Bab al-Jabiyah ("Gate of the Water Trough") was the main western gate of Roman Damascus, opening onto the road south to Jerusalem. The current gate is a 13th-century rebuilding; the original lay slightly to the north and west. From here you can enter the long colonnaded Roman cardo whose course is still traceable inside the souq.
The square just outside the gate is one of the busiest commercial parts of modern Damascus, full of buses, taxis and shop-fronts. The contrast as you pass through the gate into the more enclosed atmosphere of the Hamidiyah Souq is one of the city's pleasures.