Damascus: The Eternal City of History and Civilization

Damascus is among the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world and remains one of the most enduring urban centers to this day. The city lies in the southeastern plain of the Anti-Lebanon mountain range, on the western edge of the syrian desert, which stretches southward toward the Arabian Peninsula and eastward into Mesopotamia. Historians believe Damascus dates back to the 6th millennium BCE, and perhaps even earlier.

Damascus: The Name

Damascus is mentioned in the Amarna tablets under names such as Tamashqu, Tamasqu, Tamashqo, Dumashqa, and Dimashqa. It was also recorded in Babylonian inscriptions. The Assyrians referred to it as Sha, Imiri, Shu, while the Chaldeans and Arameans called it al-Sham.

During the era of the Aramean Kingdom of Damascus (Di-mashqi), the city was called Tamashq or Atamashqo, and sometimes Dermesuq or Dermesq. Some say the name derives from the Syriac words adam (earth) and shamq (red), or from dam shaq (“drinking blood”), referring to the blood of Abel absorbed by the earth after he was killed by his brother Cain.

The Romans dubbed Damascus “the eye of the entire East,” while the Arabs knew it as Dimashq, Jalliq, al-Fayha, Jirun. Other titles included Aram Dhāt al-ʿImād, the city of Eliezer, Hadirat al-Rūm (capital of the Romans), Hisn al-Sham (fortress of al-Sham), Fustat al-Muslimin (Muslim encampment), Bab al-Kaaba, Bayt Rāmun, and al-ʿAdhra (the Virgin).

Western scholars argue that the word Damascus comes from ancient Chaldean or Syriac roots, pointing to its appearance in the hieroglyphs of the Amarna tablets (Tamashqu, Dimashqa), meaning “flourishing land” or “verdant garden.” From this, the Greeks derived Damaskos, later adopted by the Franks as Damascus.

The Founding of the City

Many traditions surround the founding of Damascus. In Muʿjam al-Buldān, Yāqūt al-Ḥamawī reports that it was named after its founder Dimashq ibn Qani ibn Malik ibn Arfakhshad ibn Shem ibn Noah. Another account holds that Eliezer, the servant of Abraham (peace be upon him), built the city. Eliezer, who was of Ethiopian origin and gifted to Abraham by Nimrod, was known as Dimashq, and thus the city bore his name. Yāqūt also offers a linguistic explanation: that the name derives from damasqū—“they built quickly.”

Ibn ʿAsākir records in History of Damascus that the first walls raised after the Great Flood were those of Harran, Damascus, and Babylon—evidence of Damascus’s great antiquity.

Damascus Through History

Before Christ
As noted, Damascus’s history stretches back to the 6th–5th millennia BCE. By the 3rd millennium BCE, it was inhabited by the Amorites and Canaanites, with one of its notable kings being the Canaanite Biraioza. In the late 2nd millennium BCE, the Arameans settled and established the Aramean Kingdom of Damascus, ruled by kings such as Hazael, Ashirta, and Aziru, mentioned in ancient Egyptian texts. The kingdom built the great temple of the storm god Hadad (lord of rain, thunder, and mountains), which became one of the most famous pagan temples in syria/" class="auto-internal-link">syria.

In 1480 BCE, Pharaoh Thutmose III of Egypt captured Damascus, holding it until 1100 BCE. Soon after, Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser I subdued it. The Arameans reclaimed it around 850 BCE, but Assyrians repeatedly attempted to seize it, finally succeeding under Shalmaneser III in 841 BCE. Tiglath-Pileser III annexed it in 732 BCE.

Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon wrested it from the Assyrians, and it remained Babylonian until the 6th century BCE, when the Persians conquered it, ruling until Alexander the Great took it in 333 BCE.

Afterward, Damascus oscillated between the Seleucids and the Ptolemies until the Nabataeans seized it under King Aretas III in 85 BCE. Shortly after, it reverted to Seleucid hands before Rome annexed it in 64 BCE. Under the Romans, the temple of Hadad was rededicated to Jupiter Damascenus, earning Damascus renown as “the beautiful and sacred.”

During Emperor Hadrian’s reign, the city flourished as a provincial capital of Rome, redesigned on Hellenistic urban grids, with intersecting right-angled streets, monumental gates, aqueducts, and the Eastern Gate, still preserved.

Christian Era
In the early Christian centuries, Damascus came under Nabataean control before Emperor Nero reclaimed it (54–68 CE). In 395 CE, it fell under Byzantine rule and became a key center for Christianity. Saint Paul famously converted here and escaped persecution by being lowered from the eastern wall in a basket. Churches flourished, including the Basilica of St. John the Baptist, built in 379 CE on the site of Jupiter’s temple.

Persians briefly seized the city in 612 CE until Byzantine Emperor Heraclius retook it in 627 CE.

Islamic Era
In 634 CE, Damascus was conquered by Muslim forces under Abu Ubayda ibn al-Jarrah and Khalid ibn al-Walid following the Battle of Yarmouk. By 661 CE, it became the capital of the Umayyad Caliphate. After the Abbasid revolution in 749 CE, the capital shifted to Baghdad, though Damascus remained a vital regional center.

Over centuries, the city passed through the hands of the Tulunids, Ikhshidids, Hamdanids, Fatimids, Seljuks, Crusaders (who failed to capture it despite repeated sieges), Zengids, Ayyubids under Saladin (who made it his capital in 1174), Mongols under Hulagu (1260), Mamluks, and Timur in 1401, who devastated it.

In 1516, Sultan Selim I incorporated Damascus into the Ottoman Empire after the Battle of Marj Dabiq, and it remained under Ottoman rule for nearly 400 years.

In the 19th century, Muhammad Ali Pasha of Egypt briefly held the city (1832–1840). In 1920, Prince Faisal declared Damascus the capital of the short-lived Arab Kingdom of Syria. However, under the Sykes-Picot Agreement and San Remo Conference, France imposed a mandate on Syria. Following the Battle of Maysalun, French forces occupied Damascus until independence was achieved in 1946.