Syria saudi from the city of ham. Syria, Hama: history and description. Qasr ibn Vardan

If mosques and minarets can be considered the pride of most eastern cities, then in Hama they are norias, water wheels used for irrigation. About 20 such wheels have been preserved in the city, which once supplied water from the Orontes River to the local population, and today they regularly perform rather a decorative function. They say that they came up with them exactly here five millennia ago, but the oldest of the elevators observed on the river today date back to the XIV-XIV centuries. Each wheel has its own name - the largest, with a diameter of 21 meters, is called Muhammadiyah, from which water flowed through the aqueduct to the Great Mosque.

The homeland of norias or not, Hama is really very ancient, the first settlements arose here in the Neolithic era, and as such and, moreover, quite prosperous - in the middle of the second millennium BC. e. It was the capital of the Aramaic-Hittite state of Hamat before the Assyrian conquests, with varying success destroying or subjugating cities. Already during the campaigns of Alexander the Great and the then reigning Seleucid dynasty, Hama was restored, renamed Epiphany in honor of one of the kings, and developed thanks to trade.

The Romans made it part of the Syrian province, and after the transfer of the capital to Byzantium, they called Emaf, but they stayed here for a short time - the Arabs came. Muslims finally returned the original name to the city and began to actively build mosques, in particular, the Great Mosque was erected by the Umayyad dynasty as a copy of the Umayyad mosque in Damascus, but after the 1982 uprising it had to be rebuilt. In its appearance, elements of ancient and Christian buildings are noticeable, in the place of which it was placed.

The crusaders occupied Hama, but the Arabs quickly drove them out under the leadership of Saladin and continued their wise and just rule. The entire subsequent period, both with the Mamluks at the head of the state and as part of the Ottoman Empire, was far from poor. The relatively calm course of affairs in Hama was slightly disturbed by the struggle for independence - mainly the old districts suffered from hostilities.

In addition to the water-lifting wheels, you can see the Azem Palace, miraculously adapted for a museum, the al-Nuri mosque with a wonderful minaret and the al-Hasanian mosque, erected by Nur ad-Din after the earthquake, the small al-Izzi mosque, left over from the Mamluks, a mosque and a mausoleum historian and part-time ruler of the city of Abu al-Fida.

