Syria as a region, and more recently as a country, in the Middle East, has endured millennia of conflict and has undergone significant transitions of culture and religion as a result. Empires have transversed Syria as their leaders have sought to dominate the adjacent regions: Mesopotamia, Canaan/Palestine, and North Africa. The European, Asian, and Arabian empires that have settled in Syria have created a land that is culturally diverse and deeply divided. These historical divisions became more pronounced at the beginning of the modern period when France artificially created a single nation out of its multitude of ethnic and religious factions.

Syria, from 3,000 to 550 BCE, served as a borderland and highway for several ancient Near East realms. Akkadians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Mitanni, and Hittites all ...