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Damascus
built 655 days ago
Damascus is a small community southeast of Portland, at the end of Foster Road, nine miles from 82nd Avenue. Its first settlers moved there in the 1850’s. Edward Pedigo, a potter who moved there from Iowa in 1854 is credited with thinking of the name Damascus. He was drawn to the rich red clay on the hills above the Clackamas River that would make his bean pots and jars famous.
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T[H]e name "Damascus" is attributed by some scholars to Damaskos, son of Hermes, who is said to have lived in this area and given it his name. Others attribute the name to the myth of Askos or that of Damas, who accompanied Dionysias, and offered him a skene (skin) ... the name "Damaskene". While others believe that the origin of the name came from Damakina, the wife of the god of water. Linguistically analysed, some feel that the name "Damascus" was derived from " The Water Land".
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Damascus has more than 200 mosques, of which 70 are still in use. Of these, the Umayyad Mosque, or Great Mosque, is the most important. Said to have been a heathen temple, it was converted into a Christian church at the end of the 4th century. It then contained what was believed to be the head of Saint John the Baptist and was named the Cathedral of Saint John. Other noteworthy mosques are the Sinani-yah, with a striking green-tiled tower, and the Tekkeyah, which was founded in 1516 on the riverbank west of the city as a refuge for poor pilgrims. The National Library, the National Museum, and the University of Damascus (1923) are in the city.
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The best Damascus knife blanks will have a clear pattern that, when you view the blank from the edge, lines up fairly straight with the blade. Damascus knife blanks are ideal for keeping an edge because the dark lines in that pattern are the hardest part of the knife. In addition to flat, parallel patterning, you should look for Damascus knife blanks that have beautiful and regular patterns; the pattern in your Damascus knife blank should resemble the wood of fine furniture.
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Thenceforth Damascus seems to have lost its autonomy. Jeremias (49:27) threatens it with new chastisements, a proof that it had risen from its decay; ... it appears only occasionally in the history of the Jews, Greeks and Romans. After the battle of Issus (333 B.C.) the city, which held the wives and treasures of Darius, was betrayed to Parmenion. It soon became, next to Antioch, the most important city of Syria. From 112 to 85 B.C. it was the capital of a little Graeco-Roman kingdom, but fell successively into the power of Aretas III, King of Petra, of Tigranes, King of Armenia, and finally of the Roman general Metellus. In 64 B.C. Pompey received there the ambassadors and gifts of the neighbouring kings; in the following year Syria became a Roman province.
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After the permanent split (395) of the Roman Empire, Damascus became a provincial capital of the Byzantine Empire. The Arabs, who had attacked and sporadically held the city since before the time of Paul, occupied it permanently in 635. The city was then gradually converted to Islam, and the Christian church built by Theodosius was rebuilt (705) as the Great Mosque. Damascus was the seat of the caliphate under the Umayyads from 661 until 750, when the Abbasids made Baghdad the center of the Muslim world. Damascus thereafter fell prey to new conquerors—the Egyptians, the Karmathians, and the Seljuk Turks (1076).
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