Entering in the east from Turkey, Syria remains the only country where immigration officials have made us coffee. We stayed in a pleasant small city, and visited Biblical are cities nearby, sat on the Euphrates banks near Iraq, and were offered lifts, tea and food from friendly Arabs and Kurds.
That city was Raqqa.
On the Euphrates in Syria, Dora Europos was fought over by Romans, Parthians, and Hellnic armies few a few hundred years around the time of Christ.
A shepherd watches his sheep, Rasafa, Syria.
Two young shepherds break for lunch.
Emperor Justinian built the ramparts at Rasafa, Syria.
A shepherd and his donkey, Rasafa.
Known as Sergiopolis in Byzantium times, the city of Rasafa linked Aleppo, Palymra and Dora Europos.
A toppled column at Rasafa.
In the eighth century, the Umayyad caliph Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik (r. 724–743) made Rasafa his favoured residence, and built several palaces around it
Much of the site remains buried under 600 yeras of sand.
Arched walls of ruins of Rasafa, near Raqqa.
Two farmers at a market near what became ISIS HQ, Al Raqqa.
A typical road-side market in Al Raqqa, 2005.
At a farmers' market, Raqqa.
Livestock was the main focus of the rural market.
This father gave us a lift in his truck, near al Raqqa. What happened to him and his family, I hate to think.
At a market near Raqqa.
North gate of the city of Resafa, site of Hisham's palace and court.
Roman walls, fat tailed sheep, and a young shepherd, probably all long gone now.
More Roman walls that stood for around 200 years, abaondoned in the Syrian desert.
Another view of Rasafa, which being so close to Raqqa, surely did not survive the war.