The governorate of Hama occupies the western part of central Syria, and the capital of the governorate, the ancient city of Hama, stands on the only river in these arid regions, the El Asi, also called the Orontes. At this point, the river leaves the gorge, the river valley expands near the city of Ham, after which the channel turns west, into the plain of Antioch.
The features of life in this area were determined by the mountain range Jebel Ansaria, or Ansaria, located at a distance of 20-30 km from and stretching like a wall from north to south. The height of Ansaria is on average 1200 m, but this is enough to stop the humid wind from the Mediterranean Sea, which makes the western slopes of Ansaria more fertile and more densely populated than the eastern ones.
The age of the earliest settlements in Hama is the Neolithic era (4th millennium BC) and the Iron Age. However, there are suggestions that the city of Hama may have been inhabited as early as the 6th millennium BC. e. During the Sirohitite kingdoms, where the Aramaic language was widespread, which existed during the early Iron Age on the territory of modern Syria (the end of the 2nd millennium BC - the end of the 8th century BC), there was a city on the site of the current capital of the governorate , known as Hamat. From this name comes the modern name of the city.
Under the name of Hamath, Hamat is mentioned in the Bible: “Is Hamath not the same as Arpad” (Is. 10:9). Biblical sources indicate that at the beginning of the X century. BC e. Hamat was under the rule of David, king of the kingdom of Israel. Starting from the first half of the IX century. The kings of Hamat fought against Assyria. Along with Damascus, having become the center of the South Syrian Union, Hamat flourished at the end of the 9th century. BC e. In the 8th century BC e. Hamat was captured and razed to the ground by Assyrian troops. Around 720 BC. e. Hamat became a province of Assyria.
Under the Greeks, it was called Epiphany, and only under the Arabs did the city and the area itself begin to be called Hama.
And the names of other cities of Hama indicate that this area was inhabited for a long time, and flourished in antiquity. So, El-Scalbiya is the time-changed name of the ancient Hellenic Selyavkiya-ad-Bellum, a trading city and one of the centers of the Seleucid state, formed during the collapse of the empire of Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC. BC e. Archaeological excavations have shown that under the Seleucids, about half a million people lived in the present city of El Skalbia, where there are now 17 thousand inhabitants. Even more ancient is the city of Salamia: archaeologists suggest that the Sumerians were its first inhabitants 5 thousand years ago. The place of El-Ziyar is nothing more than the ancient Aramaic city of Ziara, subject to the Canaanite (Hamat) kingdom.
In the XII century. the crusaders were never able to capture the city of Hama, and in 1188 Saladin expelled them from its environs. In 1299, the Mamluks seized power over Hama. Since the first half of the XVI century. The entire region was part of the Ottoman Empire.
After the First World War and the collapse of the Sublime Porte, the League of Nations entrusted France with a mandate to administer this territory, including it in a common zone called the Levant. Beginning in 1941, Hama was already part of independent Syria.
The city and governorate of Hama have repeatedly become a stronghold of opposition to the Syrian government. Beginning with a series of Islamist uprisings in 1964 and 1981. and especially in 1982, when about 5 thousand people died here.
Currently, this region, like the rest, is engulfed in a civil war between government troops, armed opposition forces and terrorist groups.
The outlines of the boundaries of the governorate of Hama differ from other regions of Syria: Hama is elongated in a latitudinal direction, plunging inland. In the 1940s when drawing the boundaries of the governorate, the Syrian authorities tried to take into account the historical features of the area.
Historically, Hama and neighboring cities have become a stronghold of supporters of the religious trend in Islam - the Ismailis.
Until civil war began in Hama, as in other parts of the country, the governorate of Hama was an important agricultural and industrial region in Syria. Unlike other regions of the country, where large areas are occupied by deserts, in Hama, almost a third of the entire territory was cultivated and irrigated with water from the Orontes River. Several dams have been built on the river, for example, Muhrada, without which life here would have completely stopped. Half of the country's total potato and pistachio nut crop was harvested in the fields of Hama. Vegetable farms brought in a lot of income.
The western slopes of the mountains are a place of terraced agriculture, from September to March there is a lot of rainfall. Throughout the Middle East, red and golden apples from this region are known, experts consider them to be the best in the world in taste - due to the composition of precipitation and soil.
Wheat is also grown here, but exclusively for local consumption: it is used to make bulgur - cereals from boiled, dried and crushed grains. Bulgur is the staple food of the locals throughout the year.
Livestock - characteristic of Syria: meat and dairy and small cattle.
Hama is the historical center of Ismailism, and Salamiyah is the largest Ismaili center in the Arab world in terms of population.
A reminder of the turbulent medieval past of this region stands in the city of Masyaf, in the Oronte Valley, a powerful castle that protected trading cities, such as the port of Baniyas. From here ruled Rashid ad-Din Sinan (1132/1135-1192), known as the Elder of the mountains, the leader of the Syrian Ismailis, a hero of the Crusades. The unusual architecture of the castle is explained by the fact that the base and the lower part of it were built during the Hamdanid dynasty, which ruled in Syria from 890 to 1004, and the Byzantines, Crusaders, Ismailis, Mamluks and Ottoman Turks who seized it in turn completed the construction to their liking. The castle has been given the status of a national monument in Syria and is under the supervision of the Syrian Antiquities Authority.
The capital of the governorate - the city of Hama - before the start of the civil war in Syria was the fifth in the list of the largest cities in Syria, textile factories and metallurgical enterprises worked here.
Before the civil war, the destruction of the city and, accordingly, its main buildings contributed to the invasion of Muslims at the end of the 7th century. and the earthquake of 1152
In the city there is a monument of human civilization of world significance - 17 elevators (it is alleged that in the past there were at least one and a half hundred of them). Norias - water wheels, devices for raising water from the Orontes River to the city for watering gardens. The first elevators were built in Hama 3 thousand years ago. Those that are now in Hama have survived from the 14th-15th centuries. Norias of Khama are the largest water wheels in the world, the diameter of the El-Mamouniy and El-Muhammedie norias reaches 20 m. Designed for irrigation, they have not been used for their intended purpose lately, but remained a monument and a symbol of the greatness of engineering.
There are almost no Roman buildings in Ham and its environs, with the exception of the ruins of the Roman theater - once the largest in Syria, and, according to some historians, in the entire Roman Empire. Most of the stones in the Ottoman period went to the construction of residential buildings.

