Archive archaeology and Harald Ingholt’s legacy

The work The Ingholt Archive: The Palmyrene Material, Transcribed with Commentary and Bibliography, edited by Olympia Bobou, Amy C. Miranda, Rubina Raja, and Jean-Baptiste Yon, came out in 2022. Of mammoth size, the four-volume resource was published by Brepols as the second title in the new Archive Archaeology series. It represents a major contribution of the Aarhus University team to the study of Palmyra’s heritage, bringing to light the legacy of the Danish archaeologist and Semitic philologist Harald Ingholt (HI). He stepped into Palmyrene studies principally as the first scholar who proposed a comprehensive chronological framework and dating criteria for Palmyrene sculpture, including funerary portraits, a contribution that remains foundational.Footnote ⁵ His greatest achievement was undoubtedly his post-doctoral dissertation, Studier over palmyrensk skulptur (1928), which systematically assembled all Palmyrene portraits known at the time.Footnote ⁶ Drawing on material he had located across the Middle East, Europe, the United States, and Latin America, he organized the objects into stylistic categories defined by facial modeling, drapery, jewelry, and other formal criteria, and established three chronological phases for the development of Palmyrene portraiture: 50–150 CE, 150–200 CE, and 200–250 CE. In preparation for this study, HI compiled files with photographs and descriptions of 545 objects already dispersed among museums and private collections.

This scholarly synthesis was paralleled by a lifelong process of archival work.Footnote ⁷ Beginning during his internship at Princeton University in 1922 and continuing until 1983, when he donated the collection to the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, HI gathered photographs, notes, transcriptions, drawings, and excavation records. Much of this documentation was produced during his fieldwork in Palmyra, where he participated in the French-led excavations of 1924–1925 with Maurice Dunand and Albert Gabriel, returned in 1928, and continued to work throughout the 1930s.Footnote ⁸ In these campaigns, he photographed, measured, and transcribed inscriptions from hypogea and tower tombs, while also acquiring sculptures for the Glyptotek. HI worked on the archive also later, while holding positions at several international institutions, to finally become a professor at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Until 1981, he gathered photographs and information on 1,506 items, 153 of which had never been published, 43 cannot be located nowadays, and many others remain unavailable (or have been destroyed) in Palmyra.

Transferred to Aarhus University in 2012, the archive has since been digitized and subjected to systematic historiographic processing. Altogether, the work undertaken spans a century and, thanks to the systematic preparation of the material, allows observation of the progress in the discipline and the broadening range of media used in the research – clearly reflected in the evolution of notes’ structure: “the archive grew over the years, and its increased media diversity in the later sheets perhaps demonstrates Ingholt’s evolving interests in Palmyrene art” (17). This publication makes its comprehensive documentation widely accessible, transforming the way researchers can engage with Palmyra’s material heritage. Prior to this edition, the archive was known primarily to scholars of an older generation, who had met HI or had access to the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek warehouses in Copenhagen. While legendary, the archive had limited impact on research before its systematic publication.

The editing work on HI’s documentation, carried out by the Aarhus team, lasted over a decade, reflecting the immense effort invested both by HI himself and by those working on his legacy. Spanning 1,954 pages, the publication comprises three main sections. The first section contains the introduction, in which the editors describe the archive, the process of its formation, as well as HI’s biography and contribution to Palmyrene studies, as outlined at the beginning of this article. In the remainder of the introduction, the editors present the work involved in preparing the archive for publication, focusing primarily on how the material was structured. One of the main challenges was restructuring the archive to restore HI’s original order. Consequently, the editorial team paid less attention to HI’s personal biography and more to the history of the archive itself, while also addressing the period 1983–2012, when it was handled by Gunhild Ploug and Finn Ove Hvidberg-Hansen at the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, who introduced certain changes that have since been reversed. This constitutes an important historiographic contribution, but what is particularly valuable in the introduction are the editors’ remarks on how to read the HI’s Archive, supplemented with technical and methodological observations regarding the published documents.

The archive is composed of paper sheets that are mostly brownish, some yellow, and one turquoise blue, with the vast majority encased in file folders. Most sheets contain an image, often adhered initially with grey photographic mounting squares, later replaced with transparent squares. In later stages of preparation, images were sometimes taped, including when they needed to be reattached, and only very rarely glued. The images are oriented vertically, and are black and white unless otherwise noted. Many, particularly the earlier photographs, were taken by HI himself, while others were cut out or photocopied from publications, with HI often providing photographic credits or references to the original source. Each sheet is assigned a “PS number” – short for Palmyrene Sculpture (Palmyrensk skulptur in Danish) – handwritten by HI in the top right corner. Some sheets contain multiple items and thus multiple PS numbers. Apart from that, some of HI PS numbers might be followed by a separate “NCG” (Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek) PS number, as well as PS numbers assigned by Gunhild Ploug after 1983. Hence the logic of the last system remains unclear; the editors retained HI’s numbering, assuming it reflects the chronology of his research.

