Damascus

I had another great day today. We had a superb tour guide who gave us a 45 minute talk on the history of the area before leading us to the museum. Once there, we only visited a few rooms, but the education continued throughout. This guy was amazing and made me realize how much I don't know - he really piqued my interest to learn more.

The highlight of the museum visit was a room that was essentially a reconstructed synagogue from the third century CE. It came from a town on the Euphrates who's name I can't remember (sorry will have to research this later), and which had both a Christian church and a synagogue sitting on each side of the city gate. When these were excavated, the American team took the Christian church back to the US and it is currently housed at Yale university. The European team (can't remember which country - information overload today) brought the synagogue to Damascus where it was reassembled. What makes it unique is not only its age, but the fact that it is covered in murals of old testament stories. The Jews typically don't depict their stories in pictures and this is the only one of its kind. It brought the goose bumps up on my arms. (Mom and Dad - you may want to consider a field trip to Yale in Connecticut to see the Christian church if you haven't already done that. We're talking the 3rd century here, so it predates Constantine - pretty impressive for a Christian church.)

We then went to the Umayyad Mosque which is a beautiful big building in the centre of the old city. Saladin's tomb is there, which was pretty special. We got there just in time for the call to prayer, which was truly beautiful. I've heard dozens of them since I've been in this part of the world, and frankly they don't do a lot for me (especially the 4 AM ones). At this mosque, however, they use several voices, so it's more like a chorus than just a single voice. It was really something and it was the first time that a Muslim ritual really moved me. Of course I was standing beside Saladin's tomb at the time, which may also have had some influence.

Our final stop on the tour was a more modern building called the Azam palace, named for the man who lived there. It is really just a mansion that a rich person would occupy, but it also allowed us to see what daily life looked like a few generations ago. It was a lovely place.

I spent the remainder of the afternoon wandering around the old city checking out other mosques and interesting sights, and dodging the crowds in the souqs. I can't say enough good things about Syria and am sad to be leaving it. I hope I can come back some day. It's off to Jordan tomorrow...Petra is only a couple of days away!!!