Syria document photos online

On a clay tablet barely the size of a hand, scribes in the coastal Syrian kingdom of Ugarit carved what is now considered the world's oldest known alphabet around 1400 BC, compressing language into just 30 cuneiform signs centuries before the Phoenician script most alphabets descend from. That abecedary, held by the National Museum of Damascus, is no museum curiosity to Syrians, it appeared printed on the 50-pound banknote, meaning the ancestor of every letter you are reading once doubled as everyday cash. For a country whose modern passport ranks among the world's weakest, it is a striking reminder that Syria essentially invented the document.

• Alphabet The oldest known alphabet on Earth, a 30-sign cuneiform script, was found at Ugarit on the Syrian coast and dates to roughly 1400 BC, predating the Phoenician alphabet that fathered Latin, Greek and Arabic letters.
• Passport power The Syrian passport ranked 105th on the 2025 Henley Passport Index with visa-free or visa-on-arrival access to just 26 destinations, placing it among the four weakest travel documents in the world.
• Document cost Despite that weakness, the Syrian passport became famous as one of the world's most expensive to obtain, with expedited issuance abroad reaching around 800 dollars, many times the country's minimum wage.
• Currency On 1 January 2026 Syria redenominated its pound by striking two zeros, so 100 old pounds became one new pound, the first overhaul of the currency's value in generations.
• Banknotes The new 2026 banknotes erased the portraits of Hafez and Bashar al-Assad, who had appeared on Syrian money for over five decades, replacing them with roses, wheat, olives and oranges as symbols of a new national identity.
• Citizenship Under a 1969 nationality law built on paternal descent, Syrian mothers generally cannot pass citizenship to their children, a rule that has left many children of Syrian women stateless.
• Oldest capital Damascus is recognized by Guinness World Records as the world's oldest continuously inhabited capital, with settlement traced back to around 2500 BC and named in Egyptian texts of the 15th century BC.
• Independence Syria marks its independence on 17 April 1946, the day the last French mandate troops withdrew, and officials chose that date partly to avoid holding the ceremony on Good Friday.
• Displacement The post-2011 conflict produced one of the largest displacement crises on record, with roughly 6.3 million Syrians becoming refugees abroad and millions more displaced inside the country.