Palmyra
38 16 '00 "East / 34.55417, 38.266667
Syria Identification
** UNESCO Geographical Classification
Palmyra (in ancient Greek ) is an oasis in the desert of Syria , 210 km northeast of Damascus. His Semitic name, attested already in the archives of Mari ( eighteenth century BC. ) is Tadmor (). It's still his name today.
Summary |
History
Origin of Palmyra
The history of Palmyra to the bronze age is poorly known: the city grew on a mound which was the first century covered by the terrace of the Sanctuary of Bel. This is the first century BC. BC that the city is mentioned in the Greco-Roman sources. It was part of a trading network linking Syria to Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean coast.
The Bible attributes the construction of Palmyra to King Solomon ("And he built Tadmor in the wilderness" (II Chr VIII: 4)).
Greco-Roman Palmyra
When the Seleucids took control of Syria in 323 BC. AD, the city became independent. In 41 BC. BC, the Romans, led by Marc Antony , tried to loot Palmyra but failed, the inhabitants of the town had taken refuge with their belongings on the other side of the Euphrates. We deduce that Palmyrene this time were still largely nomadic, living on farming and trade caravan.
Incorporated into the Roman empire under Tiberius , as part of the Roman province of Syria , Palmyra reached its peak under Hadrian , who gave him the status of free city in 129 AD. AD was then a splendid city, which grew up under the Severi. In 212 AD. AD, Emperor Caracalla promoted and neighboring Palmyra Emesa status of Roman colony. The Roman army maintained a garrison there of auxiliary soldiers in a camp north of the city.
During the crisis of the third century , Palmyra escaped the Persian invasions that ravaged Syria in 252 AD. BC and 260 AD. AD. After 260 AD. AD, it was a notable Palmyra Odenatus , which was commissioned by the emperor Gallienus to coordinate the defense of the East. When his widow Zenobia tried to take over as empress and his son Wahballat , Palmyra found himself involved a little against her in a Roman civil war. In 273 AD. BC, conquered by Aurelian in Antioch and then to Emesa , Zenobia retreated with his troops to Palmyra, where Aurelian came to continue. Initially the notables of Palmyra rallied and drove to Aurelian Zenobia, who was arrested. Aurelian in Palmyra left a small garrison and returned to Italy. At that time the city erupted in a revolt which attempted to hand over power to Antiochus, the father of Zenobia. Aurlien retraced his steps, mata revolt and retaliate on the city. His principal shrines were looted, and the emperor commandeered entire neighborhood west of the city to install remains the Illyrian Legion Ist.
In the fourth century and thereafter, Palmyra was no longer the prosperous caravan city of yesteryear. It is a garrison town, occupied by the Illyrian Legion Ist , step in a military road connecting the region of Damascus to the Euphrates (the Strata Diocletian ). The monumental part of the city was protected by a wall which left out the whole area south (between the wadi and the source Efqa), neighborhood may be abandoned at that date. Under Constantine I the highlights of the Strata Diocletian were mostly abandoned but Palmyra remained until the sixth century Roman city occupied by the army, while the surrounding steppe was occupied by communities of monks Monophysite , and controlled by Arab tribes Ghassanids , Christian allies of the Empire. Churches were built, while old pagan temples as the cella of Baalshamin or the sanctuary of Bel were converted into churches and decorated with murals.
Under Justinian in the sixth century the enclosure was reinforced by towers, and water supplies were restored. The city, according to Procopius , "had long since become a desert," received a new garrison which was the outpost of Syria against the invasions of the Persians, and especially against Arabs palmyriens who try to reclaim their empire.
Urban planning in Palmyra Greco-Roman
At the time of its peak in the early third century, the city of Palmyra was much larger than the present archaeological site, yet very broad. Most houses were made of mud bricks, which have left little visible remains. What we see today is the stone skeleton of the city, that is to say, public monuments, or sometimes just the columns that surrounded the atrium of the richest houses, while the else has disappeared.
