Queen of the Desert

Palmyra, Syria

“Have a nice life” said Mohammed, all of about 7 years old, as I left Palmyra’s famous Victory arch. I had bought some awful postcards from him, but the kids are not begging and tourists are thin on the ground these days, so you pay a few pennies for some postcards.
He was still in place the following day and waved as I drove by.

Wandering through the ruins I met an Australian couple who had been on a mammoth eight-month tour of Europe. They said each time they had seen some amazing site they thought there could be nothing else but then had found themselves in Palmyra, where they were once again in awe. Unlike the principal European cities where gizillions of tourists make entry into sites a waiting game, we had the ruins of Palmyra to ourselves. People are simply afraid to come to Syria. This view is often promulgated by people who have never set foot in the country, (but which does not prevent them from freely offering their erroneous opinions), and politics. It is the lament of the Middle East in general and of Syria in particular. But the region has absorbed and defied wave after wave of conquerors for millennia and the current wave of regional troubles will in time be consigned to a historical footnote too. Seen through this prism one wonders what will endure of our most recent efforts - will we leave ‘democracy’ instead of temples, or will we go down in history as destroyers, like the Mongols?

Palmyra - an over-view.

Ross Burns’ in his book, Monuments of Syria, writes; “Palmyra is one of the great sites of the ancient world.” And it is. An extensive oasis watered by underground springs, it was settled several millenia ago but its ruins date back to the 1st century AD. It was not a natural east-west trade route which passed further to the north, but regional instability favored Palmyra whose merchants became middle men between their nominal overlords the Roman Empire, and the Parthians to the East with whom the Romans were usually in a state of hostility. Hadrian granted the city free-status in 129AD, and from then until the early third century Palmyra reached its apogee; its art and architecture fusing local Arab or Semitic style with the more restrained classicism of Rome.

By the time of the Parthian wars of the second part of the second century, Rome was taking a greater and more influential role in Palmyra until in 212AD the city was fully integrated into the Roman Empire as a colony. But the Sassanians in Persia were becoming more powerful, and amid in-house squabbling in Rome, Palmyra’s leaders began to assert their independence. One of them, Odenathus, rose to power but cleverly campaigned for Rome against the Sassanians - in so doing he gained for himself a measure of independent power. When he was murdered in 267, his wife Xenobia ruled as regent but she had ambitions of her own. (Some say Odenathus was murdered on his wife’s orders.) In a bid to counter the stranglehold the Sassanians had on the Tigris trade route, she moved westwards gaining control of Antioch and Anatolia, and Bosra in the south. When it seemed as if she had notions of sharing control of the Roman Empire, Emperor Aurelian finally acted and marched against her. Xenobia surrendered and was marched off to Rome as a prisoner, but not long after Aurelian had left having left behind a garrison, the Palmyrans rose in revolt and overpowered them. In a rage, Aurelian returned, massacred the inhabitants and allowed the troops to sack and plunder the city.

And so back to the Temple of Bel, a vast colonnaded and arcaded complex with a small but richly decorated cella entered via a massive propyleum.

The propyleum and cella of the Temple of Bel.
The site was probably used for religious purposes as far back as the second millennium BC but the temple incorporating Greek, Mesopotamian and Roman elements dates primarily back to the 1st and 2nd centuries AD. Interestingly perhaps, the Semitic people worshipped a trinity of gods; here Bel, later equated with Zeus, Yarhibol, a solar god and Aglibol, a lunar god. In keeping with its history as a religious site, the cella was later used by local villagers as a mosque and there is still a mihrab in the south wall.

Remaining columns in the courtyard of the Temple of Bel looking towards Palmyra.

From the temple you walk to the colonnaded street through the Monumental Arch, to visit the Diocletian baths, the superbly reconstructed theater, Senate, agora and tarriff court. There is too much to see to recount here and you must visit to see for yourselves.

Colonnaded Cardo-Maximus (actually in fact the decumanus) which unlike most Roman cities was not paved to allow the passage of camels. The columns all have brackets which would have held statues of local dignataries. Behind the columns were porticos and shops, the foundations of which can still be seen.

En route back to Damascus we stopped at the celebrated Baghdad cafe. The owner, Faraj, has made this place a welcoming oasis in the desert.

Baghdad Cafe - oasis in the desert.
Have lunch, simple but delicious; emjedera - Bulgar wheat and lentils served with yogurt, olives, fresh flatbread, halwa and candied figs. This stretch of highway is the route to Baghdad, all the way to Damascus we saw big Iraqi trucks carrying food, medicine and other goods from Damascus back to Baghdad.

Do we need three to make an axis........?

And so back in Damascus for a brief stay before I drive over the mountains to Beirut. Lebanon is facing something of a political crisis, but I am going anyway.