Syrians are some of the friendliest and warmest people I've ever met, especially the drivers.
Pakistanis are also very friendly. I often sit in the passenger seat when I travel, and I find that the drivers in both countries always gesture to greet the oncoming driver when they meet – I believe they can't all know each other. However, Chinese people are particularly vulnerable when traveling with Pakistan, and Syria and China do not have such close neighbors, so despite the spring breeze in both countries, I still feel that Syrians are friendlier than Pakistanis.
Bedouin herders in front of the ruins of Palmyra Photo by Wang Zaitian
I set out from Apamea, an ancient Roman site in northwestern Syria, to the medieval fortress of Knights' Fort, both of which are deserted, and I planned to take a transit bus to a nearby town, take a long bus to Hama, then transfer to Homs, and then transfer to a country bus to Knightsburg.
I was also waiting for a local uncle, who was in his 50s, dressed in a traditional Arabic robe and didn't speak English, and asked him in Arabic to take me to the bus station in the town ahead.
When I arrived in the town, the driver gestured and asked me where I was going next, and I said I was going to Hama, and his eyes lit up, indicating that he was going there too, so he went with him.
When I got to Hama, the driver gestured again and asked me where I was going next, and when I said I was going to Homs, he grinned and said he was going there too, so he went with him.
The driver drove the car fast, with a stack of letters in his hand, reading while driving, tearing one by one, and scattering it out of the window, like a goddess scattering flowers, but also arrogant.
When I arrived at the Homs bus station, I waved goodbye to the driver, and when I saw a minibus leaving the station to go to Knightsburg, I hurriedly jumped on it.
Knight's Fort on the notch
Krak Des Chevaliers is considered one of the best-preserved and most iconic medieval castles in the world, built by the Crusaders in the 12th century. To explain its importance, we have to start with the terrain of Syria.
Syria is located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea, with narrow coastal plains, north-south coastal mountain ranges, fertile Oronte Valley, and arid Euphrates plains. The Oronte Valley is an important agricultural, economic and populous region in Syria, and is home to four of the country's four largest cities – Damascus, Aleppo, Hama and Homs. From the Mediterranean Sea to the Oronte Valley, it is necessary to cross the coastal mountains with an average altitude of more than 1,000 meters, which is roughly equivalent to crossing the South Ridge from Liangguang into the interior, which was a troublesome thing in ancient times. Fortunately, the Coast Mountains formed a gap on the western side of Homs, hence the name "Homs Gap", which became the most important link between the interior of Syria and the Mediterranean coast, and was an important link of the Silk Road from the two river basins to Europe. Since ancient times, the two largest ports on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean — Tartus, Syria's largest port, and Lebanon's largest port, Tripoli, have relied on this gap to exchange goods inland.
The Knight's Fort is located on the peak on the north side of the Homs gap. By occupying this commanding height, it was possible to control this traffic channel.
For the Crusaders, however, the fortress was not built to protect trade routes, but to seal the Horns gap and defend the eastern shore of the Mediterranean.
The First Crusade succeeded in seizing most of the eastern shore of the Mediterranean, establishing the Kingdom of Jerusalem and three satellite states, including the County of Tripoli, which was founded by the Raymond family, Count of Toulouse, from France, who were responsible for holding the port city of Tripoli to secure the Crusaders' sea routes. For successive Counts of Raymond, the Muslim-controlled Oronte Valley across the Coast Mountains was a nuisance: through the Homs gap, the Arab cavalry could reach Tripoli in a day.
Therefore, when the original Count Raymond founded the country, he planned a series of fortress sites with the Knights' Fort as the core, fortified along the Coast Mountains, but his son Raymond II was unable to resist the Muslim attack and was once a prisoner, so he reluctantly granted these fortresses to the Knights Hospitaller. The Knights Hospitaller was one of the three major knightly orders of the Middle Ages, specializing in the construction and defense of cities, and their main duty was to protect Christians on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, with the slogan "Defence of the faith and assistance to the suffering". The Raymonds outsourced their outer defenses to the Knights Hospitaller, allowing them to focus on their main seaport and shipping business, while the Knights Hospitaller expanded their territory and revenue streams. On the basis of the hill fortress built by the Kurds in the early 11th century, the Knights spent nearly a hundred years to gradually build the Knights' Fort we see today.
Less than 5 kilometers to the south is a series of east-west mountains forming the Syrian-Lebanese border, and to the north is the beginning of the north-south coastal mountain range, which forms an inverted T-shape, where the Homs gap meets. The middle bus climbed a steep hill two or three hundred meters high on the north side of the gap, passed through the castle town of al-Husn, which was built on the hill, and left me at the gate of the knight's fort at the top of the hill.