The city grew first to the location of the sanctuary of Bel and then, when the large square was built in the first century , it spread between the sanctuary and source of Bel Efqa southwest (where today ' Today there are more than the gardens of the oasis). Around the city came to settle Arab families of nomadic origin, each around its tribal sanctuary, like Baalshamin or, to the west on the road from Emesa , one of Allat. During the second century these suburbs were incorporated into the urban fabric with the construction of the monumental area structured around the main colonnade.
During this prosperous period, Palmyra was an open city without walls. There was a wall (traditionally called "wall of customs") surrounding a very large area around the city, but this wall of stone or brick depending on the sector had no military function or prestige, it was , it seems, a simple administrative limit for payment of the fees prescribed by the "tariff of Palmyra," dating from the Emperor Hadrian. At the end of the third century, a defensive wall was built in haste in reusing stones taken from tombs, and protecting only the monumental area, while the rest of the city was probably abandoned.
Society Palmyrean
The numerous inscriptions found on site provide information about the organization of the city in Roman times. Palmyra adopted the Greek institutions: it was governed by a ball, meeting the main landowners, and demos (people) consisting of citizens. Specific responsibilities were assigned to magistrates took the ball, such as strategists or agoranomes.
These institutions had remained in place until the fourth century, including, it seems, during the crisis of the third century, when Odenatus was hailed as the resh (Greek "Exarch") of Palmyra, he had be a military command. The title of "King of Kings" later covered by the same Odenatus , and taken by his widow, Zenobia and her son Wahballat he did not mean as much as Palmyra has changed regime, as the inscriptions show that at this time it is always the ball and the demos that make the laws.
In addition to these civil institutions, the elites of the city were organized in colleges of priests for the worship of the major gods. The most prestigious of the colleges was that the priests of Bel, chaired by symposiarque ("head of the banquet").
Merchants and craftsmen of Palmyra were also organized in guilds: there are known those of tanners, goldsmiths, and manufacturers of bottles rafts (rafts appointed Kelek used until the ninth century down to the Euphrates and the Tigris ).
The caravan trade
Palmyra was the first century in the third century the largest trading power in the Middle East, taking over from Petra , the caravan city of the Nabataeans. Palmyra operated a caravan route, passing by caravanserai in the steppe, reached the banks of the Euphrates River and bordered to the region of Babylon. Hence these caravans earned the kingdom of Mesen to the mouth of the Tigris and the Euphrates. Ships left from there to win the India or other ports of the Indian Ocean. We recently found a votive tablet with a left Palmyrene appointed Abgar, in 256 AD. BC on the island of Socotra off the Somalia.
The caravans of Palmyra were seasonal and annual business. Different merchants joined together to pool their shipments under the responsibility of a "synodiarque" or "head of a caravan, powerful merchant who took over part of the costs. If caravanserai were identified by archaeologists at the exits of the city is in the heart of monumental was the mall, a square surrounded by shops and named "agora" of Palmyra.
To protect these caravans, is Palmyrene were also soldiers. The territory of Palmyra, north of the city, had at CenturyII real stud in the steppe where they bred horses, for purposes which could only be military. The city itself had a garrison of the Roman army, but the Bedouins and peasants in the territory of the city formed warriors mounted on horses or camels and fighting with spears or bow.
These Arab fighters were enlisted in the Roman army, especially at the time of the Severi. Some were incorporated into the regular army, as the twentieth Cohort Palmyrene, cavalry, which formed the garrison of Dura Europos on the banks of the Euphrates under Alexander Severus. Others, used as the numerator, informal troops commanded by Roman officers, but retaining their traditional equipment, were based on the banks of the Danube or to the Camel , in the province of Numidia (in Algeria today). There is no doubt that this horse has Palmyrean constituted a large part of the military forces of Zenobia Odenatus then.
