New Publication: Elevating Childhood in Palmyra

The article, present for the first time together a group of Palmyrene funerary reliefs that represent children standing and seated on a variety of bases. A significant number of loculus reliefs and stelae dated between the first and the third centuries ce depict this iconographic motif, accounting approximately for a quarter of all the objects with portraits of children. Bases appear both on monuments with single portraits of children and in representations where they accompany older figures, primarily parents and older siblings, showing a variety of shapes and compositional arrangements. Using contextual and comparative analysis, we seek to identify patterns in the use of this motif to gain a deeper understanding of how childhood was visualised in Palmyra and what different representation strategies reveal of the societal mechanisms influencing the local production of children’s portraits.

Citation:

Bobou, O., I. Bucci, and R. Raja. 2026. ‘Elevating Childhood in Palmyra: Representations of Children on Bases in the Local Funerary Sculpture’, Syria 102: 167-260.

Read more about the publication here.