The Knight's Fort is divided into two parts, the inner city was built in the middle of the 12th century and the outer city was built in the early 13th century. The inner walls are slightly tilted inward, with the base of the towers leveling with the base of the wall and the upper part gradually protruding, while the outer walls are basically vertical and difficult to climb, with all 13 towers protruding from the walls – the protruding towers help the defenders to attack the enemy from the flanks and form crossfire.
The design of the city gate of the knight's fort has a strong Middle Eastern style: after entering the outer Guo gate, there is an uphill road, similar entrance ramp can also be seen in the Aleppo citadel, which is not conducive to the rapid advance of the enemy army, nor is it convenient to transport heavy siege weapons, so it can delay the enemy's attack on the inner city after the loss of the outer Guo city gate; the total length of the upper and lower left and right fully enclosed Yong road is nearly 140 meters, and there are shooting holes along the way, which can be used by the defenders to pour arrows, Lead bullets and even boiling oil kill and injure the enemy; go straight along the road, the exit is a sandwich road between the inner and outer cities, the enemy troops finally leave the murderous road, and then fall into a flanking fire similar to the mainland urn city, and the real passage to the inner city gate is a sharp turn in the middle of the road, which is easily ignored by the enemy.
I followed the fork into the inner city and found myself in a small square, surrounded by several buildings compactly distributed, but the overall layout was not cramped: on the north side was a three-way vaulted church, with a beautiful quartered ribbed arch reminiscent of the ancient church of southern France, which served a religious function and had been converted into a mosque after the Crusaders had evacuated, and on the west side was the knights' hall, two of which were arched, and the other five were of fine Gothic arched windows on the outside to light the hall. On the south side is a large dining room supported by five rows of giant columns for living and entertainment, and further in, a storeroom attached to the inner city walls, which is isolated on the top of a hill and needs to be stocked up with supplies to withstand enemy sieges. Walking into the depths of the storeroom, there was no one around, and the heavy stone walls blocked out all sounds, and only the sound of your own pounding heartbeat echoed in the dark castle.
The stone staircase on the right side of the entrance leads to the inner castle wall. On the day I went, a group of people were filming a historical film, and in front of the battlements, beside the stone steps, and on the towers, there were extras dressed as Crusaders, with huge white octagonal crosses on red backgrounds on the chests of their robes, indicating that they belonged to the Knights Hospitaller.
Sitting on the tower where the Grand Master of the Order lived, watching the crusaders in front of him, looking at the undulating hilly terrain around the castle and the smoke and dust kicked up by the distant traffic as it crossed the Homs gap along Highway 1, and then watching the sun slowly sink into the Mediterranean Sea behind the distant mountains, I didn't know what day it was.
The rock-solid structure of Fort Knights is a Visual China diagram
In 1187, after the construction of the inner city of Fort Knights, the Knights Hospitaller came out of their nest and joined the Knights Templar in confronting Saladin, who had sworn a northern expedition from Egypt, only to be completely annihilated at the Battle of Hattin, and the Holy City of Jerusalem was lost. Instead of slaughtering Jerusalem as the Crusaders had done when the Crusaders captured Jerusalem, Saladin released all Christian civilians and almost all the prisoners of war, except for the Knights, who showed no mercy to their rival Knights, and executed all the prisoners of war, including the Grand Master.
The Knights Hospitaller was devastated, and the remaining remaining troops had to shrink their lines and retreat to the Knights' Fort in the Lonely City. In May 1188, Saladin, who had swept across the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, led his battle-hardened army to the castle of Knights' Castle. However, after observing the terrain, Saladin decisively ordered the troops to retreat. The reason for this is simple: in the Cold Weapon Age, no army could easily break through a fortress like Knight's Fort, and the only way to do this was to rely on a long siege to deplete the city's supplies and force the defenders to surrender. Saladin did not want to be frustrated by the siege of the city, and he also knew that the remnants of the city could only defend themselves, and they were unable to attack, and would not pose a threat to their own side, so they spared this lone army. It can be said that the rock-solid Knights' Fort saved the elite Knights Hospitaller.
