The swift-flowing Orontes (al-Assi) sweeps through the center of Hama. Its steep banks are lined with gigantic water wheels, or norias, whose water-logged wooden pins and plugs, ages old, shriek, grind, groan, moan and cajole, like anguished or recalcitrant camels. The sound, as abrasive as the wooden fragments themselves, slices through the soft, sweet air.

Hama, just two hundred and nine kilometers north of Damascus, is unlike any other Middle Eastern city. The chaos of its recent history has been resolved by a kind of apathy, or perhaps gentleness, a neatness -- clean and kind -- as orderly as it is unhurried. Hama is a leisurely lunch at a family-style restaurant, in a pavilion under the shade trees that border the river, water wheels and the ruins of a Roman aqueduct to accompany the eggplant salad, the chunks of tomatoes still warm from the sun-drenched vine, oregano from the hillsides and fresh mint from the soggy rim of a spring.

Hama is a quiet stroll through the reconstructed lanes of the old city, that follow the edge of the river down to the bridge next to the al-Nuri mosque, opposite the beautiful marble Apamee Cham Palace Hotel. The children, at sundown, from every rooftop or tree branch, fling themselves, laughing merrily, into the water. We can see them from the window of our room, or watch them from the riverbank, until time for evening prayers.

The magnificent new archaeological museum, a white marble palace devoted to Hama's history and culture, is just a short walk up the hill. Its careful displays stress the importance of pre-Islamic Hama, known from descriptions in Assyrian texts as "Hamath", the name both of the capital and the Late Bronze Age principality, as well as the later Iron Age kingdom.

Hama was excavated by a Danish team from 1931 to 1938, who uncovered a long series of construction phases, labeled from "M" (Neolithic) to "A" (Medieval). The earliest phases, many of them nearly obliterated by subsequent occupation, were exposed only in isolated areas on the ancient tel, which is also framed in the window of my hotel room. It measures four hundred by three hundred meters, with cemetery areas, including one cremation site, to the south and west.

The Bronze Age (phases J, H, G) yielded, unhappily, only a bare sampling of dwellings, confined along narrow lanes, and presumed to be contemporary to the mentions of Hama, referred to then as "Amatu", in Second Millennium texts from nearby Ebla. By the Middle Bronze Age large cylindrical grain silos had also been constructed, right in the center of the town, not unlike the singular silos, often dwellings as well, still in existence, whose choppy silhouettes, like clusters of oversized beehives or gigantic termite mounds, rise above the landscape of the villages throughout the countryside surrounding Hama: white-washed, mud-brick structures of one chamber, entered by a diminutive aperture, windowless and lightless, whose thick walls maintain an even temperature -- ideal for hay and fodder-- both summer and winter.

The neo-Hittite Iron Age city (phases F, E) with its monumental edifications, and gateway flanked, just as at Ain Dara, with colossal stone statues of lions, was associated especially with its grand temple, scant remains of which have been unearthed in the excavations, and the lavish palace, one of those sumptuous residential complexes intended to emulate the grandeur of Zimri-Lim's legendary palace in Mari. The palace had been erected inside a fortified façade, behind an entrance courtyard, and included numerous archives and storerooms, with the royal residence, as was the custom, on the upper level. At this point "Hamath" had been incorporated as a northern province of Luhiti-Hatarikka, a neo-Hittite kingdom that later controlled the upper Syro-Phoenician coastal strip, in the area around Ugarit and present-day Latakia, and east as far as the Khabur basin.

Several non-aligned Aramean clans nevertheless managed to take control of a number of the neo-Hittite, as well as the Amorite and Canaanite sites in the region, including Hama and Damascus; but while the Aramean groups never united and never constituted a cohesive hegemony, they posed a persistent threat to the other polities of the region. By the tenth century B.C. they appear to have occupied key cities throughout the Levant, and they had settled as well in the region east of the Upper Euphrates, which thus became known as "Aram of the Rivers".

