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Contact
Julia
Email:
julia@kaanzamaan.co.nz
Tel: 09 407 5191
Fax: 09 407 6080
Mob: 021 163 4478
Address:
373 Kerikeri Road, Kerikeri
Postal address:
PO Box 597, Kerikeri 0470
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History and Contact
I was born in Wellington in
1955. In 1959, my father took a job in Beirut Lebanon,
so we left as a family and that is where my siblings and I grew up.
My education
was all in the French language, and when I finished school in 1972, I went
to Switzerland and then the UK, to further my education.
In 1978 I took a teaching
job in Vienna Austria and in 1982 married in that city
and had my first and only child, Karin in 1985.
In 1986 my husband’s job
took us back to the Middle East, and hence began my second love affair
with that part of the world. A couple of years in West Bank,
over five years in Damascus, five years in Jordan and another couple of
years in
Israel again before returning to New Zealand forty years after first
leaving her
shores.
I bring with me many treasured memories, deep feelings of warmth and
understanding of the Middle East, her people and her culture. I feel I
learnt a
great deal and know that I have been very privileged to have
shared so much with
people with so little. We, in the West, are losing touch with a lot of
essential
basic values, forgetting to appreciate the beauty of nature
around us, of the most
important things in life, which are love, sharing and giving.
I try to return to Damascus
once every year, to keep in contact with the people I
have come to know and admire there, and to continue to support them by
doing business with them. I am proud to support the Palestinian people
especially,
with whom I worked voluntarily on many projects. They have a
wonderful sense
of design and colour, and their embroidery work is
stunning. Their friendship and
loyalty I shall never forget. I hope you
will come and learn and share their riches
with me, see you at the gallery
soon!
Julia. |
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About Syria and Damascus
Syria offers the visitor an illustrious history spanning thousands of years.
From
the ancient sites of Mari, Ugarit and Ebla over 4000 years ago, through the
Arabian migration, the expansion of Rome, the establishment of Christianity
and
the emergence of Islam, the country has made a highly individual
contribution to
the march of civilization.
Syria is not only a crossroads between the better known ancient cultures of
the
Nile, Palestine and Mesopotamia, but is also a melting pot from which was
forged a distinctive Syrian Arab tradition. Just to mention a few of Syria’s
treasures, Palmyra, my favourite, has got to be one of the most dramatic
interpretation of Roman forms anywhere in the world. St Simeon’s shrine in
the
"Dead Cities" north of Aleppo with its magnificent early Christian
architecture,
the desert palaces and the Great Mosque in Damascus which establish the
beginnings of Islamic art under the Omayyads, are also excellent examples of
ancient civilizations.
Behind all this of course, lay the development of the world’s first phonetic
alphabet, discovered on tablets in Ugarit. Maalula, an interesting village
where
the houses cling to the cliff face in the foothills of the Anti Lebanon
range, is
worth a mention too, as it is the only place where the language of Christ,
Aramaic, is still spoken today. This old dialect dates from the 1st
millennium
BC. the Lord’s Prayer and the Old Testament book of Daniel were first
written
in Aramaic.
To visit Damascus, with the old city in its heart, is like stepping back in
time.
A short visit cannot really do justice to this unique and fascinating old
city
redolent with history. Tucked away from view are lots of less known old madrassas
(schools), Turkish baths, picturesque old houses with inner
courtyards and fountains. The old city can easily be covered on foot and
much
can be seen in a couple of days or so. It is worth taking the time to
explore
each winding street and see all the wonderful site of this ancient and
frankly
the best part of Damascus.
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Omayad Mosque
Hamadieh Souk
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