With the gradual decline of the Crusaders, the Knights' Fort, the only stronghold of Europeans in the interior of Syria, finally fell in the late 13th century, but its inner city was never breached. In 1271, the Mamluk Sultan Baibars of Egypt led an army to besiege the Knight's Fort, a famous Turkic general who was born as a slave and completely annihilated the Seventh Crusade and defeated the Mongol cavalry under the command of Hülegü, which twice changed the course of world history. In front of the Knight's Fort, Baibar first cleared the surrounding fortresses to isolate the Knights' Fort, and then used giant trebuchets to attack its outer fortress day and night, and it took nearly a month to open a gap and break under the walls of the inner city. But by this time, the siege force was exhausted, and the defenders, who were less than 300 men, knew that the fall of the castle was only a matter of time, and both the attackers and defenders were in a "siege" dilemma.
The scheming Baibars did not order his troops to storm the more fortified inner city. He sent a false letter to the Knights, allowing the defenders to lay down their arms in the name of Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller, who was far away in Tripoli. Whether they were deceived or disembarked, the defenders reached a gentleman's agreement with Baibar, the defenders handed over the knight's fort, and Baibars sent the defenders out of the country, and the crusaders finally lost the fortified city that had been held for more than 160 years.
The fall of Fort Knights marked the complete military defeat of the Crusaders. Although it is not the end of the crusade, it represents the beginning of the end.
The ruins of Palmyra
The Knight's Fort was declared a World Heritage Site in 2006. During the Syrian civil war that broke out in 2011, it was briefly occupied by the Free Opposition Army and bombed by government forces, and traces of explosions can still be seen on the church gates in the inner city. However, this is only a little bit of flesh compared to the destruction of Palmyra, the most famous ancient Roman site in Syria.
Palmyra is an oasis in the Euphrates River valley, and its name comes from the abundance of dates – when I first visited the area many years ago, Palmyra was a thriving tourist city, with many shops hanging in front of their shops and a bunch of dates. Located on the main route from the two rivers to the Mediterranean, Palmyra was a major trading center for goods from China, India and Persia to Europe and North Africa, as well as the eastern border of Greco-Roman civilization. In Roman times, the empire saw the kingdom of Palmyra as a buffer zone on its eastern frontier, recognizing its vassal status until Queen Zenobia of Palmyra broke with the empire.
A date shaped like a broom from a distance Photography Wang Zaitian
Zenobia (Greek for "descendant of Zeus") was a legendary woman. She claimed to be a descendant of Queen Cleopatra of Egypt and married King Palmyra as a continuation at the age of fifteen or sixteen. Ten years after their marriage, the king and his eldest son were both assassinated in war, and Zenobia's youngest son succeeded to the throne, and Zenobia, as the queen mother, became the guardian and regent of the new king, and then ascended the throne as queen.
Taking advantage of the fact that Rome was in the midst of internal and external troubles and the "crisis of the third century", Zenobia used his political genius to "circle fans" among various regions, religions and cultures with the labels of Hellenistic surnames, Romanized queens, followers of Judaism, descendants of Cleopatra, and monarchs of Syria, and became the co-masters of various ethnic groups. She began as the ruler of an oasis and quickly took control of the entire Levant, including the Arab and Syrian provinces of the Roman Empire, south-central Asia Minor, and captured the Roman granary of Egypt, which included present-day Syria, Turkey, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and many other countries. If the reader has been to Luxor, Egypt, the pair of Colossi of Memnon at the entrance to Thebes on the west bank of the Nile were restored at the expense of Zenobia, and if it were not for this restoration more than 1,700 years ago, these two majestic stone statues built 3,400 years ago would have been a pile of rubble.
However, Queen Zenobia's grand empire spanning Asia and Africa did not last long. After Aurelian negotiated peace with the northern barbarians, he freed up his hands and personally led his army to the east to regain the lost land. In April 272 AD, Rome divided its forces into Egypt and Asia Minor, formed a pincer offensive against Syria, successfully captured Antioch, the new capital of the "Palmyra Empire", and used a feint strategy to lure the enemy deep near present-day Homs to encircle and annihilate the Palmyra hoplites. Queen Zenobia, who fled under the stars on a she-camel, was captured on the banks of the Euphrates River and sent back to Rome in shackles made of gold.
Zenobia's fate is variously decapitated, others said she died on hunger strike, but there are also documents that show that her fighting spirit and courage won Aurelian's respect and forgiveness. Whatever her end, Palmyra went downhill from then on, falling into decline with the gradual decline of Rome, until its ruins were accidentally discovered by two passing English merchants in the 17th century.
When the author of this article travels to Palmyra, he can also see the four sets of columns of the Arc de Triomphe, of which the original column is on the right side of the front. Photo by Wang Zaitian
When I arrived in Palmyra, it was late in the evening, and the sun was setting down on the acropolis built by later Arabs on the hill to the west. I packed my bags and walked straight from the checkerboard-shaped town of Palmyra to the adjacent Roman ruins, stopping at the triumphal arch at the entrance to the ruins.
