Aleppo Postcard

Citadel, Aleppo, Syria The citadel hill of Aleppo is one of the oldest and continuously populated castles of the world. Its first fortification dates from the 3rd millennium BC. Hittites, Assyrians and Babylonians conquered, constructed and defended the hill. Alexander the Great conquered it and gave Aleppo to Seleucos Nikator who transformed it into a Hellenistic city. After the Greeks, the Roman legions arrived. Rome and Constantinople ruled Aleppo until the arrival of the Islam. Since then Aleppo became a border town between the Ummayad and Abbaside empires, Byzance and the Fatimides and later the crusaders and the Muslim states. Both Mongol invasions conquered the citadel, but it was rebuilt in 1260 and in 1401. The Ottoman period gave more stability, Istanbul held the Syrian territories firmly. Aleppo became a commercial metropolis and the citadel became a simple garrison. The first archaeological excavations and reconstructions were organised during the French mandate.