Church of Saint Simeon

The Church of Saint Simeon (Arabic: كنيسة مار سمعان العمودي‎ knīset mār semʕān l-ʕamūdī) is a well preserved church that dates back to the 5th century, located about 30 km northwest of Aleppo, Syria (36°20′03″N 36°50′38″E / 36.33417, 36.84389Coordinates: 36°20′03″N 36°50′38″E / 36.33417, 36.84389). It is built on the site of the pillar of St. Simeon Stylites, a famed hermit monk.

History
St. Simeon was born in 386 AD in a village in the Amanus Mountains. He joined a monastery in this area, but soon decided to seek the religious life alone as a hermit monk. After living in an cave for a little while, he relocated to the top of a pillar eventually reaching 15 meters high to achieve greater seclusion. He soon attracted even greater crowds who came from far and near to hear him preach twice a day.

After 37 years atop his pillar, St. Simeon died in 459. His body was ceremoniously escorted to Antioch by seven bishops and several hundred soldiers, followed by a throng of devoted followers. Simeon's grave in Antioch became a major site of pilgrimage, and so did his pillar on the rocky bluff where he had spent the last four decades of his life.

Within just a few decades (c.475), a vast martyrium was built in Simeon's honor on this site. It consisted of four basilicas radiating from the sides of a central octagon, within which was enshrined the famous column.

The 5,000 square meters of floor space was nearly equal to that of the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. Yet, quite unlike Hagia Sophia, the Church of St. Simeon was (and is) perched atop a barren hill 60 km from the nearest city. But it was not isolated: the church was only one part of a huge, walled complex that included a monastery, two lesser churches, and several large hostels.


[edit] Current status
St. Simeon's pillar can still be seen in the center of the courtyard, although it is now only a 2 meter-high boulder due to centuries of relic-gathering by pilgrims. The courtyard is surrounded by four basilicas on a cruciform plan.

The east basilica is slightly larger than the others; it was the most important and held all the major ceremonies. Adjacent to the south wall of the eastern basilica is the chapel and the monastery.

Opposite the southern basilica is the baptistery, which was built a little after the main church but is an important part of the pilgrimage complex. To the west of the baptistery is the processional route that leads towards Deir Samaan.

do you know what is the oldest city in the world?

I will not answer , i will show you some fotos:

the oldest song and music note in the world (also Ugarit)

In 1972, after 15 years of research Prof. Anne Kilmer (professor of Assyriology, University of California, and a curator at the Lowie Museum of Anthropology at Berkeley) transcribed one of the oldest known pieces of music notation in the world. Clay tablets relating to music, containing the cuneiform signs of the "Hurrian" language, had been excavated in the early 1950s at the Syrian city of ancient Ugarit in what is now modern Ras Shamra. One text contained a complete hymn, both words and music and is the oldest known preserved music notation in the world. Prof. Kilmer transcribed this piece of music into modern music notation. Other individuals have also attempted to transcribe this music, with differing interpretations. The tablets date back to approximately 1400 B.C. and contain a hymn to the moon god's wife, Nikal. Remarkably, the tablets also contain detailed performance instructions for a singer accompanied by a harpist as well as instructions on how to tune the harp. From this evidence, Prof. Kilmer and other musicologists have created realizations of the hymn . if you want to download just click here:

http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2006/12/the_oldest_song.html

Ugarit ( the first alphabet in the world)

Ugarit (Ugaritic:ʼugrt; Hebrew: אוּגָרִית; Arabic: أوغاريت) (modern Ras Shamra رأس شمرة ("top/head/cape of the wild fennel" in Arabic), near Latakia, Syria) was an ancient cosmopolitan port city, sited on the Mediterranean coast. Ugarit sent tribute to Egypt and maintained trade and diplomatic connections with Cyprus (called Alashiya), documented in the archives recovered from the site and corroborated by Mycenaean and Cypriot pottery found there. The polity was at its height from ca. 1450 BC until 1200 BC.

Alphabet

Scribes in Ugarit appear to have originated the Ugaritic alphabet around 1400 BC; 30 letters, corresponding to sounds, were adapted from cuneiform characters and inscribed on clay tablets (but cf. Byblos). A debate exists as to whether the Phoenician or Ugaritic alphabet was first. While many of the letters show little or no formal similarity, the standard letter order (preserved in the latin alphabet as A, B, C, D, etc.) shows strong similarities between the two, suggesting that the Phoenician and Ugaritic systems were not wholly independent inventions. It was later the Phoenician alphabet that spread through the Aegean and on Phoenician trade routes throughout the Mediterranean. The Phoenician system became the basis for the first true alphabet, when it was adopted by Greek speakers who modified some of its signs to represent vowel sounds as well, and as such was in turn adopted and modified by populations in Italy, including ancestors of the Romans). Compared with the difficulty of writing Akkadian in cuneiform—such as the Amarna Letters from ca. 1350 BC— the flexibility of an alphabet opened a horizon of literacy to many more kinds of people. In contrast, the syllabary (called Linear B) used in Mycenaean Greek palace sites at about the same time was so cumbersome that literacy was limited largely to administrative specialists.

The Ugaritic language is attested in texts from the 14th through the 12th century BC. Ugaritic is a Northwest Semitic languages, related to Hebrew and Aramaic. However, its grammatical features are highly similar to those found in Classical Arabic and Akkadian. It possesses two genders (masculine and feminine), three cases for nouns and adjectives (nominative, accusative, and genitive); three numbers: (singular, dual, and plural); and verb aspects similar to those found in Western Semitic languages. The word order in Ugaritic is Verb Subject Object (VSO). possessed–possessor (NG), and noun–adjective (NA).

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all syrian cities in one video (source you tube)

Busra( city from the rome empire)

for our Visitors from Germany ( für unsere Besucher aus deutschsprachige Länder)

there is also another forum about syria in german language:

es gibt auch anderer Forum über Syrien auf deutsch:

http://syrischeblumen.forumieren.de

herzlich willkomen.

Palmyra ( city of palms)

Palmyra : the city of palm.

very famous of its Queen (Zenobia)..

the whole story of palmyra and Zenobia will come soon.

Willcome to the syrian flowers Website

Syria is the country where the first civilisations begann.