beautiful Aleppo: lost history

Ancient hammams/baths 

renovated during the Ottoman period

Wiki 2010 

Madrasa Halawiye

built in C12th 

alisariram

The Syrian city of Aleppo/White or Halep/Milk takes its name from a local white limestone with which the city was built. Lots of set­tle­ments located in Aleppo’s western sub­urbs were also built with the local lime­stone. The Archaeol­og­ical Museum shows notable an­c­ient ar­t­e­facts found in northern Syria at major archaeological sites.

The city surrounded a monumental medieval Citadel which looked like a hillside acr­op­olis, the intel­lect­ual centre of traditional Syrian ar­chitecture, science, poetry, cuisine, music and crafts. The relics of ancient civilisat­ions lay in the remains of mad­rasas-religious school, palace and bath­hous­es. The early Graeco-Roman streets showed C6th Chris­tian build­ings, mediev­al walls and gates, Mame­luke mosques, and later Ottoman mosq­ues and pal­aces. The Citadel reflected C12th-14th Arab milit­ary might.

Hammam baths interior

Wiki 2001

In Damascus, 310 ks from Aleppo, each hospital was beau­t­ifully de­signed and built. So much money was spent on the archit­ect­ure and art that hospitals became the crown jewel of each new ruler’s ef­fort to refashion his city. Hos­pit­als also become part of Aleppo’s politico-architectural land­scape that defined urban Islam! But not just hospitals. In Aleppo, Nur Al din’s patronage extended to imp­ort­ant madrasas and Sufi monast­er­ies.

On the crossroads of some trade routes, Aleppo was ruled successively by the Hittites, Assyrians, Greeks, Romans, Umayyads, Ayyub­ids, Mame­luks and Otto­mans, each leaving their mark. See the C12th Great Mosque found­ed under the Umayyads and rebuilt. See the C12th Madrasa Halawiye, which incorp­or­ated remains of Aleppo's Great Cathedral of St Helena. The mosques, mad­rasas, suqs and khans beaut­ifully reflected the social, cultural and eco­nomic asp­ects of that very rich city.

Before the recent Syrian Civil War, these 13th and C14th relig­ious and commercial buildings gave well preserved examples of medieval Is­l­amic arch­it­­ec­ture which came from its hist­orical heritage, covering varied nationalities and bel­iefs. Chur­ches, mosques and synagogues in different archit­ec­t­ural st­yles enhanced the streets alongside baroque, Norman, Neo-classic, Oriental & Chinese styles.

Aleppo became one of the main stops on the Silk Road, with vendors set­ting up in the cov­ered bazaars. These ex­t­ended for many ks via na­r­row, labyrinth­ine st­reets, grouped by trade so that cus­t­omers could shop for spices, silk or soaps made lo­cally. Souq al-Madina was a very large, covered trading market for imp­orted lux­ury goods eg sp­ices and dyes from India; raw silk from Iran; coff­ee from Dam­as­cus and local products like wool and leath­er.                      

Great Synagogue Aleppo

before it was destroyed

Times of Israel

       
Alep­po’s Great Synagogue embodied the once-thriving Jewish commun­ity. Built in C5th AD, it lasted until recently when the last Jews were exiled. Empty but intact since 1947, its was guard­ed by the re­gime and by Al­eppo’s Jewish dia­­s­p­ora. The high bimah/prayer platform is 20 steps off the ground, sun-lit th­rough the colonnades, with 7 reposit­or­ies for Torah scrolls.

Aleppo’s Jewish community was lucky when the Ot­t­oman Empire opened up to thousands of Spanish Jews who’d been exp­el­led in 1492. The Jewish community slowly recovered; Jews became inv­ol­ved in trade and crafts, doing business with European traders who came to Syria. The Cave of Elijah hous­ed the Alep­po Codex, best copy of the old, treasured Hebrew Bible where it was venerated as a most sanctified object. In 1947 it was partly dest­roy­ed by a mob but mir­ac­ulously most of it was smug­­­gled from Syria to Jerusalem and was hous­ed in the Shrine of the Book. 

In 1992, Old Al­eppo's Pro­gramme for Sustainable Urban Development was set up in the Municipality in cooperation with internat­ional agencies. In 1999, the Directorate was established to guide the old city’s restoration by covering 1]planning, 2]permits 3]implementation & maintenance. A comprehensive plan for the Old City’s evolution was prepared, pr­omoting sust­ainable urban manage­ment and dev­elopment. Their policies partic­ul­arly protected arch­aeol­ogical remains found during recent excavations.  

Citadel

Beautiful view from Aleppo's Citadel

before the Civil War

Yahoo News

                            
Since UNESCO’s coverage, conservation efforts in the Old City have focused on the dominant Citadel, pres­erving the stunning hist­or­ic­al val­ue. However the setting was vul­ner­able, due to few control mech­an­isms in the planning administ­ration, includ­ing no buffer zone. The historic handic­raft and comm­ercial activities continued as a vital part of the city’s traditi­onal urban life, prot­ected by the Directorate of Ant­iqu­it­ies and Museums.  

British archaeologist-writer Gertrude Bell travelled from Dam­as­cus to Iraq, returning via Aleppo in 1911. And then another Iraqi trip in 1913-14. Bell wrote books during her trav­els and left 7,000 film negatives from her journeys, which are now with her papers at Newcastle Uni’s Bell Archive. She photo­­gr­aph­ed the prec­ious sites, providing evidence of Aleppo and Raqqa, later destroyed.

Although the Citadel still dominates the city, the 8 storey ho­tel dev­elopment in the Bab al-Faraj area impacted badly on vis­ual int­e­grity, as did the development of tall new buildings and widened roads before UNESCO inscr­ipt­ion on the World Heritage List in 19­86. Aleppo's Old Town, with its cultural and architectural beauty, was protected - the surv­iving ensemble of major buildings, and the urban character of the suqs all contributed to its value. But lack of conservation has made the hist­or­ic­al resources vulner­able.

War destruction in Aleppo, near the citadel.

Francesco Bandarin

Tragically Aleppo was steadily dest­roy­ed between 2012-16 during the Syrian war, when the city was at the centre of major clashes between Syrian government forces and the opposition. This was a massive loss to the locals and to the rest of the world, because of the devast­at­ion produced by the conflict and the limitations of the internation­al system of heritage protection. The gorgeous city, that was for centuries the largest city in Syria, is no longer gorgeous.

Read the excellent Destruction of Aleppo: The Impact of the Syrian War on a World Heritage City by Francesco Bandarin