While working on the archive, the editors also faced the challenge of reading HI’s handwritten notes, as well as later notes added by Ploug, in the form of small yellow Post-It notes. They contain bibliographic information and observations regarding the origin of the sculptures and photographs. HI looked closely at physiognomic features such as eyes and mouth, as well as adornments such as drapery folds and jewelry. Furthermore, he also transcribed and translated the inscriptions found on the reliefs, and reconstructed genealogies of families of the portrayed individuals. This is testified to by drawings of family trees placed together with references to other PS numbers and inscriptions in the Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum. The newspaper and magazine clippings attached indicate that HI stayed abreast of Palmyrene scholarship late in his career and most probably even after his retirement.

Finally, the new volume carefully reviewed some inscriptions, making corrections where needed. It also incorporates HI’s notes regarding the evolution of Palmyrene script, shedding light on his meticulous method and the philological dimension of his documentation. What is of paramount importance, the editors underline the significance of this publication in making Palmyra’s cultural heritage accessible to scholars and the wider public. They also highlight the important Danish contribution to the study and preservation of Palmyra’s material legacy.Footnote ⁹ Therefore, through the systematic publication of fieldwork diaries, working notebooks, find sheets, and photographs, the editors demonstrate a rigorous archaeological methodology based on dialogues between field documentation, museum collections, and archives. This approach allows readers to conduct research even in the absence of direct access to the site, countering the traditional fetishization of excavation and the neglect of the subsequent history of artifacts. The Ingholt Archive thus functions both as homage to a pioneering scholar and as a milestone in methodological developments in classical archaeology. Thus, in the introduction, the editors point to the importance of the publication for making Palmyra’s cultural heritage accessible (10).

Its outcome is a catalog of over 1,506 items published on 1,507 pages. Each entry consists of a digitized scan of an archive page, usually placed on the right side. The scan contains photographs and a description of a specific sculpture prepared by HI. On the left, below the item’s PS number and name, there is a transcription of HI’s notes in the original language (Danish, French, English), covering inscriptions and observations, supplemented with commentary by the editors and a comprehensive scholarly bibliography related to the object, spanning from the beginning of academic research on Palmyrene sculpture up to the present day. Furthermore, Jean-Baptiste Yon prepared transcriptions and translations of the inscriptions provided by HI, together with a comment where there have been any changes to the philological state of the art.Footnote ¹⁰ The present publication makes this extensive corpus accessible for the first time in its entirety, substantially reshaping the possibilities for research on Palmyra’s material heritage. Prior to this edition, the archive – though often mentioned and in some respects legendary – was known mainly to scholars who had met HI personally or had gained access to the storage rooms of the Glyptotek, and thus had only limited impact on broader scholarship. The level of detail embodies an enormous research potential, the most striking examples of which are worth discussing below.

Above all, the value of the publication lies in the fact that the photographs filed in the archive were often taken during the digs, so we can see some of the known sculptures from Palmyra immediately after excavation, in their original context, unfortunately often destroyed at present. HI conducted research principally in the south-eastern necropolis, exploring its hypogea.Footnote ¹¹ His philological interests were revealed as he transcribed so far unknown Aramaic and Greek inscriptions.Footnote ¹² He also documented the tombs with their sculptures and other decorations, stuccoes and paintings.Footnote ¹³ He also spent a good deal of time measuring the tombs, recording dimensions of architectural arrangements and tomb’s relative orientation in his sketchbooks with drawings of the tombs and a map of the necropolis. Thus, the archive contains exceptionally important photographic documentation of Palmyrene sarcophagi, tombs, and reliefs, notably including PS 984 (1123–1129), which records three richly decorated sarcophagi from the exedra of Maqquai, and other items from the hypogea of Malkû (PS 1391, 1432–1439), and the Three Brothers (PS 1417–1419, 1456–1459). HI documented these objects with multiple black-and-white photographs and technical drawings, capturing reliefs, traces of color, and details of figures, garments, and ritual objects, many of which are otherwise lost. The collection also includes iconic pieces such as the Beauty of Palmyra (PS 675, 795–803),Footnote ¹⁴ or the much less known though spectacular Qaryatein female relief mounted on the wall of a Muslim house, which demonstrates both ancient artistry and ongoing local interest in Palmyrene heritage. Beyond their historical significance, the photographs provide invaluable data for studying the development of Palmyrene sculpture, portraiture, iconography, and ritual practices, including rarely published loculus reliefs (e.g., PS 104, 109; valuable for the study of the iconography of writing tools),Footnote ¹⁵ priestly representations (item PS149, 160),Footnote ¹⁶ and detailed ornamentation of garments and ritual vesselsFootnote ¹⁷ (PS 564, 707–709). HI’s gradual enrichment of the archive, including historical drawings (a drawing of Palmyra by Cornelius Loos: PS 1081, 1222), paintings (Palmyra by Hofstede van der Essen from 1693: PS 1082, 1223), and genealogical records (Seleucids (PS 1424, 1461), further allows tracing both ancient production contexts and the modern history of research, making the collection a critical resource for reconstruction, stylistic analysis, and digital modeling of Palmyrene material culture.Footnote ¹⁸