The archives in the neo-Hittite palace reveal the role played by Urahilina (Urhilina) or Irhuleni, King of Hamath (853-845 B.C.), in the coalition (which included, among others, the Aramean king, Ben-Hadad II of Damascus) against the Assyrian warrior monarch Shalmaneser III, son and successor of Ashurnasirpal II, at the battle of Qarqar, in 853 B.C. (See chapters nineteen and twenty.) The battlefield, it was eventually learned, lay within the city precincts. Details, however, though apparently inscribed in great detail during the time of the events, were only recovered from the excavations in the important First Millennium site at Luwian, that included hieroglyphics from the region of northern Syria. Further descriptions were included on votive objects found in the ruins of Shalmaneser I's Assyrian capital of Calah, or Kalhu, originally constructed on the Tigris during the thirteenth century B.C. (This celebrated stronghold, with its ample archives, was greatly expanded in the ninth century by Ashurnasirpal II, when it came to be known by its eventual name of Nimrud.)

Additional inscriptions, discovered in Hama during excavations as recently as the nineteenth century A.D., record Urhilina's orgy of construction, with particular reference to a new temple, raised over prior temple remains, and dedicated to the goddess "Baalath", actually Anath, consort of Baal. But if Urhilina prayed in this temple, his prayers went unanswered. He was rudely defeated and the neo-Hittites were again, and very abruptly, replaced, this time by definitive Aramean rule.

Urhilina's reign was followed by that of the Aramean king Zakkur, who seized Hamath from the neo-Hittites, c. 796 B.C., in a battle documented on an Aramean victory stela found at Tell Afis, 110 kilometers north of Hama, erected following "success against an enemy coalition".

"I lifted my hands to Baal-Shemin (Shamayn)," cried Zakkur, "and He answered me. He spoke to me through prophets and messengers and He said to me: 'Fear not! It was I who made you king, and I shall stand with you, and deliver you from these kings who have forced a siege on you! …and this rampart [in Hazrak, capital of Luash] which they put up shall be cast down!'" Zakkur's "divine deliverance" possibly came in the form of the Assyrian armies, to whom he appealed for help, as suggested by inscriptions found on a stela in Antioch, or as documented in a Phoenician text inscribed in the vestibule of the palace in Hama.

Religion presumably played a key role in the shifting alliances of the region. The Arameans managed to infiltrate the local populations as a result of their religious practices, though their specific rites remain to this day unknown, and by means of material culture as well -- their settlements were almost invariably identified by the prefix "Bit" or "house [of]", as in "Bit-Adini", "Bit-Bahyan", "Bit-Halupe" or "Bit-Zaman". Their greatest impact, however, was felt as a result of their language, which came to replace Akkadian in Babylonia, while the script, derived from the Phoenician and Ugaritic alphabets and ancestral to modern Arabic, Syriac and Hebrew, eventually eclipsed the cuneiform script of all of Mesopotamia.

The last known king of Hamath was a usurper named Iaubi'di, or Yaubidi, who found himself encircled by Assyrian provinces, established on the territory he had lost in repeated revolts of coalitions of neighboring states. He was effectively defeated, and murdered, by the great Akkadian warrior king Sargon II (son of Tiglath-pileser III) in 720 B.C., whose triumph ratified his legitimacy and, as Amélie Kuhrt says, "helped to firm up his tenure of the throne."

And so Hamath was finally incorporated as a province of the Assyrian empire, and many of its inhabitants were deported, possibly as slaves to work in Sargon's capital at Dur-Sharrukin ("Sargon's Fort"), at Khorsabad. The Iron Age phase E levels on the tel would appear to have been destroyed by fire during the late eighth century B.C., consistent with the dates of Sargon II's attack. Hamath, like Damascus to the south, was nevertheless repopulated during this time with Assyrians, mostly merchants, intending to reinforce their trade link to the profitable markets of Arabia and the Persian Gulf.