general information

Location: West central Syria.
Administrative status: city and governorate (region) in Syria.
Administrative divisions of the governorate: 5 mintaqi (districts) - Es-Scalbiya, Hama, Masyaf, Muhrada and Salamiya.
Administrative center: the city of Hama - 527,429 people. (2012).
Cities: Salamiyah - 66,724 people (2004), Masyaf - 22,508 people. (2004), Halfaya - 21,180 people. (2004), Muhrada - 17,578 people. (2004), El-Scalbia (Scalbia) - 17313 people. (2004), El Latamin - 16,267 people. (2004).
Languages: Arabic (Northern Syriac Shawi dialect), Kurdish, Greek.
Ethnic composition: Syrian and Palestinian Arabs, Kurds, Greeks.
Religions: Islam (Sunnism, Ismailism, Alavism), Christianity (Orthodoxy, Catholicism).
Currency unit: Syrian pound.
River: El Asi (Orontes).
Neighboring territories: in the north - governorates and, in the east -, in the south -, in the west - Tartus and Latakia.

Numbers

Area: 8844 km2.
Population: about 1,628,000 people (2011).
Population density: 184.1 people / km 2.
The highest point of the governorate: Mount Jebel al Kanas (1259 m).
The highest point of the city of Hama: 289 m.

Climate and weather

Subtropical, semi-desert.
January average temperature: +6.5°С.
July average temperature: +28.5°С.
Average annual rainfall: about 350 mm.
Relative humidity: 55%.

Economy

Minerals: mineral springs (Daryakshir).
Industry: metallurgical, food, light (textile, cotton-cleaning, wool-cleaning, leather and footwear).
Agriculture: plant growing (wheat, barley, lentils, cotton, pistachios, olives, grapes, mulberries, vegetables, tobacco), animal husbandry (meat and dairy, sheep, goats).
Service sector: tourism, transport, trade.

Attractions

Natural

El Asi (Orontes) river valley, Wadi El Uyun waterfalls, El Latamin caves.

historical

Two-domed mausoleum (El-Ziyar), ruins of a Byzantine temple (Kafr-Zita, 5th century), Abu Qubeys castle (10th century), Ismaili castles Masyaf, El-Rusafa castle, Shaizar and El-Kadmus (12th century) , the remains of canals of the Roman era (Salamia).

City of Hama

The palace complex of Kasr ibn Vardan (mid-VI century), the Great Mosque (VIII century, restored), the Al-Nuri Mosque (1172), the mausoleum of the historian and geographer Muhammad Abu-l-Fid (XIV century), norias ( water wheels, XIV-XV centuries), Al-Izzi Mamluk mosque (XV century), Azem Palace (Kasr Azem), Hama Art Museum (the building of the Ottoman governor Azem Palace, XVIII century), caravanserai Khan Rustum Pasha .

Curious facts

■ As to the origin of the name of the governorate and the city of Hama, science has not yet come to a consensus. Some argue that the name comes from the Phoenician word meaning "fortress". Others insist that the locals belonged to the race of Hamites, or descendants of Ham, one of the sons of Noah.
■ The city of Seleucia-ad-Bellum, which was located on the site of the current El-Scalbia, was named after Seleucus I Nicator (about 358-281 BC) - the commander, bodyguard of Alexander the Great and the founder of the Seleucid state. Historians believe that the city itself was founded by Antiochus I Soter (about 324-261 BC) - the king of the Seleucid state, the son of Seleucus I Nicator. The name, which translates as "Seleucia-above-Bellum", should be understood as "the city on the river Bellum": this is how the Hellenes called the Orontes River.
■ In 2014, the Israeli Ministry of the Interior recorded two-year-old Yaakov Halul, a resident of the village of Gush Halav, as Aramean. Consequently, this young son of the leader of the Aramean Christian community became the first officially recognized representative of this people, who inhabited the lands of the governorate of Hama, after many centuries.
■ The modern name of the Orontes River is El Asi, in Arabic it means "rebellious". Probably because, unlike all other rivers in the area, it flows from south to north.
■ Thomas Edward Lawrence, nicknamed Lawrence of Arabia (1888-1935), was a British officer and traveler who played a major role in the Great Arab Revolt of 1916-1918, who became the hero of one of the most famous biopics in the history of cinema - Lawrence of Arabia "(1962). Lawrence visited the outskirts of the city of Masyaf, stopped in the city itself and even examined the castle, trying to find out its suitability for military purposes.
■ The city of Salamiyah is nicknamed "Mother of Cairo": the second Caliph of the Fatimid Caliphate and the twelfth Imam of the Ismailis Muhammad El-Qaim Bi-Amrilla (893-946), whose dynasty founded Cairo in 969, was born here.
■ Norias (water wheels) of Hama are based on using the force of the river current to pump water above its level. In fact, elevators became the forerunners of modern hydraulic pumps. For their manufacture, different types of wood were required: the rim was made only from mulberry or walnut, and the rubbing parts were made from apricot.