The Gods of Palmyra
According to Jean Starcky the Palmyrene the Hellenistic worship a supreme deity named Bol ("the Lord" in the dialect of Aramaic of Palmyra). Very soon, under the influence of Babylon , it was designated as the supreme god Bel, Babylonian form. Other gods were associated with him as Aglibol (whose name retains the old form) and Malakbel, literally "the angel (malak) of the Lord (Bel). These, it seems, the gods Historic Palmyra.
With the arrival of other Syrian or Arab nomads increasingly numerous other gods came to add their sanctuaries to that of Bel, or assimilated them. So we built a temple to the sun god Syrian Baalshamin (literally "the Lord (Baal) of heaven (Shamin)"), which was assimilated to Bel. Other Arabs erected west of the city a sanctuary to the goddess Arab Allat, assimilated by the Greeks to Athena. In this temple, excavated by archaeologists Polish, were found two statues Allat: the first, from the first century , depicts the goddess like a lion protecting a gazelle, the second, more recent, is just a marble statue of Athena , in the style of Phidias , imported from Greece. South of the sanctuary of Bel was the shrine of Nebo, god of Babylonian origin (Nabu), assimilated by the Greeks Apollo.
Other gods were documented in Palmyra: Arsou and Azizou, protective gods camel caravans as well as the god Ammon, probably Egyptian origin.
The most important cult was rendered to Bel, the god protector of the city. It was dedicated to him that the immense sanctuary of Bel, surrounded by porticoes, adorned with dozens of statues of benefactors who helped build it. This sanctuary, roughly contemporary with the Temple of Jerusalem built by Herod the Great , it was very similar for both dimensions as for the general layout and architectural style. On the vast open square of the city surrounded by propylaea two laps were a pool, a monumental altar for sacrifices, a banquet room that met the priests of Bel, and especially the monumental cella, which probably only priests could enter. Inside, two niches raised (the equivalent of the Holy of Holies ) contained the divine statues. Concession to the Roman Empire, placed there in the first century as the statue of Germanicus and Tiberius.
The god was perhaps also present in the form of a sacred stone. A niche carved into the outside wall of the cella, probably housed a sacred stone on which the pilgrims could access and, like the Kaaba in Mecca. A bas-relief depicts the procession of the sacred stone (or is it something else?), Placed on a camel in a qubba closed by hangings, and the passage in which women completely veiled their faces in a ritual manner.
The Islamic city
Palmyra was taken in the seventh century by the Muslims , when it opened in 634 to Khalid ibn al-Walid. Under the Umayyad caliphs, the town changed. The construction of shops in the middle of the great colonnade transformed this main thoroughfare in the souk, as in other cities of Syria. The caliphs did build in the desert around Palmyra fields luxurious as Bkhara south-east (former Roman fort converted into a castle Umayyad ), or the magnificent palace at Qasr Hisham el Heyries el Gharbi, west of city. Palmyra itself had to suffer civil wars that led to the end of the Umayyads.
At the time of the Crusades , Palmyra depended emirs Seljuk of Damascus , and then passed into the hands of the atabeg bouride Toghtekin , then Muhammad son of Shirkuh as Emir of Homs dependent Saladin. It was when Palmyra depended bouride of Damascus in 1132 the chamberlain Nasir ad-Din turned the sanctuary into a fortress of Bel. The cella of the temple was converted into a mosque. In XIII century the city came under the control of the Mamluk Sultan Baybars (the text of a decree of Baybars grazing rights of the people of Tadmor was found engraved on the wall of the cella of Bel).
The city was pillaged by Tamerlane in 1401 , but it seemed to be relieved. In the fifteenth century Ibn Fadlallah al-Omari described Tadmor praising his "extensive gardens, the prosperity of its trade and curious monuments. In the sixteenth century Fakhr al-Din al Maany built a castle, the Qalat Ibn Maan on the mountain overlooking the city to the west. In the Ottoman period , Palmyra declines. In the seventeenth century the city seemed to have regained its dimensions of the Iron Age: it is more than a village enclosed within the fortified walls of the ancient sanctuary of Bel. Everything else was dropped.
