"Palmyra is a city famous for its situation, for the richness of its soil, and for its agreeable springs; its fields are surrounded on every side by a vast circuit of sand, and it is as it were isolated by nature from the world, having a destiny of its own between the two mighty empires of Rome and Parthia, and at the first moment of a quarrel between them always attracting the attention of both sides"
- Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia (‘Natural History’) 5.88
Palmyra – called Tadmor in the ancient world – is an oasis site in the middle of the Syrian Desert. The desert is more of a steppe desert than the sand deserts we know from Saharan Africa. Human activity at the site goes back to prehistoric times. However, the site is most well-known for its monumental ruins – including the impressive tower tombs – from the Roman period. The site was at its peak in the first three centuries CE, when it became a hub for caravan trade. Its elite families became extremely wealthy, and it is their wealth we see expressed in the rapidly expanding urban landscape and the rich funerary culture.
Palmyrene society was structured into tribes – large families with fathers heading the various family clusters. We have evidence of more than ten tribes, which in the Roman period seem to have been restructured into four main tribes. The exact ways these tribes functioned and how they interacted with each other remains unclear to us, but there is no doubt that they did interact frequently. The so-called banqueting tesserae, small tokens of clay, are proof of this. These tesserae were found in the various sanctuaries across the site and scattered around the landscape. They testify to religious events, such as meals, that took place in the various urban sanctuaries. It was these events at which tribes could have come together across family lineages.
In the Roman period, the city covered approximately 120 hectares, but only a little of the urban landscape has been archaeologically investigated in depth. Most archaeological work has focused on the tombs, some of the large urban monuments, and parts of the urban housing areas. The city’s hinterland was extensive, and it must have contributed immensely to the city’s sustainability and ability to keep itself afloat in the middle of a rough landscape, since Palmyra lay far from larger sites that could provide them with resources and food.
Palmyra was situated between two strong powers, Rome and Parthia. Its location between empires is clearly visible in the art and architecture found in the city. Palmyrene art drew on the traditions pouring into the city from these other regions, but it depicted the city’s own strong local values, such as the emphasis on all members of the close-knit family networks, including women and children.
The precarious location of the site also meant that Palmyrenes had to carefully position themselves and balance between the competing powers in the region. With the increase in wealth through the trade that they organized and profited from, however, Palmyrenes gained a much more profound influence in the region and became a leading power themselves. In turn, this led to Palmyra’s uprising against the Romans and the establishment of their own short-lived empire during the reign of Queen Zenobia. Zenobia expanded Palmyrene territory to the south as far as Egypt and to include parts of Anatolia to the north. However, the Palmyrene grab for power became the beginning of their end, and the city was sacked by the Roman emperor Aurelian in 272 and 273 CE. Palmyra never regained its former fame. It lived on, but on a much smaller scale. Scholars have only recently begun to gain more interest in Palmyra’s post-Roman period.
Palmyra, alongside numerous other sites of historical importance, has been damaged by centuries of illegal excavations and looting of unexplored archaeological areas. Arguably the most extensive modern devastation began in 2011, in the wake of the Arab Spring. The conflict that broke out in Syria affected the entire country, its people, and its rich cultural heritage. The cost of human lives and the displacement of millions of refugees stands at the centre of this humanitarian crisis. Nonetheless, the archaeological remains in Palmyra and other cities have been severely damaged due to armed violence, deliberate targeting, and looting by the so-called Islamic State (IS). Despite national and international efforts, it has not been possible to prevent damage to the cultural heritage of Syria and to Palmyra in particular. After the first major destruction in 2013, Palmyra was added to the UNESCO list of World Heritage in Danger.
During the war, the city’s temples, the theatre, the monumental arch, and multiple tower tombs – all monumental constructions and symbols of the city of Palmyra – have been destroyed or severely damaged. The archaeological museum was partly looted; in this process, countless civic and funerary sculptures from the ancient city were destroyed as well. The complete damage is not yet fully known, despite various attempts to document the state of the site over the last several years.
In the light of the political conflict and the ensuing damages, including the illegal trade with antiquities looted or stolen from the site and the museum, research on the site and its heritage can only be conducted from afar. In thinking about the future of Palmyra, when peace has hopefully returned to the region, it is important to provide the local archaeologists and authorities with as much information as possible – information that might still be hidden in the archives of western scholars that worked in Syria during the late 19th and 20th centuries. Such open information on legacy data will hopefully give more insight into the earlier state of many monuments, artworks, and objects from the country and will allow researchers to work constructively with this information.