Assyria's commercial and military victory in western Syria was in any case precarious. The principal outcome of the long war of Babylonia against the Assyrians was Nabopolassar's inheritance of the Assyrian empire. When Egypt tried to take advantage of its ally Assyria's collapse by seizing control of the Levant, Nebuchadnezzar, son of Nabopolassar, was thus committed to fighting, successfully as it happens, against the Egyptians at Carchemish, and afterwards at Hamath. The double victory allowed Nebuchadnezzar to extend Babylonian domination, according to inscriptions of the time, especially over the strategically critical area of Hamath, maintain control over the tradelanes, and assure his preeminence in the Orontes valley; and it probably helped him to accede to the Babylonian throne on his father's death, which had occurred during the campaign.

A few minor remains on Hama's tel date to the seventh and sixth centuries, phases E and D, but the site saw no important new resettlement until the Persian period, which was eclipsed in turn by the entrance on the scene of Alexander the Great.

During the Hellenistic period the area was renamed Epiphaneia, or Epifania, after Antiochos IV Epiphanes, ("Theos Epiphanes" or "God Manifest"), younger brother of Seleukos I Nicator and despite his reputation for eccentricity, one of the outstanding Seleucid kings, who reigned from 175-164 B.C. Under his rule, according to Will Durant, the Seleucid capital at Antioch became the wealthiest city in Hellenistic Asia, adorned with temples, porticoes, theaters, gymnasia, palaestras, flower gardens, landscaped boulevards, and parks so beautiful that the Garden of Daphne was known throughout Greece for its laurels and cypresses, its fountains and streams.

Antiochos IV's greatest moment was described in his military campaign in the East, actually compensation for his having been driven out of Egypt by the Roman envoy Popilius. Before setting out he presumed to demonstrate his empire's continuing supremacy over Roman and Ptolemaic interventions by organizing a massive procession, in 166 B.C., to the sanctuary of Apollo in his famous Garden of Daphne, and then on through Hama in 165, en route to the Euphrates, the whole venture financed by his plunder of the Temple of Jerusalem, with which he restored his treasury.

Behind thirty-six thousand soldiers, says Graham Shipley, (many of them outfitted with weapons and accessories of pure gold), five hundred gladiators, ninety-five hundred cavalry (many of the horses adorned with gold or silver trappings and the riders in coats of purple emblazoned with golden decorations, that emulated the animal forms of deified victory emblems such as eagles or lions), in addition to one hundred and forty chariots drawn by seven hundred and sixty horses, two elephant-drawn chariots and thirty-six war elephants manned by mahouts imported from India. After them came eight hundred youths in gold crowns, one thousand oxen intended for sacrifice, and a further three hundred oxen and eight hundred elephant tusks destined as gifts to foreign heads of state. And while all his pomp and finery served to restore Seleucid rule in Armenia, as well as in the Hellenistic states between the Euphrates and the Tigris, Antiochos IV himself died of an undisclosed "fatal illness", possibly epilepsy, madness or leprosy, in Persia in 164 B.C.

As for Hama, it remained an uneventful, rather bucolic, provincial center of Roman and Byzantine administration, falling to the Arabs by capitulation in 636-637 A.D. The seventeen surviving water wheels, considered "a national treasure", date from this period. A controversy surrounds their origin, yet they may very likely be attributed to the innovation and resourcefulness of perhaps Greek, but most certainly Roman engineers, who used them to draw water up the steep banks of the Orontes to the higher level of the fields and towns. And while they were improved by the Muslims, who found them indispensable, especially during the Mamluk era, the Crusaders were enthralled with them, and immediately introduced them into Europe.

The greatest of the norias measures twenty meters across. The largest group, known as the al-Mamuriye on the river's west bank facing the park in front of the Governor's Office, works as a unit. The river's current is channeled by a dam into a sluice, which in turn raises the wheel's wooden "boxes", that act as cups to trap the water. The water is then discharged at the top of its rotation cycle into the towers behind it, so that it flows into the channels of the stone aqueducts, which then conduct it into the town or surrounding agricultural areas. Each consumer, according to art historian Ross Burns, is allocated a precise portion of the flow over a specified period of time.

