(16 Dec 2007) SHOTLIST :
Maaloula, Syria - November 2007
1. Wide shot Maaloula sign
2. Houses
3. Graveyard with houses in background
4. Apartment blocks seen through olive trees
5. Zoom on Virgin Mary at top of hill
6. Mosque
7. Muslim women walking down road
8. Pan olive trees to men sitting drinking coffee by roadside
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Hussain Mohamed, village elder:
"All together, not 'this is Muslim, this is Christian', no. Everybody in this village� like my brother. Muslim or Christian. No difference, here, in this village."
10. Pan coffee pot to man speaking (Arabic)
11. Men and young boy speaking together in Aramaic
12. Old man
13. Pan young man to older man
14. SOUNDBITE (English) Mohammed Hussain, 70, village elder, talking about a teenage boy sitting with him:
"From when he was born, his mother talked to him in Syrianic Aramaic, and he knew what she said to him. All his life, (he has) talked Aramaic."
15. Wide shot houses and churches
16. Girls laughing in street
17. Little boys walking up steps
18. Little boys reciting poem in Aramaic
19. Wide shot mountains with caves
20. Close-up caves
21. Father Toufic on balcony of monastery overlooking village
22. Inside chapel through hole in wall
23. Pan altar to window
24. SOUNDBITE (French) Father Toufic, Saint Sergius chapel:
"In 325 A.D., at the First Council of Nicaea - the first ecumenical council - in order to differentiate themselves from the pagans, Christians decided that altars would be flat, not shaped like this (curved). And that is why we know this shape probably goes back to that time of transition in Christian architecture, and we can date this altar back to that time."
25. Father Toufic
26. Woman praying in front of icon
27. UPSOUND: (Aramaic)Father Toufic saying the Lord's Prayer
28. Pan ceiling to altar
29. SOUNDBITE (French) Father Toufic,
"You can say it is pre-Christian, because the other types of Aramaic that exit today are what you call Christian Aramaic - be it Syriac, Chaldean or Assyrian - those are Aramaic dialects too, but they date back to Christian times, the Christians brought the language with them."
QUESTION: "So that Aramaic (the dialect spoken in Maaloula) is�?"
TOUFIC: "Pre-Christian."
QUESTION: "So when would it date back to?"
TOUFIC: "The 9th or 8th century B.C., if it truly is the Aramaic spoken by Jesus Christ."
30. Mosque at night
31. Saint Tekla convent
32. Close-up Saint Tekla convent
33. Pan chapel dome to window into chapel
34. Mass in Aramaic inside St Tekla chapel
35. Pan ceiling to altar inside St Tekla chapel
36. Young girl
37. Priest with incense
38. Pan to bread
39. Candles
LEAD IN :
There are very few places left in the world where Aramaic, the language of Jesus Christ, is still spoken.
The people of the village of Maaloula in northern Syria speak the ancient language in everyday life.
STORYLINE:
It feels like history has stopped in the small Syrian village of Maaloula, some 50 kilometres (31 miles) north of the capital Damascus.
Along with the neighbouring villages of Jabadin and Bakha, it is one of the last places in the world where Aramaic, the language of Jesus Christ, is still spoken.
Maaloula means "the entrance" in Aramaic, referring to its dramatic location at the entrance to a rocky gorge.
Perched on the slopes of the Qalamoun Mountains at an altitude of 1,500 meters, Maaloula overlooks a vast green carpet of fig trees, grapevines and poplar trees.
With its blue-roofed houses nestled into the rock, Maaloula a picturesque village, is one of Christianity's oldest sites.

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