Maaloula

The honeycomb village built on a very capricious rocky slope, an altitude of 1625 m. It is the only place left where the inhabitants still speak Aramaic; the language spoken by Jesus.


Apamea

(2400-1600 B.C.)It was a powerful and a major city in the early Bronze Age after 1800 BC. It began to decline and finally disappeared from history until the early sixties and over 15,000 cuneiform clay tablets were dug up.


Mari

An ancient and important city on the western bank of the Euphrates that goes back to the third millennium B.C. Was occupied by the Akkadians, Sumerians, Amarites, and was destroyed in about 1760 B.C. by Hammorabi.


Ugarit (Ra'as Shamra)

(1600-1300 B.C.)Due to the relations between the kings of Ugarite and the Egyptians, where the first alphabet was invented bearing 30 signs only dating from 1400 B.C.


St. Simion

The most famous and dramatic of the dead cities; the hermit St. Simion settled here in 412 A.D., he obtained permission to live on top of a pillar and he did for nearly 42 years surrounded by pilgrims. The basilica was built in the second half of the 5th century.


Qalb Lozeh

One of the dead cities where stands one of the loveliest ruined churches in Syria. The three aisled basilicas with a narthex stands in a wild setting and probably dates from the middle of the 6th century.


Palmyra (Tadmor)

The desert capital of Queen Zenobia (267-272 A.D.) where the emperor Aurelian himself led an expedition and took Zenobia as a prisoner to Rome. In the following year the Romans destroyed Palmyra then the city gradually became deserted. The earliest surviving building is the temple of Bel 32 A.D., the great colonnade triumphal arch, museum and the Necropoils.



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