Palmyra
Palmyra is an ancient city in central Syria. It is located in the eastern part of the Levant, and archaeological finds date back to the Neolithic period, and documents first mention the city in the early second millennium BCE. Palmyra changed hands on a number of occasions between different empires before becoming a subject of the Roman Empire in the first century CE.
The city grew wealthy from trade caravans; the Palmyrenes became renowned as merchants who established colonies along the Silk Road and operated throughout the Roman Empire. Palmyra's wealth enabled the construction of monumental projects, such as the Great Colonnade, the Temple of Bel, and the distinctive tower tombs. Ethnically, the Palmyrenes combined elements of Amorites, Arameans, and Arabs. Socially structured around kinship and clans, Palmyra's inhabitants spoke Palmyrene Aramaic, a variety of Western Middle Aramaic, while using Koine Greek for commercial and diplomatic purposes. The Hellenistic period of West Asia influenced the culture of Palmyra, which produced distinctive art and architecture that combined different Mediterranean traditions. The city's inhabitants worshiped local Semitic, Mesopotamian, and Arab deities.
By the third century, Palmyra had become a prosperous regional center. It reached the apex of its power in the 260s, when the Palmyrene King Odaenathus defeated the Sasanian emperor Shapur I. The king was succeeded by queen regent Zenobia, who rebelled against Rome and established the Palmyrene Empire. In 273, Roman emperor Aurelian levelled the city, which was later restored by Diocletian at a reduced size. The Palmyrenes converted to Christianity during the fourth century and to Islam in the centuries following the conquest by the seventh-century Rashidun Caliphate, after which the Palmyrene and Greek languages were replaced by Arabic.
Before 273 CE, Palmyra enjoyed autonomy and was attached to the Roman province of Syria, having its political organization influenced by the Greek city-state model during the first two centuries CE. The city became a Roman colonia during the third century, leading to the incorporation of Roman governing institutions, before becoming a monarchy in 260. Following its razing in 273, Palmyra became a minor center under the Byzantines and later empires. Its destruction by the Timurids in 1400 reduced it to a small village. Under French Mandatory rule in 1932, the inhabitants were moved into the new village of Tadmur, and the ancient site became available for excavations. During the Syrian civil war in 2015, the Islamic State captured Palmyra and destroyed large parts of the ancient city, which was recaptured by the Syrian Army on 2 March 2017. It was then recaptured by the Syrian Free Army, after the fall of the Assad government in December 2024.
Etymology
Records of the name "Tadmor" date from the early second millennium BC; 18th-century BC tablets from Mari written in cuneiform record the name as "Ta-ad-mi-ir", while Assyrian inscriptions of the 11th century BC record it as "Ta-ad-mar". Aramaic Palmyrene inscriptions themselves showed two variants of the name; TDMR and TDMWR. The etymology of the name is unclear; the standard interpretation, supported by Albert Schultens, connects it to the Semitic word for "date palm", tamar, thus referring to the palm trees that surrounded the city.The Greek name Παλμύρα was first recorded by Pliny the Elder in the first century AD. It was used throughout the Greco-Roman world. It is generally believed that "Palmyra" derives from "Tadmor" and linguists have presented two possibilities; one view holds that Palmyra was an alteration of Tadmor. According to the suggestion by Schultens, "Palmyra" could have arisen as a corruption of "Tadmor", via an unattested form "Talmura", changed to "Palmura" by the influence of the Latin word palma, in reference to the city's palm trees, then the name reached its final form "Palmyra". The second view, supported by some philologists, such as Jean Starcky, holds that Palmyra is a translation of "Tadmor", which had derived from the Greek word for palm, "palame".
An alternative suggestion connects the name to the Syriac tedmurtā "miracle", hence tedmurtā "object of wonder", from the root dmr "to wonder"; this possibility was mentioned favourably by Franz Altheim and Ruth Altheim-Stiehl, but rejected by Jean Starcky and Michael Gawlikowski. Michael Patrick O'Connor suggested that the names "Palmyra" and "Tadmor" originated in the Hurrian language. As evidence, he cited the inexplicability of alterations to the theorized roots of both names. According to this theory, "Tadmor" derives from the Hurrian word tad with the addition of the typical Hurrian mid vowel rising formant mar. Similarly, according to this theory, "Palmyra" derives from the Hurrian word pal using the same mVr formant.