: Hama is elongated in the latitudinal direction, plunging inland. In the 1940s when drawing the boundaries of the governorate, the Syrian authorities tried to take into account the historical features of the area.

BEHIND THE WALL OF GORANSARIUM

Hidden behind the mountains that separate a large part of the governorate from the Mediterranean, the local quiet towns have not found peace, remaining the target of invaders for thousands of years.

The governorate of Hama occupies the western part of central Syria.

The capital of the governorate - the ancient city of Hama - stands on the only river in these arid lands, El Asi, also called the Orontes. At this point, the river leaves the gorge, the river valley expands near the city of Ham, after which the channel turns west, into the plain of Antioch.

The features of life in this area were determined by the Jebel Ansaria or Ansaria mountain range, located at a distance of 20-30 km from the Mediterranean Sea and stretching like a wall from north to south. The height of Ansaria is on average 1200 m, but this is enough to stop the humid wind from the Mediterranean Sea, which makes the western slopes of Ansaria more fertile and more densely populated than the eastern ones.

The age of the earliest settlements in Hama is the Neolithic era (4th millennium BC) and the Iron Age. However, there are suggestions that the city of Hama may have been inhabited as early as the 6th millennium BC. e. During the time of the Sirohitite kingdoms, where the Aramaic language was widespread, which existed during the early Iron Age on the territory of modern Syria (end of the 2nd millennium BC - end of the 8th century BC), there was a city on the site of the current capital of the governorate , known as Hamat. From this name comes the modern name of the city.

Under the name of Hamath, Hamat is mentioned in the Bible: “Is Hamath not the same as Arpad” (Is. 10:9). Biblical sources indicate that at the beginning of the X century. BC e. Hamat was under the rule of David, king of the kingdom of Israel. Starting from the first half of the IX century. The kings of Hamat fought against Assyria. Along with Damascus, having become the center of the South Syrian Union, Hamat flourished at the end of the 9th century. BC e. In the 8th century BC e. Hamat was captured and razed to the ground by Assyrian troops. Around 720 BC. e. Hamat became a province of Assyria.

Under the Greeks, it was called Epiphany, and only under the Arabs did the city and the area itself begin to be called Hama.

And the names of other cities of Hama indicate that this area was inhabited for a long time, and flourished in antiquity. So, El-Scalbiya is the time-changed name of the ancient Hellenic Selyavkiya-ad-Bellum, a trading city and one of the centers of the Seleucid state, formed during the collapse of the empire of Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC. BC e. Archaeological excavations have shown that under the Seleucids, about half a million people lived in the present city of El Skalbia, where there are now 17 thousand inhabitants. Even more ancient is the city of Salamia: archaeologists suggest that the Sumerians were its first inhabitants 5 thousand years ago. The place of El-Ziyar is nothing more than the ancient Aramaic city of Ziara, subject to the Canaanite (Hamat) kingdom.

In the XII century. the crusaders were never able to capture the city of Hama, and in 1188 Saladin expelled them from its environs. In 1299, the Mamluks seized power over Hama. Since the first half of the XVI century. The entire region was part of the Ottoman Empire.

After the First World War and the collapse of the Sublime Porte, the League of Nations entrusted the mandate to govern this territory, including it in a common area called the Levant. Beginning in 1941, Hama was already part of independent Syria.

