From the historian's notes

Aleppo, 1680

Syria · Middle East · May 1680 · spring

What it was medium

a great Ottoman trading city of perhaps 100,000 people, where the caravans from Persia meet the European merchantsone of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world

That year

• The English Levant Company keeps a factory here: a consul, merchants and a chaplain living and trading in one of the great khans ongoing highEngland's window on the East
• The factory's chaplain, Robert Huntington, collects manuscripts in Arabic, Syriac and Samaritan for Oxford 1670–1681 higha library going west
• Persian silk, mohair and gall-nuts are traded for English broadcloth in the covered markets ongoing highthe trade that keeps the factory here

Who held it high

the Ottoman EmpireSultan Mehmed IV; his grand vizier is Kara Mustafa Pashathe empire is at peace in the east and looking west; Kara Mustafa will march on Vienna in 1683

Its name high

HalabWritten in Arabic; Ottoman Turkish in the administration

The date, there high

1091 AHthe Hijri calendarThe calls to prayer; the caravans' arrival seasons.

Money medium

Ottoman akçe and kuruş, with foreign silver widely usedthe akçe, much debasedcoffee for a few coins; big sums in Dutch lion dollars

Weather medium

May: warm days, around 25 °C, cool evenings, the last of the spring rain

Things

Objectsbales of Persian silk; English broadcloth; Dutch lion dollars in every purse; olive-oil and laurel soapFoodflatbread; pistachios; kibbeh; coffee in the coffeehousesClothsilk; cotton; broadcloth for the EuropeansGetting aboutcamel caravans; mules; on footIn the aircoffee; laurel soap; spices in the souqs

What she'd hear

Arabic in the streets; Turkish for officials; Armenian, Greek and Italian among the traders; English at the factory.

Where she could stand

• the khan of the English factory — a great courtyard inn with warehouses below and lodgings above, where the merchants keep their counting-room and mail
• the covered souqs — miles of vaulted market streets
• the citadel — the fortress on its mound above the city
• the caravan arrivals — camel trains coming in from Baghdad and Persia

Researched for this card · confidence high