Syria: A shoe shop owner in the restored handicraft suq within Aleppo's Great Bazaar

Aleppo's Great Bazaar (in Arabic, suq or souq) as we know it today was rebuilt first by the Egyptian Mamelukes who drove out the Mongols, and then, after 1516, by the Turks who incorporated Aleppo into the Ottoman Empire.

Aleppo, the second city of Syria and quite possibly the longest continually inhabited settlement in the world, is of venerable age. So old, indeed, that its Arabic name, Halab, is first mentioned in Semitic texts of the third millennium BC. Situated in the north-west of the country, just a few kilometres from the Turkish frontier, Aleppo is located at the confluence of several great trade routes and, as a city of commerce, has always been rich.

Copyright:

CPA Media Co. Ltd.

Photographer:

David Henley

Credit:

Pictures From Asia