Featured places
Mosques, caravanserais, souks, museums — and why they are worth the walk.
813 Places
Tell Siyannu near Jableh
A 10-hectare mound east of Jableh overlooking the plain: the seat of Siyannu, the kingdom that broke from Ugarit to serve the Hittites, with a Phoenician temple.
Latakia · Bronze Age — Iron Age — Hellenistic — Roman — Islamic
Tell Halula, the Neolithic Mound near Manbij
Tell Halula, 25 km north-west of Manbij on the Euphrates, holds houses dating back to 7750 BC and floor paintings counted among the oldest human images known.
Aleppo · Neolithic (PPNB) — Halaf
Tell Amarna near Jarabulus: Mound and Byzantine Basilica
Tell Amarna, 8 km south of Jarabulus on the Euphrates, has layers from the Halaf culture to Byzantium and a basilica whose mosaics went on show in Europe in 2005.
Aleppo · Halaf — Byzantine
Tell Jindires, Ancient Gindaros
The mound beside Jindires on the Afrin river, lived on from the Bronze Age to Byzantium. Here in 38 BC Roman legions defeated the Parthian crown prince.
Aleppo · Bronze Age — Byzantine
Tell Afis, Ancient Hazrek near Ebla
A 28-hectare mound 11 km north of Ebla: biblical Hadrach, capital of King Zakkur, whose Aramaic stele was found on its acropolis in 1903 and is now in the Louvre.
Idlib · Late Chalcolithic — Iron Age
Tadef and the Synagogue of Ezra, near Al-Bab
Tadef, just south-east of Al-Bab, was where Aleppo’s Jews went on pilgrimage to Ezra: a synagogue with 14th-century Hebrew inscriptions, a spring and an old souq.
Aleppo · Medieval (inscriptions) — pilgrimage site until the 1930s
Surqaniya: a 6th-Century Chapel with Its Stone Roof
A small Jebel Sem’an village next to Fafertin: a 6th-century chapel whose sanctuary still has its stone roof, the apse of a 4th-century church and an ancient inn.
Aleppo · Byzantine
The Fir and Cedar Reserve above Slunfeh
A 1350-hectare reserve above Slunfeh, with Cilician fir on the western slope and Lebanon cedar on the eastern one. Declared in 1996; 142 plant species recorded.
Latakia · Reserve, 1996
The Castles of Shughr and Bakas
Two castles facing each other on the Orontes, 8 km north-west of Jisr al-Shughur: taken by Saladin in 1188, repaired by Baybars, felled by the 1408 earthquake.
Idlib · Crusader — Ayyubid — Mamluk
Sitt er-Rum: Byzantine Church and Roman Tomb
South-west of Saint Simeon: a single-nave Byzantine church still standing to its gables, and a Roman family tomb dated 152 that held fifteen sarcophagi. Now empty.
Aleppo · Roman — Byzantine
Sinkhar, a 4th-Century Basilica on the Jebel Sem’an
In a closed valley on the Jebel Sem’an, a basilica counted among Syria’s oldest churches and a 6th-century chapel beside it. Locals call the place Simkhar.
Aleppo · Byzantine
The Churches of Sheikh Suleiman
Three Byzantine churches north-east of Mushabbak: the late 5th-century Church of the Virgin, a basilica dated 602 with tall, closely set piers, and a monk’s tower.
Aleppo · Byzantine
