Picture Archive: Damascus Through the Decades

1925
Photograph by Jules Gervais Courtellemo, National Geographic
Settled about 2500 B.C., Damascus is thought to be the world's oldest inhabited city. Last month, two years of civil war culminated in the suspected use of chemical weapons against Syrian civilians on its outskirts.
The United States may intervene in the coming days with a limited series of retaliatory strikes against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, thought to be responsible for the attacks. American President Barack Obama's pleas of support for the plan to the United Nations and G8 haven't gotten very far. Obama is now focused on building American support, with a round of TV appearances on Monday and a nationwide address on Tuesday night. The Senate is expected to vote on the plan this week.
Strife and bloodshed aren't new in Syria. The country has been occupied by, among others, Canaanites, Phoenicians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Mongols, and Ottoman Turks—the last of which ruled for more than 400 years until 1920, when Syria went under a French mandate and Palestine was assigned British rule. Foreign forces didn't completely leave until 1946. In that decade, there were three internal shifts of power, including coups. The 1960s saw a half a dozen more.
Modern Syria is a nation whose borders were drawn by European colonizers. The country they outlined ultimately included peoples of multiple religions and ethnicities—Sunni, Shiite, Alawi, Druze, Christian, Kurd, Arab, Armenian—tucked, often uncomfortably, into an area about the size of Washington state.
Today, about 22,500,000 people live in Syria—90 percent are Arab, 76 percent are Sunni Muslim—and about a fifth of them reside in the capital, Damascus.
—Johnna Rizzo
Published September 9, 2013
1946
Photograph by Maynard Owen Williams
"A cobbler's young assistant carries large sections of leather," read the notes on the back of National Geographic correspondent Maynard Owen Williams's 1946 photo. Today textiles, especially cotton, remain mainstays of the Syrian economy.
Over the last two years, though, such a youngster's daily life would be less certain. The civil war has caused an estimated 100,000 deaths to date, and made refugees of some two million Syrians—about half of which are children.
Published September 9, 2013
1965
Photograph by Frank and Helen Schreider
A range of fashions reflecting ethnic and religious ties—fez, burka, headscarf, and business suit—on a single Damascus park bench was fodder for this unpublished photo by husband-and-wife National Geographic staff duo Frank and Helen Shrieder.
Published September 9, 2013
1974
Photograph by Robert Azzi, National Geographic
"Tromp, tromp, tromp of Damascus schoolgirls forms part of their required military training," reads the caption to this photo published in a 1974 National Geographic story titled "Damascus, Syria's Uneasy Eden."
"These teen-agers must learn drill, discipline, nursing, and some weapons handling," the caption continues. "The 15-to-18-year-olds do not serve in combat, but they contribute to Syrian homefront preparedness."
Today, though there are international rules against youth serving in the military, there is some evidence of sectarian factions welcoming them.
Published September 9, 2013
1974
Photograph by Robert Azzi, National Geographic
"Victim of the first murder, as told in the Koran and Bible, Abel was laid to rest by Cain, his brother and killer, in a rocky niche near Damascus, now enclosed by stone and dome," reads this photo's caption, published in NG's 1974 story "Damascus, Syria's Uneasy Eden."
"The site invokes the special reverence of the Druzes, whose theology mixes Islam with mysteries known only to initiates. Friday visits to the tomb include a feast that ends before sundown with young men linked in a version of the circle dancing common throughout the Middle East …
"Many Druzes who live in the region around the Golan Heights, where Lebanon, Israel, and Syria meet, find themselves caught in the crosshairs of international conflict. Though close knit as a people, the Druzes have contingents in the both the Syrian and Israeli armies."
In 1967, after the Six-Day War, Syria ceded the Golan Heights to Israel.
Today, thousands of displaced Golan Heights Druze are in Syria, attending university or living in the refugee camps in and around Damascus—some of which were affected by last month’s violence.
Published September 9, 2013
1996
Photograph by Ed Kashi, National Geographic
The photographer's notes that accompany this 1996 photo identify these robed and headscarved café patrons as Saudi tourists.
An estimated 8.5 million tourists visited Syria in 2010, the year before civil war broke out. They spent about $8.5 billion in a then-burgeoning industry for the nation. Today the country's tourism board, still at work as the civil war rages, has an unenviable hurdle. It currently touts low crime and low rates of communicable diseases as reasons to visit.
Published September 9, 2013
2008
Photography by Ed Kashi, National Geographic
"In varied states of devotion, pilgrims worship at the Sayida Zainab shrine in Damascus," reads the caption of this photo published in a 2009 National Geographic magazine article titled "Shadowland."
"This is the traditional resting place of Zainab, granddaughter of the Prophet Muhammad and daughter of Ali, Islam's fourth caliph, who is revered by Shiites," it continues. "In crowded neighborhoods around the mosque, tens of thousands of Iraqi refugees mingle with visitors from Iran, who make up a sizable portion of Syria's tourists."
In Syria today, Sunnis outnumber Shiites nearly five to one. Combined, they make up 90 percent of the country's religious population.
Published September 9, 2013
2009
Photograph by Ed Kashi, National Geographic
Males of all ages partake in the Nour Al-Din Al-Shaheed bath, one of Damascus's oldest public bathhouses, established in 1169 A.D.
Less than 200 years after the bathhouse was built, the sultans ruling at the time began to persecute the city's non-Muslims. Part of their harassment involved requirements for Jews entering the city's bathhouses: Jewish women had to wear one black shoe and one red one to identify themselves; Jewish men had to announce their entrance by blowing a whistle.
Published September 9, 2013
2009
Photograph by Ed Kashi, National Geographic
From the curtained window of a five-star hotel, the downtown Damascus of 2009 unfolds—two years before the start of the ongoing civil war. Privatization and foreign investment is credited with adding city parks and several high-rises that mix with the ancient minarets in the skyline.
Published September 9, 2013

More »

2 comments

Newest | Oldest

Rochelle Davis

The captions to these photographs really need to be rethought. They seek to explain the current crisis and violence through the lens of the past. That leads to inaccurate generalizations and the view of Syria as a place just simmering with anger and violence, now finally released. For example, the photograph of the men dancing at the shrine doesn't even use the word "dancing". Instead it talks about the Bible, violence, the Druze, and Israel. Why not instead give people perspective on the pictures, not some random comments about the present (and if not random then highly politicized)? I expect better from National Geographic.