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Syria has a rich array of ancient wonders – such as the Bronze Age cities of Mari and Ugarit, Queen Zenobia’s desert city of Palmyra, and Krak des Chevaliers, the castle to trump all castles – but the Byzantine ghost towns of the north are one of the strangest. These were satellite settlements of Antioch, a magnificent ancient city that was utterly destroyed over 700 years ago.

Antioch was founded in 300 BC at the mouth of the Orontes river by Alexander the Great’s general, Seleucus I Nicator, who named it after his father Antiochus. For two centuries it was the capital of the Seleucid Empire, which at its height stretched from modern-day Turkey to Pakistan, and the first western outpost of the Great Silk Road.