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www.syriamc.com This ancient city is the jewel in the crown of Syrian heritage sites. The site covers 50 hectares and has been extensively excavated and restored. The new town to the west now thrives on a mainly tourist driven economy, with 40,000 inhabitants. This infrastructure together with the extensive relics of antiquity on offer effectively distinguish Palmyra as a resort, rather than an interesting day trip: A day trip would only leave time for terribly hurried viewing of this stunning and unique site, which is best viewed at sunrise amongst the pillars or sunset from the vantage point at the Arab castle on the hill: Qala’at Ibn Maan
The city is still known as ‘Tadmor’ (its ancient Semitic name) by the Arabs, is mentioned in texts discovered in Mari that date back as far as the second millennium BC. The city was ruled by the Persians and the Assyrians before it was incorporated into the realm of the Seleucids, the empire founded by the former general of Alexander the Great.
From early in its history, Tadmor was a key staging post in for caravans travelling from the Mediterranean to Mesopotamia and Arabia. It benefited also from the heavy tolls it was able to extort, due to its important location on the Silk Road from China and India to Europe, on caravans travelling through the region.
As the Romans expanded their empire in the 1st and 2nd Centuries AD, the rule of the Selucids waned and Tadmor became sandwiched between the Romans from the west and the Parthians to the east. This placed Palmyra in a particularly useful position, the oasis city of palms acted as an intermediary between the two superpowers, as well as ameliorating its role as host to the caravans on trading routes such as the Silk Road, as well as new routes that opened-up to pass through the new divide.
When the emperor Hadrian visited Palmyra in AD 130, he declared it a ‘free city’, allowing it to set and collect its own taxes. Later, in 212 AD, the emperor Caracalla made Palmyra a Roman colony, exempting it from paying imperial taxes. At this point, Palmyra began to flourish and with the new wealth available, larger temples were built and the cardo or colonnaded street was extended.
As Rome was thwarted by internal turmoil, the Palmyrenes strengthened their independence. Ordinat, a local noble, defeated the army of one of Rome’s long-standing rivals; the Sassinians. After the victory, he proclaimed himself King of Palmyra. In 256 AD the emperor Valerian bestowed the title of ‘Corrector of the East’ upon King Ordinat and out all of the Roman forces in the region under his command.
Directly King Ordinat was assassinated in 267 AD, his second wife Zenobia ushered in the most glorious, if doomed era of Palmrya’s history. The Romans didn’t accept her as queen and ruler of Palmyra. However, she assumed the name of her son Vabalathus and defeated a Roman army sent to defeat her. Subsequently, she led her army against the garrison at Busra, the then capital of the Roman province of Arabia. She later successfully invaded Egypt; making all of modern-day Syria, Palestine and part of Egypt under her control.
With this, Zenobia declared her independence from Rome and had coins bearing her image and others bearing the likeness of her son, who assumed the title of Augustus, or Emperor, minted in Alexandria. Zenobia was indeed a formidable woman. She claimed to be descended from Cleopatra and historic texts claim that she was as least as beautiful as the legendary ruler of the orient. She was also undoubtedly more ambitious, headstrong and importantly: less fickle than Cleopatra: When she was eventually taken captive by the Romans she allegedly chose to starve to death, rather than remain a disgraced prisoner; accordingly, there is no mention of heartbreak and asps in the tale of Queen Zenobia’s demise.
That demise came when the Roman emperor Aurelian could no longer stand Zenobia’s open defiance, which incited him to launch an all out attack against the rebel queen. His forces defeated hers at Antioch and Emesa (modern-day Homs) and in 271 he besieged Palmyra itself. Defiant to the last, Zenobia choose not to accept the generous terms of surrender offered by the emperor but instead escaped through the ranks of Roman troops on Camel-back, heading for Persia to solicit military aid. Unfortunately for her, she was captured by Roman troops stationed at the Euphrates and was carted off to Rome in 272.
A year later, after Palmyra, less its former heroine monarch, had been reacquired by the Romans, there was another rebellion in which the Palmryrenes slaughtered a garrison of 600 archers. Emperor Aurelian obviously considered this to be a particularly repugnant retaliation, since he then ordered a mass slaughter of many, many Palmyrenes and for the city to be torched.
Later on in the 3rd century AD, the emperor Diocletian had the shattered city fortified as part of a line of similar outposts which marked the eastern border of the Roman empire. The emperor Justinian reinforced the city’s defences in the 6th century. The city was fated to exist only as a military outpost as the trading faded almost entirely.
In 634 the Arabs conquered Palmyra led by Khaled Ibn al-Walid, after which point Palmyra fades from history almost entirely. The Arabs are known to have fortified the Temple of Bel and made a castle, Qala’at Ibn Maan, on a nearby hillside. In the end, the city was abandoned following an earthquake and most of the structures were devastated and covered by sand and earth blowing in the wind.
Then, in 1678, Palmyra was discovered by two English merchants based in Aleppo. Very few people followed their example to see the marvel of Palmyra, since at the time it was a journey of 5 days from civilisation and the area was hostile territory, with many bandits on the prowl. In 1751, it was an expedition that provided the drawings and the first tentative excavations that would entice other travellers to the site. Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries there was a steady stream of intrepid visitors, but it was only early in the 20th century that a proper scientific study was conducted. The first surveys were undertaken by the Germans in the 1920s. In 1929 the French took over. Work intensified after World War II, which continues to this day. | 
