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Palmyra (Tadmur), Syria


Image by james.gordon6108
Palmyra (Arabic: Tadmur‎) was an ancient city in Syria. In the age of antiquity, it was an important city of central Syria, located in an oasis 215 km northeast of Damascus and 180 km southwest of the Euphrates at Deir ez-Zor. It had long been a vital caravan city for travellers crossing the Syrian desert and was known as the Bride of the Desert. The earliest documented reference to the city by its Semitic name Tadmor, Tadmur or Tudmur (which means the town that repels in Amorite and the indomitable in Aramaic.) is recorded in Babylonian tablets found in Mari.
Though the ancient site fell into disuse after the 16th century, it is still known as Tadmor in Arabic, and there is a newer town next to the ruins of the same name. The Palmyrenes constructed a series of large-scale monuments containing funerary art such as limestone slabs with human busts representing the deceased.
Culture
Palmyrans were of Arab ethnicity they bore Arabic names, and worshipped Arabic deities such as: Hubal, Ruda, Ma’nu, Allat, Baal, and Munaf. Palmyrans were originally speakers of a North Arabian dialect; then they adopted Aramaic as an official language thus becoming bilingual , but later shifted from Aramaic into Latin. In the time of the Islamic conquests Palmyra was inhabited by several Arab tribes, primarily Qada’ah and Kalb among others.
Ancient Hisstory
The exact etymology of the name Palmyra is unknown, although some scholars believe it was related to the palm trees in the area. Others, however, believe it may have come out of an incorrect translation of the name Tadmor (cf. Colledge, Seyrig, Starcky, and others). The city was first mentioned in the archives of Mari in the second millennium BC. It was another trading city in the extensive trade network that linked Mesopotamia and northern Syria. Tadmor is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible (Second Book of Chronicles 8:4) as a desert city built (or fortified) by the King Solomon of Judea:
There had been a temple at Palmyra for 2000 years before the Romans ever saw it. Its form, a large stone-walled chamber with columns outside, is much closer to the sort of thing attributed to Solomon than to anything Roman. It is mentioned in the Bible as part of Solomon’s Kingdom. In fact, it says he built it.
—Terry Jones and Alan Ereira, Terry Jones’ Barbarians, p. 183
Flavius Josephus also attributes the founding of Tadmor to Solomon in his Antiquities of the Jews (Book VIII), along with the Greek name of Palmyra, although this must be a confusion with biblical ‘Tamara’.
When the Seleucids took control of Syria in 323 BC, the city was left to itself and it became independent. The city flourished as a caravan halt in the 1st century BC. In 41 BCE, Mark Antony sent a raiding party to Palmyra but the Palmyrans had received intelligence of their approach and escaped to the other side of the Euphrates, demonstrating that at that time Palmyra was still a nomadic settlement and its valuables could be removed at short notice.
In the mid 1st century AD, Palmyra, a wealthy and elegant city located along the caravan routes linking Persia with the Mediterranean ports of Roman Syria and Phoenicia, came under Roman control. During the following period of great prosperity.
Jones and Erieira note that Palmyran merchants owned ships in Italian waters and controlled the Indian silk trade. Palmyra became one of the richest cities of the Near East. The Palmyrans had really pulled off a great trick, they were the only people who managed to live alongside Rome without being Romanized. They simply pretended to be Romans.
Palmyra was made part of the Roman province of Syria during the reign of Tiberius (14 –37 AD). It steadily grew in importance as a trade route linking Persia, India, China, and the Roman empire. In 129, Hadrian visited the city and was so enthralled by it that he proclaimed it a free city and renamed it Palmyra Hadriana.
Beginning in 212, Palmyra’s trade diminished as the Sassanids occupied the mouth of the Tigris and the Euphrates. Septimius Odaenathus, a Prince of Palmyra, was appointed by Valerian as the governor of the province of Syria. After Valerian was captured by the Sassanids and died in captivity in Bishapur, Odaenathus campaigned as far as Ctesiphon (near modern-day Baghdad) for revenge, invading the city twice. When Odaenathus was assassinated by his nephew Maconius, his wife Septimia Zenobia took power, ruling Palmyra on the behalf of her son, Vabalathus.
