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funerary temple
Beyond the Tetrapylon the main street continues for another 500m. This stretch has seen much less excavation and reconstruction than elsewhere and is still littered with tumbled columns and assorted blocks of masonry. The road ends at the impressive portico of a funerary temple, da
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Historical Museum of Damascus
The Historical Museum of Damascus is in an attractive old house with eight richly decorated rooms off a central courtyard. A couple of rooms hold displays of photos and diagrams relating to old Damascus, and there is a superb large-scale model of the Old City, but its the rooms the
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Church of the Girdle of Our Lady
From the Christian Quarter along Sharia Abi al-Hawl, continue due east, straight over the crossroad, until you see a small gateway topped by a cross - this leads through a grey stone wall to the Church of the Girdle of Our Lady . In 1953 the patriarch of Antioch, Ignatius Aphraim,
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Temple of the Standards
Dating from the late 3rd or early 4th century AD, Diocletians camp comprises the remains of a monumental gateway, a tetrapylon and two temples, one of which, the Temple of the Standards, dominates from an elevated position at the head of a flight of worn steps. The camp was erected
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Dahdah Palace
Unseen behind the high walls within the Old City are hundreds of delightful houses built around courtyards and featuring their own elaborate decoration. Unfortunately, many of these treasures are in a sad state of disrepair, but a loop off Straight St takes in several examples, all
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Churches
Close to the museum you’ll find five major churches, each aligned to a different denomination.Immediately west of the museum is the Syrian Catholic Church (Mar Assia al-Hakim), built in 1625 and happy to admit visitors who come knocking.Next stop is the 19th-century Greek Orthodox
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Beit Nizam
Unseen behind the high walls within the Old City are hundreds of delightful houses built around courtyards and featuring their own elaborate decoration. Unfortunately, many of these treasures are in a sad state of disrepair, but a loop off Straight St takes in several examples, all
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Khan As’ad Pasha
Just beyond the hammam is the towering entrance to Khan As’ad Pasha, arguably the finest and most ambitious piece of civic architecture in the Old City – a cathedral among khans. Built in 1752 under the patronage of As’ad Pasha al-Azem, it’s a supremely elegant arrangement of eight
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Tetrapylon
Perhaps the most striking construction at Palmyra, the Tetrapylon marks the second pivot in the route of the colonnaded street. It consists of a square platform bearing at each corner a tight grouping of four columns. Each of the four groups of pillars supports 150,000kg of solid c
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agora
The agora was the hub of Palmyrene life, the citys most important meeting space, used for public discussion and as a market where caravans unloaded their wares and engaged in the trade that brought the desert oasis its wealth. What remains today is a clearly defined courtyard measu
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Khaled ibn al
Built as recently as the first decade of the 20th century, Homs best-known monument, Khaled ibn al-Walid Mosque , is an attractive example of a Turkish-style mosque. The black-and-white Mamluk-style stone banding in the courtyard is particularly striking. Inside the prayer hall, ov
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Beit as
Unseen behind the high walls within the Old City are hundreds of delightful houses built around courtyards and featuring their own elaborate decoration. Unfortunately, many of these treasures are in a sad state of disrepair, but a loop off Straight St takes in several examples, all
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Theatre
Palmyras theatre, lies on the south side of the street accessed between two arches in the colonnade. Until the 1950s it was buried beneath sand but since then has been extensively restored. Beneath the platforms on many of the columns are inscriptions with names for the statues tha
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Norias
Hama’s main attraction is the norias (water wheels up to 20m in diameter)that have graced the town for millennia. Because both the water wheels and the blocks on which they are mounted are wooden, the friction when they turn produces a mournful groaning.There have been norias in Ha
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Bab Antakya
The 13th-century Bab Antakya, the western gate of the old walled city, is all but completely hidden by the swarm of busy workshops surrounding it, but you definitely get a sense of entering as you pass under its great stone portal and through the defensively doglegged vaulted passa
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cella
The cella was completed in AD 32, a date given in a dedication inscribed on a pedestal found inside the temple, and now exhibited in the Palmyra Museum. Its unusual that the entrance is in one of the sides rather than at an end, and is offset from the centre. Inside is a single cha
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Tishreen (October) War Panorama
Created with the help of the North Koreans, Tishreen (October) War Panorama a memorial to the 1973 war with Israel is quite extraordinary. The tour takes in paintings of various historical battles, a film, the moving panoramic painting, a 3D mural and diorama depicting the Israeli
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Khan al
Next to Al-Jumruk (but entered from the east side) is the much smaller Khan al-Nahaseen, dating from the first half of the 16th century. Until the 19th century, rooms on the 1st floor housed the Venetian consul, and during the 20th century they were the residence of the Belgian con
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Maktab Anbar
Unseen behind the high walls within the Old City are hundreds of delightful houses built around courtyards and featuring their own elaborate decoration. Unfortunately, many of these treasures are in a sad state of disrepair, but a loop off Straight St takes in several examples, all
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Mausoleum of Saladin
In the small archaeological garden that lies along the north wall of the Umayyad Mosque are a few columns dating back to the original Roman Temple of Jupiter, and a small white building topped by a rust-red dome, which is the Mausoleum of Saladin. The famed, chivalrous adversary of
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