Romanesque Arches of Triumph (Tetrapylon) are generally built at the crossroads of important ports, with four openings in four directions. The structure served as a traffic roundabout similar to today's traffic roundabouts and was used to divert traffic. Built at the height of Queen Zenobia's reign, this triumphal arch in Palmyra is decorated to the extreme: it rests on a square pedestal with four groups of four Corinthian columns at the corners, each supporting a 150-ton Greek cornice. These 4416 giant pillars were cut from Aswan during the Queen's reign in Egypt, transported via the Nile to Alexandria, then along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea to Syria, and overland to Palmyra, where they were polished. After thousands of years of smoke and dust in the wilderness, only one pillar remains basically intact, and the rest of the giant pillars have been destroyed in the war and years, and the site was rebuilt in the 60s of the last century with reference to the original of the relics using concrete imitation and then painting.
At the twilight of Ramadan, I sat on a broken stone pillar and gazed at the silhouette of the pink Arc de Triomphe in the sunset, watching the sky turn from a shade of red to a dull shade of red, and finally to a gray with the sky.
Palmyra's Arc de Triomphe in the twilight Photo by Wang Zaitian
In 2015, ISIS occupied Palmyra. They regarded culture and art that predated Islamic civilization as heretics, using iron pickaxes, explosives and bulldozers to wreak havoc on the ancient Roman site, killing more than 40 local antiquities workers, including 83-year-old archaeologist Khalid who refused to disclose where the artifacts were kept. In 2016, government forces recaptured Palmyra, where the Arc de Triomphe still stands. However, in 2017, ISIS recaptured the area, and satellite images taken since then show that only four of the 16 pillars of the Arc de Triomphe are left, divided into two groups, and the four cornices no longer exist.
Today, Palmyra is back under the control of government forces, but it is still an outpost of the fight against ISIS and cannot be visited by tourists. Considering the devastation of the site itself, even if it reopens to the world one day, can I bear to revisit it?
The Old Town of Damascus
The capital, Damascus, has been relatively little changed before and after the Syrian Civil War – it is one of the oldest cities in human history, having witnessed the rise and fall of Israelis, Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Seljuks, Mamluks, Mongols, Turks and French for more than 4,000 years.
The city's historic feel is best reflected in the Umayyad Mosque on the northwest side of the old town. It is second only to the Al-Haram in the Islamic world, the Prophet's Mosque in Medina and the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, and its history extends far beyond the Umayyad dynasty (formerly known as the "White Food" on the mainland) In itself: it was originally a temple for the Semitic Aramaic to worship their god King Hada, after the Romans conquered Syria, it was converted to the Roman god Jupiter, after Constantine the Great converted to Christianity, it became the Basilica of St. John, and when the Arabs occupied Damascus in 636 AD, they converted the east side of the cathedral into a mosque, and the Christians on the west side of the church worshipped under the same roof.
In 705 AD, al-Walid I, the sixth caliph of the Umayyad dynasty, decided to expropriate the entire church and spent seven years of Syrian revenue plus two quarters of military pay to rebuild and expand it on a large scale, making it the first great mosque in the Islamic world. The caliph went on to invest in the construction of al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, the Prophet's Mosque in Medina, and the expansion of the Masjid al-Haram during his reign – no one else could compare with the Great Mosque of the time.
The Umayyad mosque is rectangular in shape, with one door in the east, west, south and north. Entering the north gate, there is a spacious atrium with marble floors, on the west side there is a prayer pavilion (Arabic name means "treasure dome"), the bottom is empty and the top is solid, originally used to store the monastery funds, and later used to preserve the Qur'an manuscript, the eight columns supporting it are left over from the Roman period, the east side is the bell pavilion (Arabic name means "time dome"), built in the 18th century to install the big bell, and the center is a marble pool built in 976 with a Moorish pavilion (Arabic name means " The Dome of Ottoman") for Muslims to do water purification before prayer.
The atrium is surrounded by arcades on the east, west and north sides, and the worship hall is on the south side. The main hall is supported by two rows of columns, and the space is divided into three rooms, the south room near the shrine is filled with men listening to the imam's teachings in silence, and women sit in the north room near the door, with a large open space in between. Despite its history and status, the Umayyad Mosque is very enlightened, allowing Muslim women to worship and tourists to visit and take pictures, which is unimaginable in places like the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Atrium of the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus Photo by Wang Zaitian
On the west side of the north gate of the Umayyad Mosque, next to the ticket office, there is a small and inconspicuous house that I immediately ignored when I first passed by - that is the famous Saladin Mausoleum.
