Syria historical timeline

Origins

Some of the oldest continuously inhabited places on earth are here. Damascus and Aleppo have both been cities for something close to five thousand years. Ebla and Mari left cuneiform archives; Ugarit, on the coast, produced one of the earliest alphabets around 1400 BC. Palmyra grew rich on the desert caravan routes and under Queen Zenobia briefly challenged Rome itself. Christianity spread from here early, and the Umayyad caliphate ruled the Islamic world from Damascus from 661, building the Great Mosque that still stands.

Turning points

Crusader and then Mamluk and Ottoman rule followed, with Aleppo among the largest commercial cities of the empire. France took a mandate after the First World War and drew the modern borders; independence came in 1946. A series of coups ended with the Ba’ath party in 1963 and Hafez al-Assad in 1970, who ruled for thirty years and was succeeded by his son Bashar. In 2011 protests during the Arab Spring were met with force and the country collapsed into a war that drew in Russia, Iran, Turkey, the United States and a long list of armed groups. Hundreds of thousands were killed and more than half the population was displaced — the largest refugee crisis of the century. ISIS held territory including Palmyra, and dynamited parts of it, before being pushed out. The Assad government fell in December 2024, ending fifty-four years of family rule, and the country entered a transition whose shape is still being decided.

Influential people

Zenobia of Palmyra, who took Egypt from Rome before Rome took her. Saladin, who ruled from Damascus and is buried there. Ibn al-Nafis, the thirteenth-century physician who described pulmonary circulation three centuries before Europe did. Hafez and Bashar al-Assad. And Adonis and Nizar Qabbani, two of the most widely read poets in the Arabic language.

Cultural evolution

Syria held one of the most religiously varied populations in the region — Sunni, Alawite, Druze, Ismaili, and several ancient Christian churches, including villages at Maaloula where a dialect of Aramaic is still spoken. The souks of Aleppo were among the largest covered markets in the world before the fighting. Damascene craft — inlaid wood, brocade, damask steel and damask cloth, both of which took their names from the city — ran for centuries. And the food, particularly Aleppo’s, is regarded across the Arab world as the reference standard.

Present-day significance

All six of Syria’s UNESCO World Heritage sites remain on the list of World Heritage in Danger. Reconstruction is measured in decades, the economy and currency have collapsed, and millions of Syrians remain outside the country. What happens to the refugee population, and to the settlement between the country’s communities, is the question everything else depends on.