Furthermore, boards, photographs, and notes prepared by HI 100 years ago suggest that the museums storing such a group of items should work on a more open policy of access to the collection, and undertake a more thorough interpretation.Footnote ¹⁹ All this thus creates the basis for including the data from less accessible collections and developing our knowledge about Palmyrene art.

There are many examples of how the publication of HI’s archive may prove useful. It is unfortunate that the precise camera and film stock employed by HI in Palmyra cannot be identified, as, unfortunately, I have not found this information either in the published archive or in the preceding publications.Footnote ²⁰ Black-and-white photos taken using traditional technique perfectly bring out details, which is an important argument in the discussion over whether, in the documentation of sculptures, black-and-white or color photographs prove more useful. Such details of style and iconography, together with other information contained in the archive, may serve not only for comparative studies, but also for verification of authenticity and origin of Palmyrene sculptures held in museum collections often for over 100 years (PS 56, 43).Footnote ²¹ One may hope that future research will help to deepen the discussion on this subject.

The extensive catalog is followed by appendices and indexes that supplement the main corpus. The five appendices are:

1. 1. Appendix 1. (1543–1574), sheets without PS numbers containing HI’s notes.

2. 2. Appendix 2. (1575–1652), additional portraits, mostly sculptures without PS signatures, documenting HI’s interests in art history and comparative material, including the American University in Beirut collection (1578) and a bust of Zeus Ammon, possibly from Hauran (1583).

3. 3. Appendix 3. (1653–1678), architectural and contextual documentation, e.g., the façade of the temple of Bêl drawn by the Danish architect Charles Christensen (1654), the interior of the hypogeum of Lišamš (1656), and the entrance to the hypogeum of Barʿâ (1662, unexcavated).

4. 4. Appendix 4. (1679–1764), miscellaneous items such as a map of hypogea (1680), inscriptions from the tomb of Malkû (1693), a male head from the tomb of ‘Alainê (1727), and illustrations of Sassanid coins (1756).

5. 5. Appendix 5. (1765–1802), HI’s Concordance, explaining his numeration system based on a scanned notebook from the American University of Beirut.

These are followed by 13 concordance indexes covering contexts in situ, locations, collections, objects with unknown whereabouts, unpublished portraits and inscriptions, personal names in Greek and Latin inscriptions, object dates, typologies, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek folders, and their contents. Such a meticulous study, together with indices, allows effective navigation on 1,954 pages of the HI Archive, which thus uncovers its precious information to the reader, now also available in the digital version in the open access mode.Footnote ²² Therefore, the authors clearly bring through the postulate to protect Syria’s cultural heritage endangered by war and without direct access to the site, as stated in the introduction.

First comprehensive catalog of Palmyrene Sarcophagi

HI’s vast legacy demonstrates that Palmyrene archaeology is, to a considerable extent, the archaeology of its tombs and their decorations. Documentation of this aspect of Palmyrene social experience. In the Roman period, four necropoleis emerged around the city.Footnote ²³ In there, both modest earth tombs and monumental structures dedicated to notable Palmyrene families were built of local limestone, which, in Roman times, was the material to construct the city’s monumental buildings and their sculptural decorations.Footnote ²⁴ With these resources, throughout three centuries, the Palmyrenes developed several types of monumental family tombs. The earliest was the tower tomb,Footnote ²⁵ followed by the hypogeum carved out in limestone rock,Footnote ²⁶ whereas the last and most sophisticated structure was the ground-based funerary temple.Footnote ²⁷ At least from 40 CE, all the successive types of funerary monuments were elaborately decorated with an increasing variety of human representations (forming part of other decorations’ design, such as pilasters, stuccoes, coffers on the ceilings, or frescoes).Footnote ²⁸ Human representations in relief were placed on funerary slabs closing the loculi with embalmed or mummified bodies arranged in multi-story rows separated by pilasters and other decorations. They were also mounted on the facades of tower tombs, and carved in the mighty full-figural stelae. The tombs also housed sarcophagi of the most important family members buried in individual tombs surrounded by loculi-slabs of other family members. One can thus say that the architectural decoration and layout of sculptures of individuals reflected Palmyrene social environment, which also transformed in the period when the tombs were created, paced with the integration of the local society with the Graeco-Roman world, turning from a clan society, through the Greek civic structure, to the Roman status of colonia and metrocolonia. Footnote ²⁹

