This is a study of the water-raising wheels of western Syria from the aspects of sources, terminology, typology, origin, history, technology and architecture, and gives a survey of these installations, discussing their present state of conservation. By making use of historical, architectural and iconographical material, the study shows that Syrian water-wheels constitutes a particular type of water-architecture, which successfully combines the functional with the aesthetic and displays sophisticated forms of construction. These devices are visually impressive, present a variety of shapes and are of great historical, environmental and iconographical importance, being of extraordinarily accurate and detailed design. An attempt is made to present evidence of their ancient origin, and to gain an understanding of how their design evolved over time, the reasons for their significance and uniqueness, and for their great concentration in Syria.

Lines are omnipresent in our everyday experience and language. They reflect and influence the spatial and temporal structures of our world view. Taking Tim Ingold’s cultural history of the line as a starting-point, this book understands lines as expressions that allow insights into cultural theoretical phenomena and thus go beyond their mere form. The essays will investigate this premise from various disciplines (architecture, art, cartography, film, literature and philosophy).

Proceedings of a conference held in Athens in 2017, this volume presents 34 fresh and original papers (plus 2 abstracts) on ancient Egyptian religion, environment and the cosmos. Papers connect many interdisciplinary approaches including Egyptology, archaeology, archaeoastronomy, geography, botany, zoology, ornithology, theology and history.

Offering a multitude of examples through the centuries, this book examines how the architecture of the ancient world was transformed or destroyed under Byzantium and Islam, to produce new forms which often owed their materials and sometimes their styles to the past.

At the Arab Spring's hopeful start, Alia Malek returned to Damascus to reclaim her grandmother's apartment, which had been lost to her family since Hafez al-Assad came to power in 1970. Its loss was central to her parent's decision to make their lives in America. In chronicling the people who lived in the Tahaan building, past and present, Alia portrays the Syrians-the Muslims, Christians, Jews, Armenians, and Kurds-who worked, loved, and suffered in close quarters, mirroring the political shifts in their country. Restoring her family's home as the country comes apart, she learns how to speak the coded language of oppression that exists in a dictatorship, while privately confronting her own fears about Syria's future. The Home That Was Our Country is a deeply researched, personal journey that shines a delicate but piercing light on Syrian history, society, and politics. Teeming with insights, the narrative weaves acute political analysis with a century of intimate family history, ultimately delivering an unforgettable portrait of the Syria that is being erased.

"Der Band behandelt das geographische Syrien im 18. und 19. Jh. Dieser Zeitraum war von tiefgreifenden wirtschaftlichen Veranderungen gepragt, insbesondere der allmahlichen Integration des Osmanischen Reiches in den Weltmarkt. Die hier vorgestellten neuen Fragen und Forschungsrichtungen, die zu einem differenzierteren Bild der osmanischen Herrschaft beitragen, beziehen wesentliche Impulse aus sozial- und wirtschaftsgeschichtlichen Ansatzen. ... Je ein Index fur Personen- und Ortsnamen sowie Begriffe runden den Band ab. Man kann nur hoffen, daa diese Art der sozial- und wirtschaftshistorischen Nahostforschung, die sich bislang weitgehend im anglo-amerikanischen und arabischen Raum entwickelt hat, auch in Deutschland weitere Verbreitung finden wird." Orientalistische Literaturzeitung "athe book is a major contribution to the study of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Syria. The authors, the editors, and the publisher are to be commended for producing this important publication." Journal of Near Eastern Studies . (Franz Steiner 1998)

From late fourth century BC Seleucid enclave to capital of the Roman east, Antioch on the Orontes was one of the greatest cities of antiquity and served as a hinge between east and west. This book draws on a century of archaeological fieldwork to offer a new narrative of Antioch's origins and growth, as well as its resilience, civic pride, and economic opportunism. Situating the urban nucleus in the context of the rural landscape, this book integrates hitherto divorced cultural basins, including the Amuq Valley and the Massif Calcaire. It also brings into focus the archaeological data, thus proposing a concrete interpretative framework that, grounded in the monuments of Antioch, enables the reader to move beyond text-based reconstructions of the city's history. Finally, it considers the interaction between the environment and the people of the city who shaped this region and forged a distinct identity within the broader Greco-Roman world.