Syrian Firsts: The Alphabet, the Oldest Melody, Pulmonary Circulation and More

Walking the old streets of Syria, you walk where things we use every day began. Here is a list of some of the "firsts" tied to this land.

1. The alphabet

At Ugarit near Latakia archaeologists found one of the oldest complete alphabets, thirty letters from the fourteenth century BC — the idea of one letter per sound on which the writing you are reading now is built.

2. The oldest written melody

Also at Ugarit a tablet preserves a Hurrian hymn with instructions for playing it — the oldest substantially complete notated song known.

3. One of the oldest archives

The archive of Ebla near Idlib: thousands of tablets from the third millennium BC, including bilingual word lists among the oldest "dictionaries" in history.

4. Glassblowing

Glassblowing is thought to have appeared on the Syro-Phoenician coast around the first century BC, spreading from there across the Roman Empire. Hand-blown glass is still made in Damascus — see our Damascus crafts guide.

5. Words named after Damascus

• Damask: the patterned cloth Damascus was famous for.
• Damascus steel: the rippled steel of legendary swords.
• Damson: a plum named after Damascus.
• Rosa damascena: the Damascene rose.

6. Ibn al-Nafis and pulmonary circulation

Ibn al-Nafis was born in Damascus around 1213 and studied medicine there before working in Cairo. He described pulmonary circulation — blood passing from the heart through the lungs and back — some three centuries before it was known in Europe.

7. Ibn al-Shatir and the Umayyad Mosque's clock

Ibn al-Shatir (fourteenth century) was the timekeeper of the Umayyad Mosque, fixing prayer times by astronomy. He built a great sundial for the mosque and devised models of planetary motion that historians note are strikingly similar to those Copernicus proposed about two centuries later.

8. Laurel soap

Aleppo soap, made from olive and laurel oil for many centuries, is considered one of the oldest hard soaps.