Other sights in Damascus
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Souq Saroujah
A charming, laid-back neighbourhood of narrow alleys lined with small shops and punctuated by medieval tombs and mosques, Souq Saroujah is a fascinating place for a stroll.
In medieval times the areas immediately outside of the city walls were developed as burial places for the dead; you can still see this today, with large areas of cemeteries lying to the south of the old cities of both Damascus and Aleppo. Occasionally, however, the needs of the living would overwhelm those of the dead. Such was the case with the area now known as Souq Saroujah. During the Ayyubid era the fields just north of the Barada River became a favoured location for the tombs and mausoleums of no…
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Straight St
Known also as Souq Medhat Pasha (the covered western part) and Sharia Bab Sharqi (the eastern part), the main east-west street that bisects the Old City has historically been known as Straight St, from the Latin, Via Recta.
While it's not exactly straight these days, this street was the main thoroughfare of Damascus during Greek and Roman times, when it would have appeared something like the main avenues still seen at Apamea or Palmyra. It was four times its present width and planted with a seemingly endless row of columns that supported a canvas street covering.
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Dome of the Treasury
The small octagonal structure on the western side of the Umayyad Mosque courtyard, decorated with intricate 14th-century mosaics and standing on eight recycled Roman columns, is the Dome of the Treasury, once used to keep public funds safe from thieves.
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Dome of the Eagle
At the centre of the Umayyad Mosque Prayer Hall, resting on four great pillars above the transept, is the Dome of the Eagle, so called because it represents the eagle's head, while the transept represents the body and the aisles are the wings.
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Dome of the Clocks
The Dome of the Treasury is counterbalanced by a domed structure on the eastern side of the Umayyad Mosque courtyard, built in the 18th century and known as the Dome of the Clocks because it's where the mosque's clocks used to be kept.
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