Region and city layout
The city of Palmyra lies northeast of the Syrian capital, Damascus; along with an expanded hinterland of several settlements, farms, and forts, the city forms part of the region known as Palmyrena or Palmyrene. The city is located in an oasis surrounded by palms. Two mountain ranges overlook the city - the northern Palmyrene mountain belt from the north and the southern Palmyrene mountains from the southwest. In the south and the east Palmyra is exposed to the Syrian Desert. A small wadi, al-Qubur, crosses the area, flowing from the western hills past the city before disappearing in the eastern gardens of the oasis. South of the wadi is a spring, Efqa. Pliny the Elder described the town in the 70s AD as famous for its desert location, for the richness of its soil, and for the springs surrounding it, which made agriculture and herding possible.Layout
Palmyra began as a small Neolithic settlement near the Efqa spring on the southern bank of Wadi al-Qubur. The much later Hellenistic settlement of Palmyra was also located near the Efqa spring on the southern bank of Wadi al-Qubur. It had its residences expanding to the wadi's northern bank during the first century. Although the city's walls at the time of Zenobia originally enclosed an extensive area on both banks of the wadi, the walls rebuilt during Aurelian's reign surrounded only the northern-bank section. Most of the city's monumental projects were built on the wadi's northern bank, among them is the Temple of Bel, on a tell which was the site of an earlier temple. However, excavation supports the theory that the tell was originally located on the southern bank, and the wadi was diverted south of the tell to incorporate the temple into Palmyra's late first and early second century urban organization on the north bank.Also north of the wadi was the Great Colonnade, Palmyra's main street, which extended from the Temple of Bel in the east, to the Funerary Temple no.86 in the city's western part. It had a monumental arch in its eastern section, and a tetrapylon stands in the center. The Baths of Diocletian were on the left side of the colonnade. Nearby were residences, the Temple of Baalshamin, and the Byzantine churches, which include "Basilica IV", Palmyra's largest church. The church is dated to the Justinian age, its columns are estimated to be high, and its base measured.
The Temple of Nabu and the Roman theater were built on the colonnade's southern side. Behind the theater were a small senate building and the large agora, with the remains of a triclinium and the Tariff Court. A cross street at the western end of the colonnade leads to the Camp of Diocletian, built by Sosianus Hierocles. Nearby are the Temple of Al-lāt and the Damascus Gate.
Demographic history
Bronze and Iron Ages
The earliest known inhabitants were the Amorites in the early second millennium BC, and by the end of the millennium, Arameans were mentioned as inhabiting the area.Arabs arrived in the city in the late first millennium BC.
Hellenistic to Byzantine periods
, who aided the Seleucids in the battle of Raphia, was mentioned as the commander of "the Arabs and neighbouring tribes to the number of ten thousands"; Zabdibel and his men were not actually identified as Palmyrenes in the texts, but the name "Zabdibel" is a Palmyrene name leading to the conclusion that he hailed from Palmyra. The Arab newcomers were assimilated by the earlier inhabitants, used Palmyrene as a mother tongue, and formed a significant segment of the aristocracy.At its height during the reign of Zenobia, Palmyra had more than 200,000 residents.
The classical city also had a Jewish community; inscriptions in Palmyrene from the Beit She'arim necropolis in Lower Galilee confirm the burial of Palmyrene Jews.
During the Roman period, occasionally and rarely, members of the Palmyrene families took Greek names while ethnic Greeks were few; the majority of people with Greek names, who did not belong to one of the city's families, were freed slaves. The Palmyrenes seem to have disliked the Greeks, considered them foreigners, and restricted their settlement in the city.
Early Muslim to Late Ottoman periods
During the Umayyad Caliphate, Palmyra was mainly inhabited by the Banu Kalb.Benjamin of Tudela recorded the existence of 2000 Jews in the city during the twelfth century.
Palmyra declined after its destruction by Timur in 1400, and was a village of 6,000 inhabitants at the beginning of the 20th century.
Ethnicity of classical Palmyra
Palmyra's population was a mixture of the different peoples inhabiting the city, which is seen in Aramaic, Arabic and Amorite names of Palmyrene clans, but the ethnicity of Palmyra is a matter of debate.Some scholars, such as Andrew M. Smith II, consider ethnicity a concept related to modern nationalism, and prefer not to describe the Palmyrenes with ethnic designations they themselves did not know, concluding that there is a lack of evidence regarding what ethnicity the Palmyrenes perceived themselves. On the other hand, many scholars, such as Eivind Seland, contend that a distinctive Palmyrene ethnicity is apparent in the available contemporary evidence. The second century work De Munitionibus Castrorum mentioned the Palmyrenes as a natio, the Latin equivalent of the Greek ἔθνος. Seland noted the epigraphic evidence left by the Palmyrenes outside the city.
The inscriptions reveal the existence of a real diaspora satisfying the three criteria set by the sociologist Rogers Brubaker. Palmyrene diaspora members always made clear their Palmyrene origin and used the Palmyrene language, and maintained their distinct religion even when the host society's religion was close to that of Palmyra. Seland concluded that in the case of Palmyra, the people perceived themselves different from their neighbours and a real Palmyrene ethnicity existed. Aside from the existence of a Palmyrene ethnicity, Aramean or Arab are the two main ethnic designations debated by historians; Javier Teixidor stated, "Palmyra was an Aramaean city and it is a mistake to consider it as an Arab town", while Yasamin Zahran criticized this statement and argued that the inhabitants considered themselves Arabs. In practice, according to several scholars such as Udo Hartmann and Michael Sommer, the citizenry of Palmyra were mainly the result of Arab and Aramaean tribes merging into a unity with a corresponding consciousness; they thought and acted as Palmyrenes.