The social shifts caused transformations of funerary architecture, and the changes to sepulchral space resulted in the introduction of new artistic designs, as observed by Krzysztof Makowski in 1985.Footnote ³⁰ In this process, the placement of sarcophagi within the spatial and decorative layout of tombs assumed an increasingly central role. Research on sarcophagi, however, remains scattered, with no comprehensive synthesis. It is thus not surprising that, during the realization of the Palmyra Portrait Project, “it became clear that the corpus of limestone sarcophagi from Palmyra constitutes a unique group of material from outside of Rome and can cast new light on local funerary traditions and portrait sculpture in the Roman world (37).” The outcome was the Palmyrene Sarcophagi publication in 2023, the second publication of Aarhus team edited by Olympia Bobou and Rubina Raja, which is the scope of this article and particular focus of this section. This monumental, two-volume study was also published by Brepols, already as the 10th book in the Studies in Palmyrene Archaeology and History series managed by Raja since 2016.

The very definition of the object of the publication indicates that Palmyrene society, as culturally independent, was capable of working out its own artistic forms that drew on the Graeco-Roman models to the extent the Palmyerenes deemed appropriate at a given time. This is why the monograph presents as sarcophagi not just locally produced limestone sarcophagi, the term denoting rectangular stone coffins, but also other types of funerary commemoration. In the Palmyrene context, the term also includes banqueting reliefs, placed in tombs and dedicated to specific deceased shown feasting in the afterlife, the founder reliefs mounted usually on the external walls of the tombs, and sarcophagus reliefs, the equivalent of the ancient kline monument. This typological diversity, so far best grasped by Krzysztof Makowski in his two elaborate articles from 1985, resulted both from the specificity of Palmyrene funerary culture, as already mentioned above, and from the practices of ritual banqueting and religious beliefs associated with them, as also discussed in this text. The issues of proper definition of objects in Palmyrene studies are extremely important due to their diversity. It turns out that some reliefs that have long been considered loculi-slabs portraits are, in fact, fragments of sarcophagi and funerary banquets (cat. 286, 604; cat. 469, 771). It is worth remembering that the architecture and layout of the sculptures depicting the owners and those buried in Palmyrene tombs reflected the social structure of the city, along with the ties and hierarchies within the community.Footnote ³¹ That had a striking impact on the diversity of their sculptural environment.Footnote ³² Because of that, when reading Palmyrene Sarcophagi and studying the variety of sarcophagi types and sets of objects of specific types, one may immerse in the tombs and reflect on how they have portrayed Palmyra’s individuals and society for almost 300 years.

The book is divided into two parts. The first part presents the material, sets its chronological framework, places the objects with known origin in the context of individual tombs, and gives an overview of the iconography of the sarcophagi. At first, the authors discuss the matters already mentioned in this text, such as Palmyra and its funerary sphere, including valuable but selective earlier research.Footnote ³³ The second chapter offers an introduction to the banqueting motif in Palmyra, burial customs of the city, types of funerary monuments, the portrait habit in Palmyra, and the place of sarcophagi within the corpus of Palmyrene portraiture. The analysis is based on the assumption that it is impossible to understand the role of sarcophagi in Palmyra without an introduction to the city’s portraiture and its burial customs and practices (to date: 3,976 funerary portraits depicted on 2,902 objects, including roughly 786 sarcophagi). To me, the most valuable part of the text is the one devoted to the banqueting motif in Palmyrene culture, with the main reference going back to the seminal work by Jean-Marie Dentzer.Footnote ³⁴ The authors rightly draw attention to the fact that the overwhelming majority of sarcophagi from Palmyra display the banqueting relief on the lid, showing the deceased reclining in the company of his closest relatives. This aspect of Palmyrene funerary culture makes the Palmyrene tombs truly vivid. They were not only a place where the spirits of the dead lived, but also a place where the practices of funeral conviviality were regularly repeated – the living feasting with the dead, and the dead feasting in the afterlife, but fed by living visitors. These customs are of Middle Eastern origin and have a very long tradition, similar to but yet different from the Graeco-Roman one. The emphasis on the family banqueting motif comes hand in hand with stressing the persistence of using epigraphy almost exclusively for recording genealogies and the individual’s place within the family group, the writing practice which was in use from the earliest foundation reliefs until the very end of sarcophagi production.

