Syria

[Heresson]

If You think my english is not good, look at this one.

[Heresson]

It was a photo of museum in Afamia, ancient Apamea, once a very important seleukid and roman city, nowdays nice ruins. Kleopatra and Marcus Antonius met here.
Like Busra, Afamia is full of Syrians trying to sell You coins they've "found" or more likely made in their homes. In Busra one told me he's found them with some Italian guy. Funny he's found Nabatean, hellenistic, roman and muslim coins at once.
In Afamia it was even more interesting. As we remained unconvinced, a guy put one of the coins on the ground and as a portugeese tourist approached, he pretended he's just found it and attempted to sell it to him...

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afamia 2

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next pic...

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even more...

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i jeszcze jedno...

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Here is a nice byzantine capitel

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And here is a place where they used to put oil with some saint's remains to gain holy oil.
So we've read. It's kind of likely, i recall from Teodoret's History of God's Love (or whatever it is called in English) that oil was used in late antiquity as something You could put your power into and send far away - this way some monk sent his power to persian shahine, f.e.

[Heresson]

During the same trip we've visited the so-called Dead Cities. These are several late-antiquity, early-byzantine cities abandoned in VI or VII century. Why I don't know, I was told here it was because of change of trade routes, but perhaps it had something to do with Persian and later Arab conquest. We've visited just two of them. I'm a bit ashamed, but I've forgotten the name of first of them. Silgara or something like this. the other one is Al-Bara, that's for sure.
Silgara is one of the nicest places I've visited here.
First of all, the way to it is really nice. I can not make photos of all those beautiful places I've passed on my way, but here's a pic I've made from the car. As You see, mountains are pretty green here. more interesting is how high are the fields there! Oh, and that they do not clear them of stones. I've noticed a strange thing, btw. It is usual for owners of shops to buy stuff people would like to buy to sell it from them. Here, somehow, when I'd eaten all sweets of one kind, they haven't bought more of them, though they can be sure I'd buy it. It was like that in two shops. Perhaps it's just a coincidence. or they do not like me

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the fields...

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OK. This is Silgara. it looks even nicer than on the pictures. Notice the trees growing inside ancient houses and us climbing them. We even used to have a battle throwing figues (sp?) at each other on the walls of one of them Also, notice the sheep. The place is filled with their souvenirs.
In Silgara a strange thing happened to us. We're students in Syria, we have legitimations.
However, the ticket boy didn't want to recognise them, he demanded international student carts...
Funny, isn't it... We're in Syria and he recognised international documents, nut not the syrian ones.

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me and my friends on the ruins

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part3

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here's a herd

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part5