By Daniel Demeter
Syria Photo Guide is my attempt to share with the world the immense beauty and rich heritage of the country in which I spent several wonderful years. The website was originally envisioned to serve as a guide for travelers wishing to explore Syria’s incredible range of archaeological, cultural and natural sites, and I began work on the project in 2006. Given the horrific conflict that has engulfed the country since 2011, I hope my website will inspire those working to preserve and protect Syria’s wealth of historic sites and provide a resource for those interested in learning more about Syria’s history and culture.
I first visited Syria in 2003, and quickly found myself becoming deeply immersed in the country’s people, culture and history. Despite having traveled to over thirty countries prior to visiting Syria, nowhere had I encountered people so welcoming and hospitable. The country’s amazing diversity, fascinating history, and incredible variety of archaeological sites and natural attractions amazed me. Having initially planned only a few weeks in the country, I spent over nine months there. I cancelled plans to continue traveling overland through Central Asia to China, instead refocusing my journey on better understanding the Middle East.
In 2006 I undertook another trip to Syria, determined to get to know the country in even greater depth. Basing myself in Bab Sharqi, Damascus, I ended up living in Syria for nearly two full years of 2006 and 2007. In addition to teaching English at a local language center, I spent much of my time visiting, documenting and photographing Syria’s wide range of archaeological, cultural and natural attractions. I contributed articles about these sites to a local English-language magazine called “What’s On”. Through this work, Syria Photo Guide was born. My last visit to Syria was from September 2008 through March 2009. I am from Los Angeles, California and currently reside in San Luis Obispo with my wife, Rasha, who is from Mosul, Iraq.
Read more at Syria Comment
Categories: Art, Geography, History, Middle East, Photography, Syria, World history
World News Forum 
This is a magnificent tribute by Daniel Demeter to the ancient land called Syria and the people who inhabit it.
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Reading about the pre-war Syria breaks my heart . I spent beautiful summer vacations in this unique country when I was a school student and it captured my heart since then with its amazing places and nice people.
History breaths there in the old neighbourhood of Damscus with its castles and mosques and churchs and settles in the beautiful old houses with small fountains and Jasmine trees inside its halls. I hope the beauty returns back to Syria after the war nightmare comes to an end
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I also felt sad for poor Syria and its people, while looking at these photographs. Aleppo has been ruined many times over thousands of years, and rebuilt, again and again upon the rubble of her former destructions. She will be rebuilt, again, but I fear that the lives of so many of its people will lie in ruins for generations.
Such beautiful words, Fada.
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Blood never dries. Blood of unspoken massacres lies in every inch in ruins of old cities under Damascus, Cairo, Baghdad, Aleppo and others.
It is the blood of millions of Arminean, Kurds, Christians and muslems annihilated by Ottomanis allover the past centuries
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One of the earliest cultural layers found by archaeologists at Aleppo is characterized by a particular type of red and black pottery called Khirbet Kerak, associated with the collapse of the kingdom of Akkad around 2130 B.C. An example of this same pottery was found in the royal burial chamber of Akhenaten, who died around 1335 B.C. Over four thousand years of ruins from human conflict are recorded in the earth of Aleppo. May this layer of ruin be the last.
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Aleppo is THE oldest continuously inhabited city in the world, perhaps as early as the 6th millennium BC. , then comes Cairo and Damuscus. There was no true civil systems known before the ancient cities in this place of the world
One day archaeologists will find remains much older than this pottery
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I just stopped by Free Bloggers Alliance tonight, and discovered that displayname0 had an interesting guest commenter on this post, its author, Daniel Demeter. How cool is that?
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