The majority of Syria’s publishing industry is concentrated in Damascus. Magazines and journals are run mostly by official or semiofficial bodies. Daily, weekly, and fortnightly newspapers are published, and all newspapers are subject to government restrictions. Leading dailies include the government publicationAl-Ḥurriyyah (formerlyTishrīn). TheSyrian Arab News Agency (SANA) is thecountry’s official, state-run news bureau.

Radio and television broadcasting in Syria is overseen by the Directorate-General of Radio and Television. Syrian radio broadcasting began in 1945 and grew to become a powerful rival of the local press. Radio broadcasts are mainly in Arabic but also in English, French, Turkish, Russian, Hebrew, and German, and they reach almost every Syrian home. The country’s first private radio station,Al-Madina FM, was launched in 2005.

The Syrian Television Service, which was established in 1960, reaches a large audience throughout the country. Television broadcasting includes educational and cultural programs, drama, music, news, and sports. Syrian television series are becoming increasingly popular throughout theArab world. Government control once shaped and limited the public’s perception of current events, but, as satellite dishes became more common, Syrians gained access to a broader selection of Middle Eastern and European programming.

Early history

History begins with theinvention ofwriting, which took place in southernBabylonia perhaps about 3000bce, the script being an original picture character that developed later intocuneiform. Modern research, however, suggests that clay tokens found at numerous ancient Middle Eastern sites from as early as 8000bce may have been used as anarchaic recording system and ultimately led to the invention of writing.

By the mid-3rd millenniumbce, various Semitic peoples had migrated into Syria-Palestine and Babylonia. Knowledge of this period has been enormouslyenhanced by theexcavations at Tell Mardīkh (ancientEbla), south ofAleppo. The palace has yielded more than 17,000 inscribed clay tablets, dated to about 2600–2500bce, which detail the social, religious, economic, and political life of this thriving and powerful Syrian kingdom. The language of Ebla has been identified as Northwest Semitic.

About 2320bceLugalzaggisi, the Sumerian ruler ofErech (Uruk), boasted of an empire that stretched to theMediterranean. It was short-lived; he was defeated by the SemiteSargon ofAkkad, who became the greatest conqueror and most famous name in Babylonian history. Sargon led his armies up the Euphrates to the “cedar mountain” (the Amanus) and beyond. Ebla was destroyed either by Sargon at this time or perhaps by his grandson, Naram-sin (c. 2275bce), and the region of Syria became part of the Akkadian empire. But thedynasty of Akkad was soon overthrown as its center and superseded by thedynasties first ofGuti and then ofUr.

Nothing certain is known about the authority (if any) that the kings of Ur exercised in Syria, so far away from their capital. The end of their dynasty, however, was brought about chiefly by the pressure of a new Semitic migration from Syria, this time of theAmorites (i.e., the westerners), as they were called in Babylonia. Between about 2000 and 1800bce they covered both Syria andMesopotamia with a multitude of small principalities and cities, mostly governed by rulers bearing some name characteristic of the Semiticdialect that the Amorites spoke. The period of Amorite ascendancy is vividly mirrored in theMari Letters, a great archive of royal correspondence found at the site ofMari, near the modern frontier withIraq. Among the principal figures mentioned are the celebrated lawgiverHammurabi of Babylon (himself an Amorite) and a king of Aleppo, part of whose kingdom was the city ofAlalakh, on the Orontes near what was laterAntioch. Around 1600bce northern Syria, including the cities of Alalakh, Aleppo, and Ebla in its Amorite phase, suffered destruction at the hands of the aggressiveHittite kings,Hattusilis I orMursilis I, from centralAnatolia.

Earlier, in the 18th centurybce, a movement of people from Syria had begun in the opposite direction. This resulted in theHyksos infiltration and eventual seizure (c. 1674bce) of regal authority in northernEgypt, which was subject to this foreign domination for 108 years. The mixed multitude of the Hyksos certainly includedHurrians, who were under the rule and influence of anIndo-European-speaking people and learned from them the use of light chariots and horses in warfare, which they introduced into Egypt, Syria, and Mesopotamia. The Hurrians established the kingdom ofMitanni, with its center east of the Euphrates, and this was for long the dominant power in Syria, reaching its height in the 15th centurybce. Documentary evidence for the Mitanni period comes from excavations made in the 1970s at Tall Hadidi (ancient Azu), at the edge of Lake Al-Assad.

