[Studio portrait of models wearing traditional clothing from the province of Halep (Aleppo), Ottoman Empire]

Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, is one of the longest continuously inhabited cities in the world. From its early origins, Aleppo was a place where people grew wealthy. Cuneiform tablets from roughly four thousand years ago tell of a settlement called ‘Halabu’ — eventually Aleppo — that was even then a center for the manufacture of garments and cloth. Located not far from the Mediterranean Sea on one side and the river valley of the mighty Tigris and Euphrates on the other, the city found itself in the middle of ancient Egyptian and Hittite trade routes. The Seleucids, a Greek dynasty descended from one of the lieutenants of Alexander the Great, developed the area further, while certain colonnaded avenues and courtyard homes in Aleppo today bear the tell-tale signs of Roman craftsmanship and Hellenistic urban planning. Following the advent of Islam and into the medieval era, Aleppo became a hub of the Silk Road, a giant entrepot pooling in all the riches of China and India for buyers further west, north, and south. The city’s Great Mosque and Citadel is built by Turco-Arabs atop earlier Roman and Byzantine structures. The city was on the frontlines of the Crusades. In 1119, an army comprising Aleppans, Kurds and Arab tribesmen annihilated a whole Crusader force in a battle remembered by Latin chroniclers as Ager Sanguinis — “field of blood.” For centuries thereafter, Aleppo was a prize competed over by various warring Turkic and Arab dynasties. In 1400, the Mongol warlord Timur overran the city. One chronicler described the raid “like a razor over hair” and “locusts over a green crop.” Timur, according to accounts, piled high a mountain of thousands of skulls outside the city gates. Aleppo endured, and would go on to be ruled for nearly four centuries under the suzerainty of the Ottoman empire and later, in the early 20th century, by French imperial mandate. It remained a busy mercantile center until Syrian civil war of 2010s.

Pascal Sebah was a pioneering photographer in Constantinople (now Istanbul) in the late 19th century. He was born in Istanbul to an Armenian family and began his career as a photographer in the early 1850s. Sebah quickly gained recognition for his work, which included portraits, landscapes and architectural photographs. He became particularly famous for his images of Ottoman architecture, which were widely distributed throughout Europe and helped shape Western perceptions of the Ottoman Empire. Sebah's studio, which he founded in 1857, became one of the most important photographic studios in Constantinople, attracting clients from all over the Ottoman Empire. Today, Sebah's photographs are highly prized by collectors and considered important historical documents of Ottoman society and culture.

• [Studio portrait of models wearing traditional clothing from the ...
• [Studio portrait of models wearing traditional clothing from the ...
• Photo: Studio Models, Province of Halep, Aleppo ... - Amazon.com
• Photo, Print, Drawing, Available Online, Syria, French, Aleppo ...
• Photo, Print, Drawing, Available Online, French, Syria, English ...
• 79 Pascal sébah Images: Library Of Congress Public Domain Search
• 135 Ottoman Images: Library Of Congress Public Domain Search
• 4266 Bedouins Images: PICRYL Public Domain Search
• Aleppo | PICRYL collections
• Photo: Studio Models, Province of Diarbekir ... - Amazon.com