Straight road (Damascus)

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Eastern end of the Straight Street at the East Gate ( Bab Sharqi ) with the Saint Sarkis Cathedral . In 2011, cars were still jammed here at the bottleneck of the historic gate going out of town, while other parts of the street were pedestrian zones .
Shari Bāb Sharqi with the east gate in the background, ca.1900
Roman triumphal arch 2001 with heavy traffic
Roman triumphal arch 2017 with lonely cyclist and pedestrian
Straight Damascus street and the Souq Madhat Pasha with its iron roof, before 1875
Suq Madhat Bāsha. Here the Straight Street has an iron roof and is paved with basalt stones as a pedestrian zone.
Shari Bāb Sharqi in the eastern part of the old town. The street was not that narrow in Roman times.
Triumphal arch with reference to the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, 2010

The Straight Street of Damascus ( Arabic الشارع المستقيم, DMG aš-Šāriʿ al-Mustaqīm , Latin Via Recta ) is a 1570 m long street in the old town of Damascus , which connects the city gate Bāb al-Jābiya in the west with the east gate Bāb Sharqi .

Mention in the Bible

In the Acts of the Apostles of Luke the road is mentioned in the 9th chapter after the blinded Paul of Tarsus (here called under his name Saul - the name Paul is only mentioned in the 13th chapter) after the Damascus experience, in which Jesus spoke to him , was taken to Damascus by his companions and did not eat or drink anything for three days. God said to Jesus' follower Ananias : "Get up and go to the street that is called The Straight and ask in the house of Judas for a man named Saul from Tarsus!" ( Acts 9.11  EU ), ancient Greek ἀναστὰς πορεύθητι ἐπὶ τὴν ῥύμην τὴν καλουμένην Εὐθεῖαν καὶ ζήτησον ἐν οἰκίᾳ Ἰούδα Σαῦλον ὀνόματι Ταρσέα ( Acts 9:11 NA28). Ananias, who initially doubts that Saul had persecuted followers of the Jesus movement as a Pharisee , obeys God, finds Saul and lays his hands on him. In the house of Judas it falls to Saul "like scales from his eyes": He can see again and is baptized ( Acts 9:18  EU ). Since Saul is now preaching the gospel, he is persecuted and flees Damascus by being lowered into a basket by the city wall by his followers at night ( Acts 9.25  EU ).

The Greek expression ἐπὶ τὴν ῥύμην τὴν καλουμένην Εὐθεῖαν means "to the street (ῥύμην) that is called the straight line (Εὐθεῖαν)" (in each case in the accusative with -ν), which means the Roman Via Recta . According to tradition, the House of Judas (οἰκία Ἰούδα) is located in the western part of Straight Street, about 450 m east of the western city gate, on the south side of the street (No. 9 in the map from 1855 ). This area belongs to the covered souq Madhat Bāscha. Today there is a small mosque with a pulpit-like balcony that serves as a minaret, the Dschakmak or Sheikh Nabhan mosque. According to Christian tradition, this mosque was built on the foundations of a very old church, which in turn arose from the house of Judas. Paul is said to have been baptized in this building after he had not eaten or drunk for three days. The owner of the house, Judas (Ἰούδας), is not specified further and does not coincide with other biblical persons of that name.

The house of Ananias is located off the main traffic axis in the very northeast of the old town on Hanania Street in the Christian quarter of Bab Tuma and today serves as a church (No. 4 in the map from 1855 and St Anania Church in the map from 1958 ).

According to tradition, Paul, in Arabic Bulos (بولس) called, lowered into the basket on Bab Kisan . The gate is also off the main traffic axis in the southeast of the old town. In 1939 the Pauluskapelle , Mar Bulos (مار بولس), furnished (No. 14 on the 1855 map and St Pauls Chapel on the 1958 map ).

history

In Roman times the street running in east-west direction was the Decumanus maximus , which connected the west gate Porta Occidentalis with the east gate Porta Orientalis , also the sun gate Porta Solis , and crossed in its center with the cardo running orthogonally to it . The Decumanus of Damascus was called Via Recta (Straight Street), a name that is still unofficially used in Arabic today (الشارع المستقيم, aš-Šāriʿ al-Mustaqīm ). The one and a half kilometer long street was 26 m wide - four times as wide as it is today - and was surrounded by pillars and market stalls.