From the seventeenth century to today
From the seventeenth century, Palmyra became famous in Europe because European travelers in published descriptions of rich vivid prints. Its magnificent ruins, the quality of its classical architecture dating from the Roman period (second century), formed a striking contrast with the surrounding desert.
In the nineteenth century the Ottomans settled a small garrison, while archaeologists from Europe and the United States began the systematic study of the ruins and inscriptions.
After the First World War , Syria was occupied by the French under a mandate from the League of Nations. The French army in Palmyra implements a unit of Camel and built an airfield for air control of the steppe. Archaeological excavations are organized on a large scale: the village that was in the sanctuary of Bel is destroyed and the people rehoused in a modern city built north of the archaeological site, while the ancient temple is restored.
Since independence from Syria, the modern city of Tadmor has developed considerably. The airfield became a military base, but the project into a civilian airport to develop tourism has never been completed. There is also a prison. As in antiquity, the city lives on agriculture in the oasis, Bedouin livestock in the steppe, while the profits of big business from the past are replaced by significant income from tourism.
Description of the archaeological site
Remains of the Greco-Roman city
Temple of Baal (or Bel)
The most imposing edifice of Palmyra is the huge Hellenistic temple of Baal ( Bel ), which has been described as "the most important religious building in the first century AD in the Middle East" Triumphal Arch and decumanus colonnaded Beginning at the temple, a colonnaded street, which corresponds to the former decumanus leads the rest of the ancient city. A monumental arch, dating from Septimus Severus (early III / Sup> century) opens this triumphant and rich decorations. It remains fairly Temple Nabu , apart from its podium , and what we now call the baths Diocletian. Columns and arch Arch and colonnaded street Triumphal arch and colonnade The theater has now 9 rows of bleachers, but he had to have 16 at home, thanks to the addition of a wooden structure Tetrapyle The first section ends with a dig largely restored monument, called tetrapylon or tetrapylon (monument to the "four pillars"), which consists of a base supporting four sets of four columns (one of these columns is original, in granite Egyptian). Tetrapyle, at the intersection of the cardo and decumanus Tetrapyle Tetrapyle A side street leading to the Camp of Diocletian, built by the governor of Syria Sosianus Hierocles , with the rest of the vast central principia (room containing the insignia of legions). It can be seen near the ruins of the temple of the Syrian goddess Allat (second century AD), the Damascus Gate and the Temple of Baal Shamin-erected in 17 AD and developed over later under the reign of Odenatus. A portico leading to the cella presents significant remains. The agora The temple Baalshamin Outside the walls of their city, the Palmyra built a series of major monuments, which now form the Valley of the Tombs, burial, which extends over a length of one kilometer, with a series of large structures very richly decorated. These tombs, some of which are underground, have been dug or constructed with compartments where the dead rested extended. Limestone stelae, with busts of the deceased (style Parthian , Roman or Iranian ) carved in high relief , sealing the opening rectangular compartments. These reliefs, which represent the personality or soul of the person buried, become part of the wall decoration of the burial chamber. The stelae that depict scenes of banquets match the mass grave of a family rather than an individual. Necropolis of Palmyra Funeral Tour Funeral Tour Zabdila the priest, who died in 176. Muse du Louvre. Belowground two brothers inside Marcus, colon Berytos , who died about 200. Muse du Louvre. Archaeological teams from different countries worked on one or another part of the site. In May 2005, a Polish team who searched the temple of Lat , where she unearthed a stone statue finely detailed winged goddess of Victory ( Nike ). Ancient City of Damascus (1979) Ancient City of Bosra (1980) Site of Palmyra (1980) Old City of Aleppo (1986) Crac des Chevaliers and Qal'at Salah El-Din (2006) 
Theatre
Camp of Diocletian
Other urban remains
Funerary art
Campaigns of Excavations
References
See also
Bibliography
External Links
Cultural 
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