The city and governorate of Hama have repeatedly become a stronghold of opposition to the Syrian government. Beginning with a series of Islamist uprisings in 1964 and 1981. and especially in 1982, when about 5 thousand people died here.

Currently, this region, like the whole of Syria, is engulfed in a civil war between government troops, armed opposition forces and terrorist groups.

LAND OF THE ISMAILITES

Historically, Hama and neighboring cities have become a stronghold of supporters of the religious direction in Islam - the Ismailis.

Until civil war began in Hama, as in other parts of the country, the governorate of Hama was an important agricultural and industrial region in Syria. Unlike other regions of the country, where large areas are occupied by deserts, in Hama, almost a third of the entire territory was cultivated and irrigated with water from the Orontes River. Several dams have been built on the river, for example, Muhrada, without which life here would have completely stopped. Half of the country's total potato and pistachio nut crop was harvested in the fields of Hama. Vegetable farms brought in a lot of income.

The western slopes of the mountains are a place of terraced agriculture, from September to March there is a lot of rainfall. Throughout the Middle East, red and golden apples from this area are known, experts consider them to be the best in the world in taste - due to the composition of precipitation and soil.

Wheat is also grown here, but exclusively for local consumption: it is used to make bulgur - cereals from boiled, dried and crushed grains. Bulgur is the staple food of the locals throughout the year.

Animal husbandry is typical for Syria: meat and dairy and small cattle.

Hama is the historical center of Ismailism, and Salamiyah is the largest Ismaili center in the Arab world in terms of population.

A reminder of the turbulent medieval past of this region stands in the city of Masyaf, in the Oronte Valley, a powerful castle that protected trading cities, such as the port of Baniyas. Rashid ad-Din Sinan (1132 / 1135 - 1192), known as the Elder of the mountains, the leader of the Syrian Ismailis, a hero of the Crusades, ruled from here. The unusual architecture of the castle is explained by the fact that the base and the lower part of it were built during the Hamdanid dynasty, which ruled in Syria from 890 to 1004, and the Byzantines, Crusaders, Ismailis, Mamluks and Ottoman Turks who seized it in turn completed the construction to their liking. The castle has been given the status of a national monument in Syria and is under the supervision of the Syrian Antiquities Authority.

The capital of the governorate - the city of Hama - before the start of the civil war in Syria was the fifth in the list of the largest cities in Syria, textile factories and metallurgical enterprises worked here. Before the civil war, the destruction of the city and, accordingly, its main buildings contributed to the invasion of Muslims at the end of the 7th century. and the earthquake of 1152

In the city there is a monument of human civilization of world significance - 17 elevators (it is alleged that in the past there were at least one and a half hundred of them). Norias - water wheels, devices for raising water from the Orontes River to the city for watering gardens. The first elevators were built in Hama 3 thousand years ago. Those that are now in Hama have survived from the 14th-15th centuries. Norias of Khama are the largest water wheels in the world, the diameter of the El-Mamouniy and El-Muhammedie norias reaches 20 m. Designed for irrigation, they have not been used for their intended purpose lately, but remained a monument and a symbol of the greatness of engineering.

Almost completely absent are Roman buildings in and around Ham, with the exception of the ruins of the Roman theater - once the largest in Syria, and, according to some historians, in the entire Roman Empire. Most of the stones in the Ottoman period went to the construction of residential buildings.

ATTRACTIONS OF HAM

Natural:

■ Valley of the river El Asi (Orontes).

■ Waterfalls of Wadi El-Uyun.

■ Caves of El Latamin.

Historical:

■ Two-domed mausoleum (El-Ziyar).

■ Ruins of a Byzantine temple (Kafr Zita, 5th century).

■ Abu Qubeys Castle (X century).

■ Ismaili castles Masyaf.

■ El Rusafa Castle.

■ Shaizar Castle and El-Kadmus (XII century).

■ Remains of canals from the Roman era (Salamia).

City of Hama:

■ The palace complex of Kasr ibn Vardan (mid-VI century).

■ The Great Mosque (VIII century, restored).

■ Al-Nuri Mosque (1172).

■ Mausoleum of the historian and geographer Muhammad Abul-Fid (XIV century).

