Monuments - Palmyra

Palmyra: The jewel of Syrian antiquities. This remarkable site in the middle of the Syrian desert was the shopping place of caravans coming from Arabian to Mediterranean lands as well as those crossing the Tigris and taking the silk route. It is most renowned for Queen Zenobia who defied Rome and took possession of all of Syria and Lower Egypt. The ruins are spread over a very large area. The temples of Bell, Baalshamin and Nebo are all there. The great colonnade that crosses the city is certainly its most captivating architectural feature. These and many others still bear witness to the greatness of this extraordinary city. Palmyra offer the fascinating sight of a city struck by the most radical adversity. Everything seems to meet here to givr an intensive dramatic sense to the landscape, to a point very rarely seen anywhere else in the world. 

 City of Palmyra:

The Ruins of the old city, spread out over a very large area at an altitude of 405 m., are grouped between the Temple of Bel to the East and the foot of the hills to the west, on both sides of a street with porticos containing various monuments. These monuments are spread at the foot of limestone range of hills, orientated south west-northeast, bare and eroded with funeral towers here and there. You need practically a holw day to visit Palmyra

The temple is set on an artificial mound that dates back to the 2nd millennium BC and it is almost sure that this site has always been the site of a shrine. This sanctuary is walled and has a courtyard in the center of it, and in the center of the courtyard the cella, which is the original place of worship. the Temple of Bel is an important example of the magnitude of ancient Palmyra. Named after "Bol", the supreme God the like of Greek Zeus or Roman Jupiter, the name Bel was assumed after Babylonian usage. The temple has survived centuries of siege, earthquakes and the erosion of time.

This is a large area with several tower and temple tombs and hypogeums. Of the most interesting are the Tower Tombs of Kithoth, Iamliku, Elahbel, Atenatan, and the Hypogeum of Yarhai. There are two other necropolises, the first is to the southwest of Palmyra and includes the Hypogea of the Three Brothers, Atenatan, Hairan and Dionysus. The other necropolis which is situated southeast of Palmyra includes the tombs of Artaban, Breiki, and Bolha.

The colonnaded street, or the decumanus, which is the main axis of the city runs from northwest to southeast for 1.2 Km. Starting from the Temple of Bel which is on the southeast side towards the Arab castle on the northwest side. Nearly at the beginning of the colonnade is the monumental arch, which has been very well preserved and is almost always the vestige with which Palmyra is associated.

Dates back to the 1st Century AD. It was deticated to a divinity of babylonian origin, like the god Bel. Its typically Syrian layout resembles the Temple of Bel of which it is more or less a contemporary. Nebo is identified as the god "Nabou" the master of writting and wisdom of Babylonian. It was later assimilated to Apollo, the oracular divinity par excellence.

The Palmyrian god of fertility, rain and heavens. dates back to the 2nd Century AD. it is built on the ruins of an older one of the first century AD. There remains only the cella, a charming small building with golden-brown or pink topaz columns in the part that was buried under the sands. They Byzantines transformed this edifice into a church. But the entrance which was made on the west, opposite the lobby, with six columns, is still there.