OCT–DEC 2017 AusTRAlIAN QuARTeRlY 25ThE LOST CITy: hOMAGE TO ALEPPOAleppo is nothing but rubble. LEfT: Aleppo before
a major trading centre thanks to its
commanding position on the old
Silk Road. In Arabic, its name is Halab,
meaning ‘milk’ – here, so legend goes,
the patriarch Abraham gave milk from
his cow to needy locals. Remains of
a structure dating back to 3000 BCE,
possibly a temple for the storm god
Hadad, have been unearthed on
Aleppo’s Citadel Hill, older than other
ruins dating back to the era of Greek
occupation, following Alexander’s
conquest in 333 BCE.
Aleppo’s ancient monuments have
been heritage listed: the old city
became a uNESCo World Heritage Site
in 1986. But now, after the years of war
and aerial bombing, with no heed taken
of uNESCo’s warnings, most have been
destroyed.
Thousands of ordinary homes are also
lost: unit blocks, hostels and boarding
houses, and traditional dwellings which
typified the ‘elegance of a Syrian home,
the carpets, the rose-filled courtyards
and pastel painted tiles, the wrought
iron lamps – you have to have seen
all that, of which nothing remains
but photographs on cell phones ...to
understand the hopelessness of this
regression to the Stone Age.’^2
No words of sympathy can be
adequate; there is no earthly way to
console those who mourn Aleppo and
its people. But there should at least be
a pause to honour the lost city and its
splendid past; to celebrate its glory days
and remember its character. This brief
epitaph can’t do justice to a history
which includes occupation over the
millennia by Hittites, Assyrians, Persians,
Greeks, Romans, Armenians, Byzantines,
Arabs and Turks, but it might suggest
the value of what’s lost; losses both
spiritual and material.
Following the Arab conquest in 637,
the city’s golden age of creativity and
culture flowered from 944 AD, when
Aleppo became the chosen capital
of an independent emirate ruled
by the charismatic Arab prince Sayf
al-Dawla. He lavished attention on the
city, expanding the palatial dwellings
and bathhouses on Citadel Hill, and
building aqueducts and fortifications.
When Sayf al-Dawla was not warring
with Byzantine armies he presided over
a brilliant court at his limestone castle,
attracting an A-list of philosophers,astronomers, historians, poets, musi-
cians and theologians. In his time
Aleppo ‘could certainly have held its
own with any court in Renaissance
Italy.’^3
In 1896 a British antiquarian
described Citadel Hill as ‘by far the
most interesting and remarkable place
in town.’ Gertrude Bell, the British
administrator in Iraq, visiting in 1909,
commented that ‘Aleppo wears a
towered crown ... the castle is the best
example of 12th century Arab work-
manship in all Syria.’
The greatest of all classical Arabic
poets, known as al-Mutanabbi, was
a court favourite and his panegyrics
to Sayf al-Dawla helped spread the
influence of his prince far and wide.
They rode into battle together, but
after a falling out the poet penned the
memorable epigram: ‘When the lion
bares his teeth do not imagine / that
the lion is showing you a smile.’
Al Ma-arii, another great classicalriGhT: Aleppo now