■ Norias (water wheels, XIV-XV centuries).

■ Al-Izzy Mamluk Mosque (XV century).

■ Azem Palace (Qasr Azem).

■ Hama Art Museum (the building of the Ottoman governor Azem Palace, 18th century).

■ Caravanserai Khan Rustum Pasha.

■ As to the origin of the name of the governorate and the city of Hama, science has not yet come to a consensus. Some argue that the name comes from the Phoenician word meaning "fortress". Others insist that the locals belonged to the race of Hamites, or descendants of Ham, one of the sons of Noah.
■ The city of Seleucia-ad-Bellum, which was located on the site of the current El-Scalbia, was named after Seleucus I Nicator (about 358-281 BC) - the commander, bodyguard of Alexander the Great and the founder of the Seleucid state. Historians believe that the city itself was founded by Antiochus I Soter (about 324-261 BC), the king of the Seleucid state, the son of Seleucus I Nicator. The name, which translates as "Seleucia-above-Bellum", should be understood as "the city on the river Bellum": this is how the Hellenes called the Orontes River.
■ In 2014, the Ministry of the Interior registered two-year-old Yaakov Khalul, a resident of the village of Gush Halav, as Aramean. Consequently, this young son of the head of the Aramean Christian community became the first officially recognized representative of this people, who inhabited the lands of the governorate of Hama, after many centuries.
■ The modern name of the Orontes River is El Asi, in Arabic it means “rebellious”. Probably because, unlike all other rivers in the area, it flows from south to north.
■ Thomas Edward Lawrence, nicknamed Lawrence of Arabia (1888-1935), British officer and traveler who played a major role in the Great Arab Revolt of 1916-1918, who became the subject of one of the most famous biopics in the history of cinema - Lawrence of Arabia "(1962). Lawrence visited the outskirts of the city of Masyaf, stopped in the city itself and even examined the castle, trying to find out its suitability for military purposes.
■ The city of Salamiyah is nicknamed "Mother of Cairo": the second Caliph of the Fatimid Caliphate and the twelfth Imam of the Ismailis Muhammad El-Qaim Bi-Amrilla (893-946), whose dynasty founded Cairo in 969, was born here.
■ Norias (water wheels) of Hama are based on using the force of the river current to pump water above its level. In fact, elevators became the forerunners of modern hydraulic pumps. For their manufacture, wood of different types was required: the rim was made only from mulberry or walnut, and the rubbing parts were made from apricot.

GENERAL INFORMATION

Location: West-central Syria.
Administrative status: city and governorate (region) in Syria.
The administrative division of the governorate is 5 mintaqi (districts) - Al-Sqalbiya, Hama, Masyaf, Muhrada and Salamiya.
Administrative center: the city of Hama - 527,429 people. (2012).
Cities: Salamia - 66,724 people. (2004), Masyaf - 22,508 people. (2004), Xapfaya - 21,180 people. (2004), Muhrada - 17,578 people. (2004), El-Scalbiya (Scal-biya) - 17313 people. (2004), El Latamin - 16,267 people. (2004).
Languages: Arabic (Northern Syriac Shawi dialect), Kurdish, Greek.
Ethnic composition: Syrian and Palestinian Arabs, Kurds, Greeks.
Religions: Islam (Sunnism, Ismailism, Alavism), Christianity (Orthodoxy, Catholicism).
Monetary unit: Syrian pound.
River: El Asi (Orontes).
Neighboring territories: in the north - the governorates of Idlib and Aleppo, in the east - Rakka, in the south - Homs, in the west - Tartus and Latakia.

NUMBERS

Area: 8844 km2.
Population: about 1,628,000 people (2011).
Population density: 184.1 people / km 2.
The highest point of the governorate: Mount Jabal al-Kanas (1259 m).
The highest point of Hama: 289 m.

CLIMATE

Subtropical, semi-desert.
Average t° January: +6.5°С.
Average t° July: +28.5°С.
Average annual precipitation: about 350 mm.
Relative humidity: 55%.

ECONOMY

Mineral resources: mineral springs (Daryakshir).
Industry: metallurgical, food, light (textile, cotton-cleaning, wool-cleaning, leather and footwear).
Agriculture: crop production (wheat, barley, lentils, cotton, pistachios, olives, grapes, mulberries, vegetables, tobacco), animal husbandry (meat and dairy, sheep, goats).
Service sector: tourism, transport, trade.

