The First World War profoundly changed world views and, in turn, geopolitical power networks occupied the Middle East. When the French mandate in Syria was instituted in the wake of the First World War, after the Ottoman Empire was dissolved, not only did the French take control of the region’s politics and economy but also the region’s cultural heritage and the way in which it could be researched and explored. Large-scale archaeological missions were initiated in Palmyra under French concessions not long after the French takeover of the region. The Danish archaeologist Harald Ingholt, who had a strong international network by then, joined a French team of scholars and undertook his own fieldwork with French permission.
The many European- and American-led fieldwork projects in the Middle East in the period between the world wars belonged to the colonial spirit of these countries and their rulers. One might almost call it a second wave of Orientalism, where the region was host to international cooperation as much as the territorial positioning of European and American powers.
Ingholt mostly focused his work on the necropolises surrounding the ancient city, while the large-scale French archaeological work focused on the monuments of Palmyra, most famously the Sanctuary of Bel. This included the notorious dismantling of the entire village located within the sanctuary perimeters, which led to the displacement of the local population from the temenos to newly built structures away from the ancient ruins – the foundation of modern-day Palmyra.
Three excavation campaigns took place in the south-western necropolis from 1924 to 1928 and again briefly in the 1930s before the Second World War broke out. This is the basis for Ingholt’s most known (and best published) work, the excavation of around 80 tombs in the south-western necropolis that he documented in his excavation diaries. The diaries document descriptions and drawings of tombs and comments on small finds which he bought from the locals, such as a rich collection of tesserae. These objects largely ended up in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek’s collection bequeathed by Ingholt.
Findings show that Ingholt also excavated at least parts of one urban house, but he never published the entire excavation of the house in detail. Stuccos from the small house west of the Temple of Bel were transferred to the Ny Carlsberg after the excavation in 1924. Most of them are heads of both men and women, but there is also a stucco of a naked female torso and a stucco of a box.
Ingholt’s campaigns in Palmyra lasted for several months in a row. He engaged with the local community and wrote about some of his workers in the diaries, and he also wrote about the power structures in local society and the visitors which the team received and sometimes showed around. In the 1920s and ‘30s, elite European and American tourism was taking off, and numerous travellers came to the region, partly to visit the impressive ruins of Palmyra. It was also in this period that many other large-scale urban excavations were undertaken, such as those in the city of Gerasa (Jerash) in northern Jordan.
