Damascus's fortunes rose and fell under successive Islamic dynasties, but it never lost its importance -- both as a "desert port" for the caravan trade that traveled to and from Mesopotamia and modernday Turkey, and as a stopping point for observant Muslims making the long pilgrimage, or hajj, to Mecca. But by the late Ottoman period (when many of these photos were taken) Damascus had become a regional backwater, a relatively unimportant provincial capital in an empire on the wane, though one that still reached from the Arabian Peninsula into the Balkans. The city's fortunes sank even further during the French Mandate period (1920-1945), when French troops shelled the city on several occasions to put down protests.

Even the meager trade between Damascus and the port city of Beirut had dwindled by the latter half of the 20th century, and the city became largely known as the seat of power for the regime of President Hafez al-Assad, and later his son Bashar. Despite some tentative attempts at liberalization in the 1990s and 2000s, Syria stumbled into the 21st century hamstrung by international sanctions and unable to borrow on international lending markets. Then, of course, came the Arab Spring. Still, although Damascus has witnessed scattered protests against the Assad regime in recent months, the city remains one of the few areas of calm in a country consumed by revolutionary fervor.     

Library of Congress, LC-DIG-matpc-00227

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