Syria's Monuments: Their Survival and Destruction

Abstract

The majority of travellers who visited Syria (and there were hundreds of them) as well-educated pilgrims, traders, diplomats, scientists, soldiers, sailors and eventually archaeologists offered richer and more subtle assessments of the locals they met and the monuments they admired. This book is based on their accounts, because these offer the only possible entrée for Westerners into what was for centuries a strange and alien world. Literate and knowledgeable visitors write at length to explain many aspects of Syria, from the people (Arabs, Bedouin, Turks, Druze, Christians, Jews) and the physical environment (agriculture, drought, marshes) to the pressures on the built environment (earthquakes, dilapidation, taxation, communications). All these elements are essential to framing the context in which the ancient architecture of Syria survived, tottered or disappeared completely. Show more