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*Includes pictures *Includes ancient accounts of Damascus' history *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading "Nicolaus of Damascus, in the fourth book of his History, says thus: 'Abraham reigned at Damascus, being a foreigner, who came with an army out of the land above Babylon, called the land of the Chaldeans: but, after a long time, he got him up, and removed from that country also, with his people, and went into the land then called the land of Canaan, but now the land of Judea, and this when his posterity were become a multitude; as to which posterity of his, we relate their history in another work. Now the name of Abraham is even still famous in the country of Damascus; and there is shown a village named from him, The Habitation of Abraham.'" - Josephus "In Damascus there is a mosque that has no equal in the world, not one with such fine proportion, nor one so solidly constructed, nor one vaulted so securely, nor one more marvellously laid out, nor one so admirably decorated in gold mosaics and diverse designs, with enamelled tiles and polished marbles." - Muhammad al-Idrisi, 1154 Throughout history, Syria has been dominated not by one great city but by two. Aside from Aleppo to the north, the religious and commercial metropolis of Damascus has been a place desired by the powerful. For thousands of years the Phoenicians, Hittites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, Christians, and Muslims all vied for control of the city. Damascus has many important architectural sites dating from almost all eras of its history, and vestiges of the past have existed and been valued in Damascus throughout its existence. The history of Damascus from the Byzantine period to the 12th century is particularly fascinating, in terms of its role as the capital of the Umayyad Caliphate and the changes that it experienced when the Abbasid Caliphate and Seljuk dynasty came to power. At Damascus, the vibrant capital of modern Sy