During the Islamic conquest of Damascus in 636, Chālid ibn al-Walīd rode with his Islamic troops through the Porta Orientalis , the east gate, in Arabic Bab Sharqi , into the city, which ended Roman rule and began Islamic rule. The Via Recta kept its course in the following centuries until today, but became narrower and narrower over time, as the commercial areas and the buildings were expanded more and more towards the center. Today, the street is only a quarter of its original width, so it can no longer accommodate the amount of flowing traffic as it was in Roman times.

During the period of the French mandate between the two world wars, an ancient Roman triumphal arch was discovered 4.5 m below the ground, which was apparently part of a tetrapylon (Τετράπυλον, quadrifrons ) at the historic intersection of the Decumanus and the Cardo . It was excavated and rebuilt at street level. The crossing point in the middle of the old town 675 m west of Bab Sharqi is also considered to be the border between the three historical districts that had developed since the Islamic conquest: to the west of the triumphal arch is the Muslim part of the old town with its mosques, to the east the Christian and the Jewish part. In the eastern part, the Christian quarter with its churches and the city gates Bāb Tūmā (Thomastor) and Bab Sharqi is mainly north of Straight Street . South of Geraden Strasse was the Jewish quarter, but Jews left the country from the end of the 1940s, most recently in a wave of emigration in the 1990s. So the synagogues are orphaned today. After Damascus was selected as the Arab cultural capital of 2008, large parts of Straight Street were redesigned into a pedestrian zone and paved with black basalt stones.

Today the old Decumanus lies up to 5 m below the current pavement of the Šāri 'al-Mustaqīm , today's Straight Street. Only the east gate, Bab Sharqi, has been preserved as such with its three arches from Roman times, so it is the only one of the city gates to stand on the original street level, with the two small outer arches for pedestrians and the large middle one for vehicles.

Course and building

The western part of the straight road in the predominantly Muslim half of the old city of Damascus, between the west, toward the now-defunct town of al-Dschābiya looking Gate Bāb al-Dschābiya (باب الجابية) and the Roman triumphal arch is officially called Šāriʿ Madḥat Bāschā (شارع مدحت باشا), named after the Ottoman reformist Midhat Pasha (مدحت باشا). The westernmost part of the street is covered over several hundred meters with an arched iron roof. Here is the souq Madhat Bāschā (سوق مدحت باشا), the largest market in the old town. To the east of this is the Chan As'ad Pascha , north of the road behind a block. Passing it on the left you come north to the Umayyad Mosque . In the course of the Straight Street, an open section of Midhat Pascha Street follows over a length of 400 m to the Triumphal Arch.

The eastern half of the Straight Street of Damascus is officially named after the east gate and is therefore called Šāriʿ Bāb Šarqī (شارع باب شرقي). The Greek Orthodox patriarchy is already pointed out at the triumphal arch . The Greek Orthodox Mariamite Cathedral of Damascus stands behind a block that houses the Patriarchate, on the north side of Straight Street. About 300 m east of the triumphal arch branches to the north the road Šāriʿ Bāb Tūmā (شارع باب توما), which leads through the Christian quarter to the Thomastor ( Bāb Tūmā ). Most of the former Jewish quarter is located on the south side of Bāb Sharqi Street, but just before the east gate there are three cathedrals of different Christian churches to the south of the street in the Bāb Sharqi district named after the gate: about 100 m from the east gate is at the south side of the straight street, the St. Paul Cathedral of the Syrian Catholic Church , of which the south also called the al-Zeitoun Church known Melkite Greek Catholic cathedral. The Saint Sarkis Cathedral of the Armenian Apostolic Church is located directly at the Bāb Sharqi on the south side of Straight Street .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ ΠΡΑΞΕΙΣ ΑΠΟΣΤΟΛΩΝ. bibelwissenschaft.de, accessed on May 3, 2020 .
  2. ^ A b John Abela, OFM: Damascus - The Straight Street and the House of Judas ( Memento of May 9, 2004 in the Internet Archive ). Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land, April 28, 2001.
  3. ↑ Peter's pupil: Syria - past and present . In: In the land of the Lord. Franciscan magazine for the Holy Land , vol. 73, 2/2019, pp. 54–75, here pp. 64–66 ( The Chapel of St. Ananias ).
  4. ^ John Abela OFM: Damascus - The Place of St. Paul's Escape ( Memento of May 9, 2004 in the Internet Archive ). Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land, April 28, 2001.
  5. ↑ a b c d e f g Diana Darke: Syria . Bradt Travel Guides, 2006. pp. 91-95.
  6. ↑ Shaghour Jowani: Straight Street. Accessed April 30, 2020.

Coordinates: 33 ° 30 ′ 33 ″  N , 36 ° 18 ′ 41 ″  E