Showing 1-13 of 13 results
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Al-Mamuriyya
Approach the Old Town from the south, pass the riverside Choob coffeehouse, then swing off to the right, just before what looks like an arched gate but is in fact part of an old aqueduct. The lane passes the oddly named Oriental Batman, then turns north just before Al-Mamuriyya , a noria that dates from 1453.
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Al-Mohammediyya
Hama's most distinctive attractions are its norias, wooden water wheels up to 20m in diameter (the equivalent in height of a four- or five-storey building), which have graced the town for centuries. The land around the Orontes is considerably higher than the river itself, which is deeply incised into its rocky bed, making it hard to irrigate. The norias were constructed to scoop water from the river and deposit it into aqueducts, which then channelled it to nearby fields and gardens.
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An-Nuri Mosque
A short distance north of Azem Palace is the splendid riverside An-Nuri Mosque, built by the Muslim commander Nureddin, uncle of Saladin, in the late 12th century.
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Artists' Palace
The so-called Artists' Palace occupies a former khan, or travellers' inn; the old storerooms are now used as makeshift studio and exhibition spaces for local artists, some of whose work is for sale. The khan doesn't really compare with those seen in Damascus and Aleppo.
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Azem Palace
Ross Burns, historian and author of the sage Monuments of Syria, regards the Azem Palace as 'one of the loveliest Ottoman residential buildings in Syria'. It's the former residence of the governor Asaad Pasha al-Azem, who ruled the town from 1742. The palace has strong echoes of the more grandiose building of the same name in Damascus, which is hardly surprising as the latter was also built by Al-Azem after he was transferred to the capital.
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Central Norias
Hama's most distinctive attractions are its norias, wooden water wheels up to 20m in diameter (the equivalent in height of a four- or five-storey building), which have graced the town for centuries. The land around the Orontes is considerably higher than the river itself, which is deeply incised into its rocky bed, making it hard to irrigate. The norias were constructed to scoop water from the river and deposit it into aqueducts, which then channelled it to nearby fields and gardens.
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Grand Mosque
About 400m southwest of the citadel is the Grand Mosque, which, after being almost completely destroyed in the fighting of 1982, has since been faithfully restored. It was originally built by the Umayyads in the 8th century, along the lines of their great mosque in Damascus. It had a similar history, having been converted from a church that itself had stood on the site of a pagan temple.
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Hama Museum
Hama's excellent regional Hama Museum , located about 1km from the centre, is housed on the ground floor of a striking sandstone building. Each room is devoted to a particular era, including Neolithic and Palaeolithic, the Iron Age, Roman and Islamic. There's some interesting material on finds at the citadel mound, including a splendid 2.5m-high, 10-tonne black basalt lion that once guarded the entrance to an Iron Age palace.
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Hammam al-Uthmaniyya
The historic Hammam al-Uthmaniyya, is spotlessly clean and popular with the locals.
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Khan Asad Pasha
The two noteworthy khans that Hama does possess have long since been pressed into other uses: Khan Asad Pasha (1751), also on Sharia al-Murabet but further south, is now a local Ba'ath Party branch.
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Khan Rustum Pasha
The two noteworthy khans that Hama does possess have long since been pressed into other uses: Khan Rustum Pasha (1556), just south of the town centre on Sharia al-Murabet, is an orphanage (although it's occasionally open to the public as an exhibition space).
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Mosque of Abu al-Feda
Looking north from the tell, just over the river, you'll see the small Mosque of Abu al-Feda, resting place of the 14th-century soldier-turned-poet of that name, who was also a noted historian, astronomer and botanist. His treatise on geography was a major source for European cartographers from the Renaissance onwards. He was elevated to become emir of Hama in 1320.
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Souq
Hama was never a great trading centre and today its main Souq is modest, with hardly any of the great commercial khans that fill the old cities of Aleppo and Damascus.
Showing 1-13 of 13 results
