Aleppo

Aleppo is an ancient city in northern Syria, one of the oldest inhabited cities in the world. It is famous for its great citadel on a hill in its centre and its long covered markets, and through the ages it was a great trading city on the caravan routes.

Aleppo is a city in northern Syria, among the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world; its beacon is the famous citadel on a hill in its centre. It flourished in the Hamdanid, Ayyubid, Mamluk and Ottoman eras, and was a crossroads between the Mediterranean, the Euphrates, Anatolia and Mesopotamia, so its covered markets gathered the goods of East and West. The sources record that Hulagu took it in 658 AH after a short siege, and that the Ottoman Selim I took it from the Mamluks in 922 AH. Several stories are told about its name: from milk, from the giants' building, and others.

Aleppo (Halab al-Shahba; Greek Beroea) is a city in northern Syria, among the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, dominated by its stone citadel on a central hill. In Islamic history it appeared as the Hamdanid capital in the tenth century under Sayf al-Dawla, a court for poets and philosophers, then passed among Ayyubids, Zengids, Mamluks and Ottomans. The sources record that Hulagu took it in 658 AH (1260 CE) after a ten-day siege and destroyed it, and that Selim I took it in 922 AH (1516 CE) from Qansuh al-Ghawri. A trade junction between the Mediterranean, the Euphrates, Anatolia and the Jazira, its long covered souks gathered eastern silk and western goods; it was famous for textiles and soap. Several etymologies of its name are told: milk, the giants' building, and its Jews' view that it is Aram-Zobah. In modern times it suffered heavy bombardment and destruction in the Syrian war from 2012, then rebuilding began. Historians read it as a model of a routes-city layering civilizations.