Importance and Diversity
I have returned to England and after a few days of sleep and some starchy foods, I am beginning to feel well again. The 54 hours I spent on various planes, trains, and automobiles from Damascus to Oxford was among the more challenging journeys I have undertaken. I would not recommend it to anyone, but I did save a fair amount of money this way and the route afforded me numerous opportunities that I would not have had otherwise. An open mind is invaluable on the road.

Impressions
This summer's trip was short compared to my previous wanderings but the impression it left on me was no less significant. Syria is not like any other place I have seen, and a visit to the country is like no other visit I have ever made. This was a summer of surprises. I was surprised to by the Syrian people and their generosity. I was surprised by the diversity of cultures I encountered there. I was surprised by how sick the food made me. I was surprised by how much the Internet has affected young people there, and I was surprised by how fantastically different the climate is as you move around.

Through all of these surprises, I was left with the impression that Syria is significantly more complex than I had been led to believe. I knew better than to believe it was a nation of Muslim fanatics who supported terrorism and had a blanket hate for the West; I am not talking about those kinds of generalizations. I mean that Syria is a catchall for a great many things. They are a people with such a dense history and confluence of cultures that every individual you meet will be impressively unique, often in ways that they themselves pay little attention to. In Syria, words like Sunni, Shiite, Kurd, Armenian, Druze, Alawi, Aramean, Shami, Badew, Iraqi, Halabi, and so on, are used with much greater frequency than cultural terms in other countries I have visited. Syria is the great melting pot, or at least stew bowl, of the Middle East.

History
It was deeply meaningful to me, on a personal as well as professional level, to stand in the ruins of so many ancient sites this summer. As an ancient historian, I spend a great amount of time thinking about what life was like "back then," but it is an entirely different experience to actually stand in the heart of an ancient city. I do not think I needed the lesson, but it made it more real to me, if such a thing was possible.

But there was another level of history that affected me this summer, and one that is equally important. The current events in the Middle East, and in Iraq in particular, are having a tremendous impact on the lives of millions of people. This number is barely recognizable to most minds, a million, but to actually stand in front of dozens of destitute refugees and know that they represent a miniscule fraction of the amount of suffering and hurt going on is a very jagged pill to swallow.

For me, the most astonishing thing was the simultaneity of the two feelings. To stand in an ancient city pondering the lives of people who lived four thousand years ago one minute, and then to walk through a city that is completely transformed by the Iraqi refugee crisis another minute, and to try to understand both situations from a humanist and humanistic standpoint, is rather overwhelming.

Closure
Thanks to Jiihad for all the help you gave me whilst traveling to Aleppo. Thanks to Davide and Gabriella for showing us around Ebla. Most of all, thanks again to Nora, my beneficent traveling companion, for yet another place I could not have reached without your assistance.

I accomplished all of my goals for this summer. I successfully found every archaeological site and museum that I had hoped to visit, and I managed restore my Arabic to the level I was at in Tunisia. Thanks to Nora's tutelage, I also made serious strides into learning the Syrian dialect, which will certainly be more valuable to me in the future than Tunisian. I improved, but I still have a long way to go.

I had a wonderful time in Syria, and the Syrian people are some of the kindest and most generous people I have met in the entire world. Some of the people we spoke to asked me to go back and tell the West, "See, we are not terrorists. We want only peace." I am not naive enough to suggest that things are as simple as that, but I do believe that the Syrian people themselves feel that they have been represented falsely by the media. I personally enjoyed the company of the Syrian people very much. I did not just enjoy the country, I enjoyed the company of the people that live there as well, which is a distinction too few western scholars make. I think life is difficult in Syria, for foreigners or otherwise, but I would certainly go back if I get the opportunity. There is history there, both ancient and modern, that feels very important.

Excerpt from the Hittite-Egyptian Treaty following the battle of Qadesh
Behold, we will create our peaceful brotherhood, far better than the peaceful brotherhood of Egypt and Hatti from old times. Behold, Ramesses, Great King, King of Egypt, is in good peaceful brotherhood with Hattushili, Great King, King of Hatti. Behold, the children of Ramesses, Beloved of Amon, Great King, King of Egypt, will also be in peaceful brotherhood with the children of Hattushili, Great King, King of Hatti, forever. Following our understanding of peaceful brotherhood, they, along with Egypt and Hatti, will be peaceful brothers like us, forever.(lines 17-21)