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  Apamea Layout

Apamea was built by Seleucos Nikator, the descendent of Alexander the Macedonian and founder of the Seleucid state in the third century B.C. He named it after his beloved Persian wife Apama.
In the surrounding areas of Apamea human remnants were discovered, which belonged to the Old Stone Age and the Medium Stone Age, also findings were made that belonged to the ages that followed the Stone Age. In the fifth century A.D. Apamea became the second capital of Syria, after Antioch .
Apamea was hit by earthquakes, the latest and strongest of which were in 1157 and 1170 A.D.which completely destroyed it .

 The city was hidden under debris and soil for long centuries, and its name disappeared from known history.

Apamea the genious of architecture
Apamea is located at 55 km to the north west of the city of Hama in the middle of Syria, its area covers 250 hectares stretching on a flat hill. The Romans surrounded it with 7 km long stone walls on the ruins of the Hellenistic walls, and built four main gates in it. Its great street with colonnades crosses the city from north to south, and is 1820 m long. On the sides of this street public constructions such as shops, temples and a public bath were constructed. This street is crossed by a number of side streets in the form of chessboard, and leads to the public square or the Forum, which was constructed above the Greek public square or the Hellenistic Agora. The city also includes a Roman theatre which was at that time the biggest of the Roman theaters,its diameter being 139 meters.

Discovery of Apamea
The ruins of the city were discovered in 1835 without being able to determine its identity.The first to start their excavations and studies was Professor Fernand Mayence in 1932,and was followed by Henri Lacoste (1947-1953) then by Professor Charles Palty in 1947,all of whom are Belgian.
 

The story of restoring Apamea In a statement to the Syrian press on 1/6/1997, Eng. Dr.Osmane AIDI spoke about the project of restoring Apamea saying: After obtained at the end of 1955 a degree of State Doctorate in Engineering , Hydrological Sciences, Dams and Mechanics of Fluids, from the Sorbonne University, and came back to Syria on 20/1/1956 I was appointed as Technical Director of the Major Projects in Syria . On the 6th of February of the same year,when I was searching for a location for ...

a dam to replace Halfaya dam ( which now became the Mehardeh dam) , I passed by an area where I discovered a number of columns standing in half ,and heaps of large stones and engraved, decorated chapiters indicating the greatness of a city buried under soil . No one could comment on these ruins. Having resumed my search and inquiry of the name of that city, I was told that it was "Apamea .
Therefore, Eng. Dr. Osmane AIDI decided since 1990, to work at resurrecting the city , and to finance restoration works which have amounted up to date to about 150 millionSyrian Pounds, the equivalent of three million US Dollars.

Restoration works
 Restoration works started in 1990. Hundreds of columns were raised on the sides of the great main street. Also a large group of stores were rebuilt at the sidesof the street behind the columns, exactly as they were in the ancient city.A wonderful, rare of its kind faade was raised in the northern half of the street .This faade is higher than all the columns of Apamea . At its top there is a front of a veiled, decorative architectural style showing the greatness and magnificence of the architectural art in Apamea. This faade fronted an important building which might have been a palace, or a temple dating back to the Roman age.
Also in 1994 an important arch was erected, connecting the main street with one of the side streets.

The land of Apamea still hides much of the remnants of the old city which was destroyed by earthquakes, and the Osmane Mounif AIDI Foundation for Heritage, Culture and Sciences will resume the excavation works for whatever can be dug out from underground, and the restoration of whateveris possible to restore, so that the city retrieves all of its magnificence and splendor.