Zenobia rebelled against Roman authority with the help of Cassius Longinus and took over Bosra and lands as far to the west as Egypt, establishing the short-lived Palmyrene Empire. Next, she took Antioch and large sections of Asia Minor to the north. In 272, the Roman Emperor Aurelian finally restored Roman control and Palmyra was besieged and sacked, never to recover her former glory. Aurelian captured Zenobia, bringing her back to Rome. He paraded her in golden chains but allowed her to retire to a villa in Tibur, where she took an active part in society for years. A legionary fortress was established in Palmyra and although no longer an important trade center, it nevertheless remained an important junction of Roman roads in the Syrian desert.
Diocletian expanded it to harbor even more legions and walled it in to try and save it from the Sassanid threat. The Byzantine period following the Roman Empire only resulted in the building of a few churches; much of the city turned to ruin.
Islamic rule
The city was captured by the Muslim Arabs under Khalid ibn Walid in 634. Palmyra was kept intact. After the year 800 and the civil wars which followed the fall of the Umayyad caliphs, people started abandoning the city. At the time of the Crusades, Palmyra was under the Burid emirs of Damascus, then under Tughtekin, Mohammed the son of Shirkuh, and finally under the emirs of Homs. In 1132 the Burids had the Temple of Ba’al turned into a fortress. In the 13th century the city was handed over to the Mamluk sultan Baybars. In 1401, it was sacked by Tamerlan, but it recovered quickly, so that in the 15th century it was described as boasting vast gardens, flourishing trades and bizarre monuments by Ibn Fadlallah al-Omari.
In the 16th century, Qala’at ibn Maan castle was built on top of a mountain overlooking the oasis by Fakhr ad-Din al-Maan II, a Lebanese prince who tried to control the Syrian Desert. The castle was surrounded by a moat, with access only available through a drawbridge. It is possible that earlier fortifications existed on the hill well before then.
The city declined under Ottoman rule, reducing to no more than an oasis village with a small garrison. In the 17th century its location was rediscovered by western travellers, beginning to be studied by European and American archaeologists starting from the 19th centuries. The villagers who had settled in the Temple of Ba’al were dislodged in 1929 by the French authority.
City remains
The most striking building in Palmyra is the huge temple of Ba’al considered the most important religious building of the first century AD in the Middle East. It originated as a Hellenistic temple, of which only fragments of stones survive. The central shrine (cella) was added in the early 1st century AD, followed by a large double colonnaded portico in Corynthian style. The west portico and the entrance (propylaeum) date from the 2nd century. The temple measures 205 x 210 m.
Starting from the temple, a colonnaded street, corresponding to the ancient decumanus, leads to the rest of the ancient city. It has a monumental arch (dating to reign of Septimius Severus, early 3rd century AD) with rich decorations. Next were a temple of Nabu, of which little remains today apart from the podium, and the so-called baths of Diocletian.
The second most noteworthy remain in Palmyra is the theater E, today having nine rows of seating, but most likely having up to twelve with the addition of wooden structures. It has been dated to the early 1st century AD. Behind the theater were a small Senate, where the local nobility discussed laws and political decisions, and the so-called Tariff Court, which an inscription led to think to be a custom for caravans’ payments. Nearby is the large agora (measuring 48 x 71 m), with remains of a banquet room (triclinium); the agora’s entrance was decorated with statues of Septimius Severus and his family.
The first section of the excavations ends with a largely restored tetrapylon Four columns a platform with four sets each with four columns (only one of the originals in Egyptian granite still visible). A transverse streets leads to the Diocletian’s Camp, built by the Governor of Syria Sosianus Hierocles, with the remains of the large central principia (Hall housing the legions’ standards). Nearby are the Temple of the Syrian goddess Allāt (2nd century AD.), the Damascus Gate and the Temple of Ba’al-Shamin, erected in AD 17 and later expanded under the reign of Odenathus. Remains include a notable portico leading to the cella.
Funerary art
Outside the ancient walls, the Palmyrenes constructed a series of large-scale funerary monuments, which now form the so-called Valley of the Tombs, a 1 km long necropolis, with a series of large structures with rich decorations. These tombs, some of which were below ground, had interior walls that were cut away or constructed to form burial compartments in which the deceased, extended at full length, were placed. Limestone slabs with human busts in high relief sealed the rectangular openings of the compartments.
These reliefs represented the personality or soul of the person interred and formed part of the wall decoration inside the tomb chamber. A banquet scene as depicted on this relief would have been displayed in a family tomb rather than that of an individual.
Further excavations
Archaeological teams from various countries have been working on-and-off on different parts of the site. In May 2005, a Polish team excavating at the Lat temple discovered a highly-detailed stone statue of the winged goddess of victory Nike.