Saladin is of Kurdish descent, the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty of Egypt, and a great hero widely revered by the Islamic world. He was known for his battles against the Crusaders and for the reconquest of the holy city of Jerusalem, and for his pardon of captured Christians, he gained the respect of his enemies and exemplified the noble spirit of chivalry.
Saladin's mausoleum was so simple that he was so generous and wealthy that he did not have enough money to pay for the funeral, and the existing small mausoleum was rebuilt in 1898 when Kaiser Wilhelm II visited the Middle East. Two coffins are housed in the burial chamber, the walnut coffin on the right contains Saladin's remains, and the vacant marble coffin on the left is donated by the Kaiser.
There was no need for a tall mausoleum, and Saladin was a great commander, a valiant warrior, a noble knight, and a benevolent gentleman, both in the eyes of his compatriots and enemies, adding a rare touch of brightness to the complicated, cruel, bloody, and obscurantist era in which he lived.
The dome of the Mosque of Rokaia in Damascus Photo by Wang Zaitian
Leaving the Umayyad Mosque, I walked to the Rokaiya Mosque on the northeast side of the Umayyad Mosque. This area is an old residential area in the old town, and the corners of the alleys are covered with grapevines, which is very quiet and elegant.
The granddaughter of Prophet Muhammad's son-in-law, Ali, she died in Damascus at the age of four after being embroiled in sectarian conflicts, and was later revered as a saint by Shia Muslims who followed Ali. In 1985, Iran, a staunch ally of Syria and a fellow Shia, funded the construction of the Persian-style Rokaia mosque. Although the mosque is inconspicuously deep in a residential area, and there is no view from the ground from the ground other than using a drone, a glimpse is enough to confirm its Persian roots.
Walking into the worship hall, but seeing the style on the left side is magnificent, and the decoration on the right side is elegant, the combination is not abrupt at all, and people have to sigh at the extraordinary realm of Persian religious architectural art. When I saw a large number of Turkish or Arab mosques along the Silk Road, and once again admired an authentic Persian mosque, I couldn't help but sigh in my heart: only Persians really know how to turn a mosque into a work of art!
The mosque of Lokaia houses the coffin of Lokaia, a sheer size that is not commensurate with her age at the time of her death. Many men wept silently at the coffin, a large man choked up and burst into tears, and an old man sang mournfully in a nearby doorway — a scene that reminded me of a similar scene I had seen in the holy city of Mashhad in Iran. Of course, these Shiite believers who wept in front of the martyrs' spirits were of course motivated by religious piety, but I believe that not all weepers are shedding tears for the martyrs. In a sense, the pilgrimage of Shiites and Sufis play a similar role, except that the sentimentality of the pilgrimage and the joy of the revelry are at opposite ends of the emotional spectrum.
Damascus woodcut from 1880 Visual China Fig
Leaving this desolate mosque, I continued my stroll through the Old City of Damascus. It was a melting pot of Semitic cultures, divided into Muslim, Jewish, and Christian ghettos, with Jews and Christians concentrated in the eastern part of the old city, separated by "straight streets". In Roman times, the main thoroughfare that ran through the eastern and western gates of Damascus, with tall colonnades on both sides of the road and endless nights of bazaars and wine shops, underlined the splendor of the eastern frontier of the empire.
This straight street also appears in the New Testament, Acts, and 2 Corinthians, and is closely associated with St. Paul, one of the most important figures in the history of Christian development. St. Paul, whose original name was Saul, was a devout Jew who persecuted Christians who were heretical at the time. Christ appeared in the desert to warn him and blinded him, and then directed him to the straight streets of Damascus so that the disciple Ananias could help him to see again. St. Paul converted to Christianity and went on a mission in a synagogue. His rebellious appearance was so effective that many people converted to Christianity, but the Jews hated him and tried to kill him at the gates of Damascus. With the help of his disciples, St. Paul escaped the Jewish round-up by sitting in a basket and began his legendary missionary journey around the Mediterranean.
Walk out of the west gate of the old city along the straight street, and you will find the Damascus Innovation City. It's a pity: I don't know Arabic and can't understand the cries of the old city – Lonely Planet says that the wandering traders in Damascus are just as good at shouting as the businessmen of old Beijing, and the apricots are shouting: sweet and gentle are sold here!
After 4,000 years of vicissitudes and 12 years of bloody civil war, Damascus is still alive and well, like the Syrians, friendly and resilient.
Wang Zaitian
Editor-in-charge: Yang Jiamin