But other nations were growing at the same time, and in the 14th century Syria was the arena in which at least four great competitors contended. The Hurrians were first in possession, and they maintained friendly relations with Egypt, which, after expelling the Hyksos, had established a vast sphere of influence in Palestine and Syria under the kings of the 18th dynasty. Third of the powers disputing Syria in the 14th century were theHittites, who finally, under their greatest warrior,Suppiluliumas (c. 1350bce), not only defeated the kingdom of Mitanni but established a firm dominion of their own in northern Syria with its principal centers at Aleppo andCarchemish. Fourth was the rising kingdom ofAssyria, which became a seriouscontender in the reign ofAshur-uballit I.

This was the period of theAmarna Letters, which vividly illustrate the decline of Egyptian influence in Syria (especially underAkhenaton), the distress orduplicity of local governors, and the rivalry of the aforesaid powers. Egyptians and Hittites continued their struggle into the 13th century; theBattle of Kadesh (c. 1290bce) led to a treaty maintaining equal balance. Assyria had already swept away the remains of Mitanni but itself soon fell into decline, and the Hittites were not long afterward driven from their center in Asia Minor by the migration of “peoples of the sea,” western invaders from the isles of the Aegean and from Europe. The dislocation of peoples at this time apparently also led to the migration into northern Syria of a related Indo-European group from Anatolia, the so-called Neo-Hittites. They established a number of principalities, and the area became known as “Hatti-land.”

As early as the 14th century various documents mention theAkhlame, who were forerunners of anothervast movement of Semitic tribes called, generically,Aramaeans. By the end of the 13th century these had covered with their small and loose principalities the whole of central and northern Syria. TheAssyrians, however, were able to guard their homeland from this penetration, and henceforth much of the warfare of Assyrian kings was aimed at theAramaean states of Syria. At about the same time as the Aramaean invasion, the exodus ofIsraelite tribes from Egypt was proceeding. As the Israelites toward the end of the 11th century established a kingdom centered uponJerusalem, the Aramaeans set up their principal kingdom atDamascus; the wars between kings of Judah or ofIsrael and kings ofAram make up much ofOld Testament history.

But the mostformidable enemies of the Aramaeans and often of the Hebrews were the great military kings of the Assyrians. In the 9th and 8th centuriesbce the Assyrian empire was established over the west. At the Battle ofKarkar in 853bce,Shalmaneser III of Assyria was opposed by Bar-Hadad I (HebrewBen-hadad I; throne name Hadadezer; Akkadian Adad-idri) of Damascus, Ahab of Israel, and 12 vassal monarchs. In 732 Damascus, the Syrian capital, was at length captured byTiglath-pileser III. But campaigns against the Aramaeans and Neo-Hittites of northern Syria had to be undertaken by the Assyrians until almost the end of the Assyrian empire. Culturally, the most important achievement of the Aramaeans was the bringing of the alphabet into general use for public and private business.

Before the close of the 8th centurybce a massive southward movement of people, partly of Aryan descent, began from the north and west. Pressure of this movement upon the Assyrian dominions and homeland became ever more severe, and it deeply affected Syria also. In the 7th century there came the invasion of theCimmerians, followed by theScythians. To these and to theMedes Assyria finallysuccumbed with the fall ofNineveh in 612bce.Nebuchadrezzar II, crown prince of Babylon, finally defeated the attempted rescue of Assyria byNecho II, king of Egypt, andannihilated his army atCarchemish in 605bce. In 597 he captured Jerusalem and carried its people into exile. Thereafter, Syria was for half a century under the rule of Nebuchadrezzar’s successors on the throne of Babylon.

But another and greater power, thePersians, then came to the fore. Under the leadership ofCyrus II they extended their conquests into Asia Minor and then came to a final collision with Babylon, which Cyrus occupied in 539bce. He sent back the exiled Jewishcommunity to Jerusalem, encouraging them to rebuild their Temple. InDarius I’s great organization of thePersian dominions, Syria, with Palestine andCyprus, was the fifth satrapy, bearing the name of “Across the River” (i.e., the Euphrates), with tribute fixed at 350 talents of silver. Damascus and thePhoenician cities were still the chief centers of Syria under the Persians, and inSidon was the core of the Phoenician revolt againstArtaxerxes III, which ended with the destruction of that city in 345bce. But by this time, the end of the Persian domination was at hand, and theMacedonians underAlexander the Great were about to bring the wholeMiddle East under Greek rule and influence.

Alexander invaded Asia Minor in 334bce, and his victory over the Persians atIssus in 333 was followed by the capture and enslavement ofTyre and Gaza. With theBattle of Gaugamela and the destruction ofPersepolis, the downfall ofPersia was complete.