Featured places
Mosques, caravanserais, souks, museums — and why they are worth the walk.
813 Places
Khan al-Tutun
An 18th century khan on the arms souq south of the Umayyad Mosque, named after the tobacco trade. Craft workshops now fill its 72 or so rooms and its court.
Damascus · Ottoman
Khan al-Muradiyya
A khan west of the Umayyad Mosque, built for governor Murad Pasha between 1593 and 1596. Its rent was endowed to the poor of Mecca and Medina. Now a souq.
Damascus · Ottoman
Khan al-Harir (Damascus)
An Ottoman khan inside the silk souq southwest of the Umayyad Mosque, built for governor Darwish Pasha between 1571 and 1574. Cloth shops fill it today.
Damascus · Ottoman
Khan al-Amud
A 17th century khan on the east side of the Al-Bzouriyah Souq, directly opposite Khan As’ad Pasha. It is named after the column that carries its dome.
Damascus · Ottoman
Khan al-Arous
An Ayyubid caravanserai of 1182 beside the Damascus to Homs road, 50 km northeast of the city. Square in plan, about 40 metres to a side, in heavy stone.
Damascus · Ayyubid
Khan al-Dikka
Said to be the oldest khan still standing in Damascus: Mamluk, single storey, at the head of Straight Street, named after the stone slave block in its court.
Damascus · Mamluk
Dar al-Hadith al-Ashrafiyya
The hadith college beside the citadel’s east gate: Ibn al-Salah wrote his famous Muqaddima here and al-Nawawi taught in it. At the head of the Asruniyya souq.
Damascus · Ayyubid
The Al-Jaharkasiyya Madrasa
The funerary college of Fakhr al-Din Jaharkas, who commanded Saladin’s mamluks, in Salihiyya: two linked tomb chambers and a separate prayer hall west.
Damascus · Ayyubid, with Mamluk additions
The Al-Atabakiyya Madrasa
The most worked doorway on the street of madrasas in Salihiyya: a muqarnas hood, a striped stone frame, and two records that disagree about its founder.
Damascus · Zengid — Ayyubid
Umm el-Marra
A mound on the Jabbul plain east of Aleppo. It was one of the oldest cities of the Near East, and an intact, unlooted royal tomb came out of its acropolis.
Aleppo · Early Bronze — Yamhad — Mitanni — Hittite (Yamhad: the Amorite kingdom ruled from Aleppo)
The Kalybe of Umm al-Zaytoun
In a Druze village on the rim of the Lajat lava plateau stands a sacred kalybe, dated by its own inscription to 282. Only three are known in all Syria.
As-Suwayda · Roman — Byzantine
Tuttul (Tell Bi’a)
A 40-hectare mound just north-east of Raqqa where the Balikh meets the Euphrates: the city of the god Dagan, with a Byzantine monastery on its summit.
Raqqa · Akkadian — Old Babylonian — Byzantine
