Hamah Journals

A Syrian Journal

A January 2000 trip to Hamah by malipran

Quote: This describes a trip I took around Syria in 2000.

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A Syrian Journal

Overview

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The limestone hills near Maraat al-Numan are archaeologically suberb. I visited several of the Dead Cities—Battrasa, Serjilla, Ba'ouda, Deir Lowza, Jeredah, Rouweia, and Bara. There are perhaps 780 of these so-called Dead Cities in Northern Syria and the lobe of Turkey. They were Roman and Byzantine settlements that grew wealthy from the production of olive oil. Quite a few of the cities are remarkably preserved. There are gabled buildings, olive presses, baths, pillars, carvings over lintels and around windows, a tower with a basalt door still set in its turning hole upon its stone peg, huge cisterns, troughs, grand pyramid tombs, carved sarcophagi, and traditional underground tombs. The buildings in...Read More

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Hama, Syria

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Hama was a fascinating city, though the Orontes water, skimmed with bright green growth, was low and stagnant, and so, still as well, are the famous wooden waterwheels called norias. I walked around through the park to admire and photograph the different sets along the river. The old part of town is typically enticing: narrow cobbled streets, buildings of white stone banded or checkered in black basalt, and domestic sounds following you, such as the chop-chop of a knife on a cutting board. The museum itself is supposed to be unremarkable, but it is set in the former palace of the pasha. I was pulled into another old house in the district that serves as an atelier to a group of painters. They brought me upstairs, provided tea, showed me painting after painting, and never gave a sales pitch. They were a cheery bunch with hardly a word of English, except for a younger man who could speak enough to tell me of his work, his salary, and an American who had come the day before to chat and do research about the French mandate period. The atelier is neither spruce nor shoddy. It has nice tiles, painted ceilings, and deep-set windows, and it encloses a very large stone courtyard that would provide the perfect setting for leisure. The best painting, for reference to Hama's troubled past, was of the grand ancient noria and the historic homes where the ugly luxury hotel is now situated. [In 1982, responding to skirmishes with a group of fundamentalist Muslims who wanted to topple President Assad, the army brutally cracked down, killing thousands, leaving 70,000 people homeless and destroying an estimated third of the city's center.]

While walking below the citadel, an old, haggard man waved me down. He walked using a crutch, having injured four discs in his back, and wanted to say hello and invite me for tea, which I had to decline in the interest of time. His grammar mistake made a perfect expression: "I am Palestine."

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About the Writer

malipran
Claypool, Arizona

"I tend to live and work abroad in order to more fully experience the culture. I avoid short vacation..."
2 journals
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1 review

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Hamah Journals

A Syrian Journal

A Syrian Journal

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Hama, Syria

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