to offer a comprehensive overview of the archaeology, architecture and history of one of the oldest cities on Earth. Therefore the second edition of this work is to be warmly welcomed for the addition of a new chapter bringing the reader up to date with the current situation and offering us a timely reminder of the effects of the war on this exceptional and fascinating city.'
- Emma Loosley, University of Exeter, UK