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A journey around this land is no just a trip of kilometers but also of millennia. Its vivid past echoes with who' who of conquerors and conquered with the evocative names such as Assyrians, Canaanites, Phoenicians, Romans to name but a few before the arrival of the Islam in the 7thC A.D.
The once-thriving Mediterranean port at Ugarit, now no longer even on the coast, is believed to be the birthplace of the world's first alphabet while in the east near the border with Iraq the ancient city state of Mari, was home to a magnificent Mesopotamian royal palace until it was sacked by the fierce Babylonians around 1758B.C.
The caravan city remains a wonderful mix of ruins and reconstructions, of arches and colonnades, tombs and temples with the vast Temple of Bel a mighty symbol of the city's great wealth. Under the formidable Queen Zenobia, Palmyra became so powerful the Romans felt the need to put the feisty Regina in her place and legions razed the city walls and carried her off to Italy in chains of gold.
With so much ancient history you can forget that Syria's past has also been patterned by the Crusades, which arrived in force little under a thousand years ago.