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One cannot visit this Palace of the Desert without making sure that it has not rained before your arrival and
also having the services of a guide who knows well the desert tracks. The road is not too long since out of the
120 kilometers separating Palmyra from Qasr El-Heir Esh-Sharqi you will follow 80 km. of the excellent Deir-Ezzor
road up to Sukhneh. From there you will follow a track leading to Resafa through Et-Taybeh, about 25 km. from Sukhneh,
following a track the Romans made in 79 A.D. under Vespasian. A system of fortified outposts was established in
Syria at that time.
After Et-Taybeh, the road turns definitely to the east and you can see the ruins of Qasr El-Heir Esh-Sharqi 15
km. away. You will reach it at the outer wall, rather well preserved in its southeastern angle (you will arrive
from the west) which has a series of round shaped towers and walls of beautiful white limestone. It is a wall used
rather to surround a vast agricultural exploitation or a hunting reserve, like Qasr El-Heir EI-Gharbi than as a
defensive wall. Inside it there is a residence built by the Caliph Hisham in 729, and beside it a fortified walled
village with four defensive gates, one in the middle of each side of a square enclosure. The residence, similar
in layout to that of the western palace is now only a heap of ruins. Between both monuments, about forty meters
apart, stands a fairly well preserved minaret.
The grain-cultivated steppe, on the Syrian plateau, constitutes the Western and Northern parts of the Fertile Crescent
proper. This plateau slopes down from West to East towards Mesopotamia. It is the most important geographical feature
of Syria, which since time immemorial has determined its agricultural leaning, the source of its prosperity. At
the foot of the second mountain lie almost the totality of large towns of the country. The relative wealth of this
grain belt, squeezed between mountain and desert, is in fact dependent on the climate (on rainfalls which are irregular
from year to year, hovering between 500 mm. and 250 mm. per year, with a dry period of more than five months commencing
in April). From the south, northeast of the Jordanian border, up to the river Tigris, the Fertile Crescent consists
of a large number of geologically different soils.
We first find the high plains of Hauran and Golan (their fertility is legendary), where the rich soils originate
from the decomposition of volcanic rocks. Further to the north is the Ghouta, the miraculous oasis of Damascus,
squeezed between the Anti-Lebanon mountain and the desert, which owes its existence to the river Barada, a small
river which, according to Arab poets, makes it the beauty-spot of the earth.
From Homs to Aleppo, beyond a mountainous range which cuts into the desert from the Anti-Lebanon, spreads the main
agricultural area of Syria, an endless flat expanse of grain, cotton and sugar-beet fields dotted with vines, pistachio
trees, (especially around Aleppo), and olive groves. Between the Middle-Euphrates and the upper Tigris basins,
at the foot of the mountains of Anatolia, the Djezirah (the « island ») has been, since Neolithic ages
up to the second millenary B.C., one of the most fertile « provinces » of the Near-East. The number
and importance of cities and villages now buried under artificial hills rising high above the plains leaves us
no doubt of its past fertility. Wars over the centuries, and the movement of nomads made the Djezirah almost a
desert, devoted to extensive breeding of sheep and goats until the second World War. Things have changed since,
and thanks to important hydraulic works (dam on the Euphrates, development of the Khabour), this vast expanse of
land made up of river sediments in the South and rather fertile red earths, more regularly watered by rain in the
North, seems promised to have a bright future. It could, following millenaries of lying fallow, become again the
main granary of Syria, at the same time as being its biggest producer of cotton.
The climate of this part of the Fertile Crescent is continental. It is therefore characterized by great temperature
differences. Snow is not rare in Damascus or Aleppo, but on the other hand, summer heat is alleviated by altitude,
except in the valley of the Euphrates and the Djezirah
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