<P> Damascus is mentioned in Genesis 14: 15 as existing at the time of the War of the Kings . According to the 1st - century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus in his twenty - one volume Antiquities of the Jews, Damascus (along with Trachonitis), was founded by Uz, the son of Aram . In Antiquities i . 7, Josephus reports: </P> <P> Nicolaus of Damascus, in the fourth book of his History, says thus: "Abraham reigned at Damascus, being a foreigner, who came with an army out of the land above Babylon, called the land of the Chaldeans: but, after a long time, he got him up, and removed from that country also, with his people, and went into the land then called the land of Canaan, but now the land of Judea, and this when his posterity were become a multitude; as to which posterity of his, we relate their history in another work . Now the name of Abraham is even still famous in the country of Damascus; and there is shown a village named from him, The Habitation of Abraham . </P> <P> Damascus is not documented as an important city until the arrival of the Aramaeans, a Semitic people from Mesopotamia, in the 11th century BC . By the start of the first millennium BC, several Aramaic kingdoms were formed, as Aramaeans abandoned their nomadic lifestyle and formed federated tribal states . One of these kingdoms was Aram - Damascus, centered on its capital Damascus . The Aramaeans who entered the city without battle, adopted the name "Dimashqu" for their new home . Noticing the agricultural potential of the still - undeveloped and sparsely populated area, they established the water distribution system of Damascus by constructing canals and tunnels which maximized the efficiency of the river Barada . The same network was later improved by the Romans and the Umayyads, and still forms the basis of the water system of the old part of the city today . The Aramaeans initially turned Damascus into an outpost of a loose federation of Aramaean tribes, known as Aram - Zobah, based in the Beqaa Valley . </P> <P> The city would gain pre-eminence in southern Syria when Ezron, the claimant to Aram - Zobah's throne who was denied kingship of the federation, fled Beqaa and captured Damascus by force in 965 BC . Ezron overthrew the city's tribal governor and founded the independent entity of Aram - Damascus . As this new state expanded south, it prevented the Kingdom of Israel from spreading north and the two kingdoms soon clashed as they both sought to dominate trading hegemony in the east . Under Ezron's grandson, Ben - Hadad I (880--841 BC), and his successor Hazael, Damascus annexed Bashan (modern - day Hauran region), and went on the offensive with Israel . This conflict continued until the early 8th century BC when Ben - Hadad II was captured by Israel after unsuccessfully besieging Samaria . As a result, he granted Israel trading rights in Damascus . </P>

When did damascus became the capital of syria