Recently, archaeologists in central Syria have unearthed the remnants of a 1,200-year-old church believed to be the largest ever discovered in Syria, at an excavation site in the ancient town of Palmyra. The church is the fourth to be discovered in Palmyra. Officials described the church as the biggest of its kind to be found so far — its base measuring an impressive 51 by 30 yards. The church columns were estimated to be 20 feet tall, with the height of the wooden ceiling more than 49 feet. A small amphitheater was found in the church’s courtyard where the experts believe some Christian rituals were practiced. In November 2010 Austrian media manager Helmut Thoma admitted the looting of an Palmyrian grave, where he has stolen architectural pieces, today presented in his private living room.German and Austrian archaeologists protested against this crime.

Palmyra, SW Syria


Image by james.gordon6108
Palmyra (Arabic: Tadmur‎) was an ancient city in Syria. In the age of antiquity, it was an important city of central Syria, located in an oasis 215 km northeast of Damascus and 180 km southwest of the Euphrates at Deir ez-Zor. It had long been a vital caravan city for travellers crossing the Syrian desert and was known as the Bride of the Desert. The earliest documented reference to the city by its Semitic name Tadmor, Tadmur or Tudmur (which means the town that repels in Amorite and the indomitable in Aramaic.) is recorded in Babylonian tablets found in Mari.
Though the ancient site fell into disuse after the 16th century, it is still known as Tadmor in Arabic, and there is a newer town next to the ruins of the same name. The Palmyrenes constructed a series of large-scale monuments containing funerary art such as limestone slabs with human busts representing the deceased.
Culture
Palmyrans were of Arab ethnicity they bore Arabic names, and worshipped Arabic deities such as: Hubal, Ruda, Ma’nu, Allat, Baal, and Munaf. Palmyrans were originally speakers of a North Arabian dialect; then they adopted Aramaic as an official language thus becoming bilingual , but later shifted from Aramaic into Latin. In the time of the Islamic conquests Palmyra was inhabited by several Arab tribes, primarily Qada’ah and Kalb among others.
Ancient Hisstory
The exact etymology of the name Palmyra is unknown, although some scholars believe it was related to the palm trees in the area. Others, however, believe it may have come out of an incorrect translation of the name Tadmor (cf. Colledge, Seyrig, Starcky, and others). The city was first mentioned in the archives of Mari in the second millennium BC. It was another trading city in the extensive trade network that linked Mesopotamia and northern Syria. Tadmor is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible (Second Book of Chronicles 8:4) as a desert city built (or fortified) by the King Solomon of Judea:
There had been a temple at Palmyra for 2000 years before the Romans ever saw it. Its form, a large stone-walled chamber with columns outside, is much closer to the sort of thing attributed to Solomon than to anything Roman. It is mentioned in the Bible as part of Solomon’s Kingdom. In fact, it says he built it.
—Terry Jones and Alan Ereira, Terry Jones’ Barbarians, p. 183
Flavius Josephus also attributes the founding of Tadmor to Solomon in his Antiquities of the Jews (Book VIII), along with the Greek name of Palmyra, although this must be a confusion with biblical ‘Tamara’.
When the Seleucids took control of Syria in 323 BC, the city was left to itself and it became independent. The city flourished as a caravan halt in the 1st century BC. In 41 BCE, Mark Antony sent a raiding party to Palmyra but the Palmyrans had received intelligence of their approach and escaped to the other side of the Euphrates, demonstrating that at that time Palmyra was still a nomadic settlement and its valuables could be removed at short notice.
In the mid 1st century AD, Palmyra, a wealthy and elegant city located along the caravan routes linking Persia with the Mediterranean ports of Roman Syria and Phoenicia, came under Roman control. During the following period of great prosperity.
Jones and Erieira note that Palmyran merchants owned ships in Italian waters and controlled the Indian silk trade. Palmyra became one of the richest cities of the Near East. The Palmyrans had really pulled off a great trick, they were the only people who managed to live alongside Rome without being Romanized. They simply pretended to be Romans.
Palmyra was made part of the Roman province of Syria during the reign of Tiberius (14 –37 AD). It steadily grew in importance as a trade route linking Persia, India, China, and the Roman empire. In 129, Hadrian visited the city and was so enthralled by it that he proclaimed it a free city and renamed it Palmyra Hadriana.
