The bronze colonnade in Marjeh square was erected in 1907 to commemorate the opening of the first telegraphic link in the Middle East - the line between Damascus and Medina (now in Saudi Arabia). On this spot, on May 6, 1916, Ottoman authorities hanged tens of Arab national leaders who called for independence from Turkey. Since then, Marjeh Square has been known as Sahet al-Shuhadaa - Martyrs' Square. The plate on the base of the colonnade is in Turkish, which used to be written in Arabic script until Kemal Ataturk ordered a change to a modified Latin alphabet in 1928.
4 comments:
It's nice to see the monument and a street scene! Like seeing into another world so far from mine.
Best Wishes
:: LUNA ::
marhaba Ayman,
Its the first time I read that the colonnade is bronze. I always thought it was made up of stone. I keep discovering news things about monuments in this wonderful city.
Nice photo. It looks like that they rennovated the Saha. I want to ask you, when I visited damascus a year ago they was some consturction work going on opposite to the Abed building. Is it finished, and what is the new building??
Amr
Yes that's right, Serbest. This building is supposed to become the Yalbugha Islamic Center. The project was actually started in 1976. Last month, Nidal Maalouf, from the Syrian Economic Center, wrote an interesting article that highlighted people's disappointment about how the building they waited to see for 28 years has recently been covered by a giant ad for a cellphone company, a sign that work on the "project" won't be done anytime soon, or maybe won't ever be done. Read the article at:
http://www.seczn.com/viewnews.php?nseq=16680
They were young Turks Amyn not Ottomans swho hanged Arabs. Ottomans in their whole history never adopted hostility to Syrians or Arabs neither Arabs show any hostility to Ottomans. Young Turks was an org established by Jews of Salonika who intentionally adopted a policy so that Arabs could be revolted against Ottomans.
On the other hand Lawrence of Arabia was working on organizing revolt against Ottomans in Arab provinces.
It was a conspiracy to breakdown an Islamic super power.
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