Damascus · 1934 — one of the earliest references describing Rastan and its antiquities
The renowned archaeological tour of the Levant by the scholar Ahmad Wasfi Zakariyya (1889–1964) devotes pages to Rastan: its paved street, its columns and its old twelve-arched bridge — the very account this site quotes. The work is in the public domain; the digital copy comes from the Internet Archive.
«Rastan is an ancient little town halfway between Hama and Homs; remains surviving to this day attest to its former grandeur, and it sits on a height overlooking the Orontes.»
«In its southern quarter I saw the traces of a straight, broad, paved street like the straight streets of Damascus, Palmyra and Apamea; the bases of its massive columns still stand in plain sight, running for some three hundred metres.»
«The lands of Rastan are broad and fertile, with red soil yielding the finest grain; its houses on the hill still look down from on high upon the Orontes — finely built, most of them of black stone.»
«This bridge is mighty, stretching from west to east, its deck level and its arches twelve; at its side are weirs over which the waters of the Orontes pour.»
The full Rastan chapter is on pages 313–316 of the book — open the chapter directly ↗