Beginning in 212, Palmyra’s trade diminished as the Sassanids occupied the mouth of the Tigris and the Euphrates. Septimius Odaenathus, a Prince of Palmyra, was appointed by Valerian as the governor of the province of Syria. After Valerian was captured by the Sassanids and died in captivity in Bishapur, Odaenathus campaigned as far as Ctesiphon (near modern-day Baghdad) for revenge, invading the city twice. When Odaenathus was assassinated by his nephew Maconius, his wife Septimia Zenobia took power, ruling Palmyra on the behalf of her son, Vabalathus.
Zenobia rebelled against Roman authority with the help of Cassius Longinus and took over Bosra and lands as far to the west as Egypt, establishing the short-lived Palmyrene Empire. Next, she took Antioch and large sections of Asia Minor to the north. In 272, the Roman Emperor Aurelian finally restored Roman control and Palmyra was besieged and sacked, never to recover her former glory. Aurelian captured Zenobia, bringing her back to Rome. He paraded her in golden chains but allowed her to retire to a villa in Tibur, where she took an active part in society for years. A legionary fortress was established in Palmyra and although no longer an important trade center, it nevertheless remained an important junction of Roman roads in the Syrian desert.
Diocletian expanded it to harbor even more legions and walled it in to try and save it from the Sassanid threat. The Byzantine period following the Roman Empire only resulted in the building of a few churches; much of the city turned to ruin.
Islamic rule
The city was captured by the Muslim Arabs under Khalid ibn Walid in 634. Palmyra was kept intact. After the year 800 and the civil wars which followed the fall of the Umayyad caliphs, people started abandoning the city. At the time of the Crusades, Palmyra was under the Burid emirs of Damascus, then under Tughtekin, Mohammed the son of Shirkuh, and finally under the emirs of Homs. In 1132 the Burids had the Temple of Ba’al turned into a fortress. In the 13th century the city was handed over to the Mamluk sultan Baybars. In 1401, it was sacked by Tamerlan, but it recovered quickly, so that in the 15th century it was described as boasting vast gardens, flourishing trades and bizarre monuments by Ibn Fadlallah al-Omari.
In the 16th century, Qala’at ibn Maan castle was built on top of a mountain overlooking the oasis by Fakhr ad-Din al-Maan II, a Lebanese prince who tried to control the Syrian Desert. The castle was surrounded by a moat, with access only available through a drawbridge. It is possible that earlier fortifications existed on the hill well before then.
The city declined under Ottoman rule, reducing to no more than an oasis village with a small garrison. In the 17th century its location was rediscovered by western travellers, beginning to be studied by European and American archaeologists starting from the 19th centuries. The villagers who had settled in the Temple of Ba’al were dislodged in 1929 by the French authority.
City remains
The most striking building in Palmyra is the huge temple of Ba’al considered the most important religious building of the first century AD in the Middle East. It originated as a Hellenistic temple, of which only fragments of stones survive. The central shrine (cella) was added in the early 1st century AD, followed by a large double colonnaded portico in Corynthian style. The west portico and the entrance (propylaeum) date from the 2nd century. The temple measures 205 x 210 m.
Starting from the temple, a colonnaded street, corresponding to the ancient decumanus, leads to the rest of the ancient city. It has a monumental arch (dating to reign of Septimius Severus, early 3rd century AD) with rich decorations. Next were a temple of Nabu, of which little remains today apart from the podium, and the so-called baths of Diocletian.
The second most noteworthy remain in Palmyra is the theater E, today having nine rows of seating, but most likely having up to twelve with the addition of wooden structures. It has been dated to the early 1st century AD. Behind the theater were a small Senate, where the local nobility discussed laws and political decisions, and the so-called Tariff Court, which an inscription led to think to be a custom for caravans’ payments. Nearby is the large agora (measuring 48 x 71 m), with remains of a banquet room (triclinium); the agora’s entrance was decorated with statues of Septimius Severus and his family.
The first section of the excavations ends with a largely restored tetrapylon Four columns a platform with four sets each with four columns (only one of the originals in Egyptian granite still visible). A transverse streets leads to the Diocletian’s Camp, built by the Governor of Syria Sosianus Hierocles, with the remains of the large central principia (Hall housing the legions’ standards). Nearby are the Temple of the Syrian goddess Allāt (2nd century AD.), the Damascus Gate and the Temple of Ba’al-Shamin, erected in AD 17 and later expanded under the reign of Odenathus. Remains include a notable portico leading to the cella.