Another large group of four wheels, known as the al-Muhammediye, is located two hundred and fifty meters west of the tel, or citadel hill. This groaning, grinding, splashing cluster dates from the fourteenth century, but was lovingly restored in 1977. It stands near the previous historical museum, the Hama Beit Azem, the eighteenth century mansion of a former wali, or Ottoman governor, Assad Pasha al-Azem (1705-1757), in his day governor as well of Sidon and Damascus; he left a sumptuous residence, or "palace", in each. The mansion in Damascus currently serves as a reknowned historical and ethnographical museum. The house in Hama includes archaeological remains from the Roman and early Christian periods, in the lower courtyard. An annex on the villa's northern side houses the palace baths. Beyond that is the public reception area, or selamlek, while the private quarters of the haremlek, currently occupied by a shop, are just to the right of the entrance. The upper level was badly damaged by fire but is in the process of restoration.

One of the most important displays in the collection, a mosaic from a Byzantine villa in the nearby village of Mariamin, just west of Homs, has been transferred to the new Hama museum. The large work, nearly six by five meters, dates from the later years of the fourth century A.D. and has been described by art historian Janine Balty as "one of the most significant finds of recent years." The charming scene, not unlike similar "domestic" vignettes in the museum at Beiteddine in Lebanon, as opposed to the more customary mythical or allegorical compositions, consists of six female figures and two infants performing on the musical instruments of the time.

The Danish team also excavated Ayyubid and Mamluk remains in the Hama "Old City" or "Historic Center", dating from the eleventh to the fourteenth centuries. Hama, though prosperous during the Ayyubid era under Saladin and his successors, was perennially disputed by the dynasties of Damascus and Aleppo. Nonetheless, valuable relics have survived from this period. The Hama citadel, though damaged and rebuilt so many times, is still considered one of the most significant of all Syrian sites. Like many fortifications on the Islamic side of the frontier with the Crusaders, it was reconstructed in the twelfth century, but urgency was accentuated by a series of earthquakes. The al-Nuri mosque, for example, facing a small square at the foot of the tel and flanked by the bridge opposite the Cham Palace, corresponds to this period. It was completed in 1163 by Nuradin, following a severe earthquake in 1157. The square minaret, banded in black basalt and yellow limestone, formed part of the original construction and has managed to survive intact. The twelfth century minbar was a personal gift from Nuradin.

The al-Hasanain mosque stands nor far from the summit of the citadel. An earlier mosque on this site fell in the earthquake of 1157 but was rebuilt under Nuradin. Only one hundred meters to the west stands the Great Mosque of Hama, completely destroyed in 1982 but expertly restored later by the Department of Antiquities and Museums, which worked on the project throughout the nineties. Initially a Roman temple, then a Christian church demolished during the Byzantine reoccupation of northern Syria in 968, the original basilica plan encompasses the three aisles of the prayer hall, topped by five domes arranged in the shape of a cross. The courtyard to the north is enclosed by a vaulted portico and contains an elevated treasury, of the sort associated with those in the patio of the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus. The minaret to the east of the prayer hall, though reconstructed, is still inscribed "1153", that is, prior to the great earthquake, while the second minaret, near the northern entranceway, corresponds to the Mamluk era.

Two khans from the Ottoman period still stand in the commercial center of town. One of them, dating from the Suleiman years, around 1556, has been restored by the Ministry of Tourism, while the other, the Khan Assad Pasha, dating from 1738 and identified by its vast façade, now houses a technical school.

Carol Miller is a sculptress and writer, devoted to her avid research of ancient cultures, from Mexico where she lives, or along her travels throughout the world. "Mari" is a chapter from a forthcoming book, soon to be available at Amazon.com or BarnesandNoble.com. Among her titles are "The Winged Prophet, from Hermes to Quetzalcoatl", with Guadalupe Rivera Marin, a study in comparative mythology; and "Travels in the Maya World", "The Other Side of Yesterday, the China-Maya Connection" and "Training Juan Domingo: Mexico and Me", exerpts of which can be viewed at http://www.xlibris.com/CarolMiller.html