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At the Ottoman Bank Museum
Damascus...A City Coveted by Kings
This month at the Voyovoda Street City Tours - organized by the Museum, in collaboration with the Foundation for the Development of Cultural Awareness - Architect Prof. Baha Tanman takes us on a tour to Damascus, on Wednesday, April 21, 2004 at 6:30 p.m. Believed to be one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Damascus houses a great many mosques, madrassa, tekke (dervish lodges), türbe (mausoleums), şifahane (hospitals), hans, and hamams left over from Ottoman times.
"Damascus was founded around 2000 B.C." says Tanman. "Due both to its key position on the main caravan route from Anatolia to Arabia and Egypt, and the geopolitical location of Syria, the struggle for the sovereignty of the city was, in every period, a subject of dispute between the rulers of those regions.
The Greek occupation of the city lasted some 250 years, then Damascus passed from the Seleucids (successors of Alexander the Great) to the Ptolemies of the Egyptian Empire. Under the Roman Empire, the city flourished and became an important crossroads on the east-west trade route. In 661 A.D. Damascus was made capital of the Omayad Empire. It was later conquered by the Seljuks, a nomadic Turkish tribe, and subsequently ruled by Turkish and Circassian dynasties until 1918. Within the city walls of the old town, architectural remains from the Zengi (1154-1176), Eyyubi (1176-1193), Mamluk (1260-1516) and Ottoman (1516-1176) periods abound. The fact that the building material used was either stone or brick explains why so many magnificent mansions from Ottoman times - a testimony to the city's prosperity - still stand firm today."
For information on this free lecture offered by the Ottoman Bank Museum, contact: (212) 292 76 05
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