Funerary art
Outside the ancient walls, the Palmyrenes constructed a series of large-scale funerary monuments, which now form the so-called Valley of the Tombs, a 1 km long necropolis, with a series of large structures with rich decorations. These tombs, some of which were below ground, had interior walls that were cut away or constructed to form burial compartments in which the deceased, extended at full length, were placed. Limestone slabs with human busts in high relief sealed the rectangular openings of the compartments.
These reliefs represented the personality or soul of the person interred and formed part of the wall decoration inside the tomb chamber. A banquet scene as depicted on this relief would have been displayed in a family tomb rather than that of an individual.
Further excavations
Archaeological teams from various countries have been working on-and-off on different parts of the site. In May 2005, a Polish team excavating at the Lat temple discovered a highly-detailed stone statue of the winged goddess of victory Nike.
Recently, archaeologists in central Syria have unearthed the remnants of a 1,200-year-old church believed to be the largest ever discovered in Syria, at an excavation site in the ancient town of Palmyra. The church is the fourth to be discovered in Palmyra. Officials described the church as the biggest of its kind to be found so far — its base measuring an impressive 51 by 30 yards. The church columns were estimated to be 20 feet tall, with the height of the wooden ceiling more than 49 feet. A small amphitheater was found in the church’s courtyard where the experts believe some Christian rituals were practiced. In November 2010 Austrian media manager Helmut Thoma admitted the looting of an Palmyrian grave, where he has stolen architectural pieces, today presented in his private living room.German and Austrian archaeologists protested against this crime.

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The Jerusalem Archeological Park


Image by lyng883
The Jerusalem Archaeological Park, Israel’s most important antiquity site, reaches the Temple Mount on the north, the slope of the Mount of Olives and the Kidron Valley on the east, and the Valley of Hinnom on the west and the south. This exceptional area which has captivated the world’s imagination throughout history, has been designated as an archaeological park and open museum. Visitors to the Park follow events spanning some 5000 years, beginning with the Canaanite (Bronze) Age and continuing through the days of the Israelite monarchy in the First Temple period. The splendors of the Second Temple and the impressive architecture of King Herod, dating to the second half of the first century BCE are a key element in the park, and the remains and monumental structures dating to the Christian and Muslim periods are clearly visible

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DALKEY, SOUTH DUBLIN


Image by infomatique
Dalkey Island is situated about 10 miles south of Dublin, near the village of Dalkey, two miles south of Dún Laoghaire harbour. The island is now uninhabited by humans, but there are the remains of houses, a church and a Martello Tower. Located less than 300 metres offshore the island comprises 9 hectares (22 acres).
Dalkey Island, only 5 minutes by local boat from Coliemore Harbour, is an important site of ancient and historic remains. Artefacts from the island, now housed in the National Museum in Dublin, are evidence that the original occupants were from the Mesolithic or Middle Stone Age. Settlers continued to use the site through the Iron Age and Early Christian period.
There is evidence it was inhabited in the 4th millennium BC (6000 years ago) and was also used as a Viking base. There are ruins of another church, dating from the 7th century, named after St Begnet. This was altered on the east side when builders used it as living quarters while building the nearby Martello tower and gun battery in 1804. An older wooden church was probably here before the present stone one was built.
A promontory fort was located at the northern end of the island, its presence still visible today in the form of a ditch. A herd of goats, originally put there in the early 1800s, remains there today but they are replacements of the original goats which were removed.
You can take a boat to the island in the summer months, by asking one of the local fishermen at Coliemore or Bulloch Harbour. The island is also an ideal spot for fishing, with Pollock, Coalfish, Wrasse and Mackerel being caught.
The ruined stone church was built in the 9th/10th Century and was probably abandoned when the Vikings used the island as a base to form part of the busiest port in the country at that time. In the early 19th Century the British Admiralty erected the Martello Tower, one of eight dotted along the Dun Laoghaire coastline, as an early warning defensive device against the one time threat of invasion during the Napoleonic era.
The channel between the island and the mainland is very deep and was once considered as a location for an oil terminal. However, the local area is very residential, and it was decided that the terminal should go elsewhere.
The waters around Dalkey Island are much used for sailing, angling and diving. Rocks known as Maiden or Carraig Rock, Clare Rock and Lamb Island all to the northwest form part of the ridge of the Island. Parts of these rocks are only visible at low tide.
The Rocks to the east of the Island are known as "The Muglins" and are a different group or chain. These form a danger to shipping and have been fitted with a distinctive beacon.

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