Collapsed buildings are seen by the home windows of a damaged home following a devastating earthquake in the city of Jinderis, Aleppo province, Syria, Thursday, February 9, 2023. The quake that razed 1000’s of buildings was one of many deadliest worldwide in greater than a decade.
| Photo Credit: AP
Three ancient cities suffered widespread destruction in Monday’s large earthquake in Turkey and Syria: Antakya, Sanliurfa and Aleppo.
Here are some key info:
Antakya/Antioch
Antakya, a metropolis of round 250,000 individuals in south-central Turkey, massive elements of which have been diminished to rubble, was as soon as the ancient metropolis of Antioch which rivalled Alexandria as a serious centre of early Christianity and was a key staging level on the Silk Road.
Founded in 300 BC by a former basic of Alexander the Great, it was by flip Roman, Hellenistic, Byzantine and Ottoman earlier than changing into an autonomous metropolis in French-ruled Syria after World War I after which later Turkey in 1939.
But little remained of the ancient metropolis, which included magnificent temples, theatres, aqueducts, and baths, in modern-day Antakya, capital of the province of Hatay.
A metropolis with a unbroken robust Syrian affect, it took in massive numbers of refugees fleeing the civil battle throughout the border simply 20 kilometres (12 miles) away.
Antakya can also be house to one among southern Turkey’s oldest Jewish communities, centred on a synagogue that was damaged in the quake. Expressing fears for the way forward for Jewish life in the town, the president of the Turkish Jewish neighborhood Ishak Ibrahimzade tweeted Monday: “The end of a 2,500-year-old love story.”
Sanliurfa
Sanliurfa, previously Urfa the Glorious, is the house of the world’s oldest identified megalithic constructions located at Gobekli Tepe (Potbelly Hill), a UN World Heritage Site, in southeastern Anatolia.
Around 7,000 years earlier than the pyramids of Egypt had been constructed, hunter-gatherers erected monumental enclosures with distinctive T-shaped pillars on the web site, which may have been affected by the quake, in keeping with the UN cultural company UNESCO.
Also previously known as Edessa, Sanliurfa was a serious centre of Syrian tradition and was occupied by the Crusaders earlier than being annexed by the Ottoman Empire.
It was the scene of the 1895 bloodbath of three,000 Armenians who had taken refuge in the cathedral solely to be burned alive.
The capital of one among southeastern Turkey’s poorest provinces, Sanliurfa was arduous hit by the battle in neighbouring Syria. 1 / 4 of its inhabitants is made up of refugees.
Aleppo
Aleppo is without doubt one of the oldest cities in the world to have been consistently inhabited since a minimum of 4,000 BC, due to its strategic place between the Mediterranean and Mesopotamia in present-day Iraq.
Before the quake, Syria’s second-largest metropolis had already been closely damaged by 4 years of combating from 2012-2016 in the civil battle, which left the previous rebel-held east in ruins.
In July 2015, a blast destroyed a part of the ramparts that encompass a thirteenth century citadel, whereas in September 2012, a blaze swept by ancient outlets in the town’s well-known souk, or market, and in April 2013, the minaret of the historic Omayyades mosque collapsed throughout fierce combating.
The quake comes lower than a year-and-a-half after the souk was reopened following a serious restoration effort.
In a preliminary evaluation, UNESCO on Tuesday cited “significant damage” to the citadel and mentioned the western tower of the previous metropolis wall had collapsed and several other buildings in the souks had been weakened.