Norias. Hama. Syria.

Hama- a city in central Syria on the banks of the Orontes River.
The hill around which the city arose was inhabited in the Neolithic era. But what was the name Hama in antiquity is unknown. In the Assyrian annals, the city is called Hamataya. The bible calls Hamu- Hamath. The prophets repeatedly mention Etham: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Zechariah, and others. All this indicates that the ancient city was an important place and royal residence. The inhabitants of Etham belonged to the race of the Hamites, or the descendants of Ham (Ham is one of the sons of Noah).
But the city has preserved few antiquities and is known only for its large water wheels - elevators who delivered water from the Orontes to the gardens and houses of the upper city. Hamu so they call it the city of nori.

Noriya Al-Khasania. Hama. Syria.

noria- an ancient water-lifting wheel set in motion by the current. It stands vertically, the blades along its circumference are made in the form of trays, which, when the wheel rotates, draw water, and at the top point pour it into the discharge chute, from where it runs downhill to the fields, to houses, baths, fountains.
Norias were invented more than 5 thousand years ago, and they are considered their homeland Hamu.
Huge wheels are visible from everywhere in the city center. The largest wheel is located in the center of the old city. It's called Muhammadiyah (all wheels have their own names), Muhammadiyah supplied water through the aqueduct to the Grand Mosque, standing 150 meters from it. The elevator was built in the 14th century, the diameter of the wheel is 21 m. Not every tree is suitable for making elevators. The rim, for example, is made only from mulberry or walnut, and the rubbing parts are made from apricot.

The Grand Mosque was almost completely destroyed in 1982 during the suppression of the uprising of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Grand Mosque was almost completely destroyed in 1982 during the suppression of the Islamist uprising that captured Hama in 1982. Then the Syrian army surrounded the city and crushed it with the help of artillery and aircraft, and then took it by storm. According to some reports, from 10,000 to 40,000 civilians were killed. And the operation itself became the bloodiest suppression of the uprising in the Middle East in recent history.
In 2001 the mosque was restored.

Hama from A to Z: map, hotels, attractions, restaurants, entertainment. Shopping, shops. Photos, videos and reviews about Hama.

• Hot tours Worldwide

Between Aleppo and Damascus, Hama is located - a city famous for its huge wooden water-lifting wheels "noria" with a diameter of up to 20 m. The city itself deserves no less attention - thanks to the picturesque river flowing through the center of Hama, the green embankment and beautiful gardens.

There are not as many people here as in Damascus, and the original old city, coupled with an atmosphere of calm and oriental serenity, will allow you to spend a couple of good days here. In addition, Hama is a great place to make radial excursions to the castle of Krak des Chevaliers or the dead cities of Syria. However, it should be borne in mind that without a group tour, you cannot get to Krak des Chevaliers without a transfer in Homs.

How to get to Hama

Two large companies, Al-Ahliah and Kadmous, have their offices in the very center of the city, next to which their buses stop from here throughout the country. Al-Ahliah offers flights to Damascus (90 SYP, 2.5 hours), Aleppo (80 SYP, 2.5 hours), Homs (30 SYP, 45 minutes), Tartus (80 SYP, 2 hours), Latakia (100 SYP, 3 hours), Idlib (50 SYP, 1 hour) and Raqqa (145 SYP, 5 hours). Almost the same prices and routes are organized by Kadmous, in addition, sending buses to Palmyra (85 SYP, 3 hours).

The central bus station is located near the city center, next to the railway station. From there, about four trains depart daily to Damascus (1st/2nd class 120/60 SYP, 2 hours on the way) and Aleppo (1st/2nd class 120/60 SYP, 2 hours on the way).

Prices on the page are for July 2016.

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  December

Cuisine and restaurants

The most delicious falafel (20 SYP) in the east can be tasted at the Ali Babas cafe next to the Cairo Hotel. Al-Baroudi restaurant on Shoukri al-Quwatli street is the best place for chicken meat lovers. A quiet place where you can drink tea in a European setting is al-Buhturi street. There are also good ice cream parlors and bakeries.