The factors underlying the production of Palmyrene sarcophagi provide a valuable insight into the social background and purposes behind the creation of Palmyrene funerary art. The authors look to the East and to the West, regionally, presenting the development of sarcophagi against the background of Syria and other Levant countries. They manage to touch upon the issue of sarcophagus location in the tomb and the development of tomb typology, as well as how the practices of inhumation and mummification affected its extension. The oldest tower tombs featured plaster sarcophagi, with the tower being a very transitional, dynamic form, whereas in hypogea and funerary temples, the distribution of the sarcophagi, often in the triclinia layout in exedras, could be planned on a much greater scale, which was possible due to the growing wealth of leading Palmyrene families.

The issue of dating and chronology of the sarcophagi from Palmyra seems to be particularly important, and the authors undertake it consciously applying HI’s comparative approach. Raja and her team have identified 12 sarcophagi for which absolute dating can be determined pursuant to the foundation inscriptions placed on them. Next, following the HI’s analytical line, they established diagnostic criteria: the rendering of hair, facial features, folds of clothes, the number (rather than the types) of jewelry, and the degree of ornamentation in the different parts of the sculpture: attributes, mattresses, clothes, and jewelry, the technical detail and styling change over time. Based on such criteria, they made comparisons with portraits placed on sarcophagi deprived of absolute dating, as well as with the Palmyrene funerary portraiture for which they had already established the preliminary chronology (82) – the outcome of which are the following chronological phases: (1) 1–100 CE, (2) 100–135 CE, (3) 135–160 CE, (4) 160–175 CE, (5) 175–220 CE, (6) 220–240 CE, and (7) 240–273 CE. The phases will definitely need further clarification in terms of cultural history and artistic interaction between Palmyra and other centers.Footnote ³⁵ Still, the established chronology, which makes the outcomes of the Palmyra Portrait Project visible, is an indicator of the comparative and statistical potential of the emerging database.Footnote ³⁶ Within the framework of the Palmyra Portrait Project, information on 329 tombs known from publications has been recorded, of which 57 carry foundation inscriptions, giving us their date of construction, and 25 of these tombs contained sarcophagi or sarcophagi reliefs that can be used for re-evaluating the chronology of the reliefs (see: 82).

Furthermore, the authors state that 39.1% of all the objects presented in the catalog have a known context. This is a statistically significant volume, allowing for more advanced studies on the consistency of the visual program of various forms of decorations in Palmyrene tombs, as well as their interactions in the tomb space – with the visitor and with one another within the framework of the architectural concept. This context is important because it makes it clear that sarcophagi in Palmyra had their own distinct typology and trajectory of use, different from the other sites of the Graeco-Roman East, with Athens and Tyre as primary examples. The sarcophagi also feature original iconography, deeply rooted in local customs and beliefs (as well as visual traditions), with characteristic motifs popular in the Classical world. On the lids, these are: the banqueting motif, the Italian kline sarcophagi and the «Totenmahl» reliefs, kline and mattress, Palmyrene fulcra, the reclining figure, seated females, standing figures, seated children. The boxes are decorated mainly by portrait busts in clipei – a direct borrowing from Roman art, as well as the caravan/trade, religious, and domestic iconography, including the scenes of banqueting again. To this one must add the unique sarcophagus chest (= box)Footnote ³⁷ with a representation of a horse, originally found by HI in the Maqquai exedra of the Atenatan’s tomb. The authors also point out that, among findings in Palmyra, there were four fragments of Attic sarcophagi, including one with the Hunting scene, and one with Hypolytus. But notwithstanding the fact that these scenes were the hallmark of Attic sarcophagi imagery, they did not become part of the Palmyrene visual repertoire.

The presented data again underscore the originality and diversity in Palmyrene sarcophagi industry and, in my view, simultaneously demonstrate the Palmyrenes’ excellence at presenting their own social space. The authors conclude that creators of such sarcophagi, operating with an entire range of forms specified above, produced them as vehicles of elite identity because, in order to build or buy a tomb and order a sarcophagus, one had to be extremely wealthy. There were further markers of status, like the elaborate “Parthian-style” costume, often worn with a dagger, probably a high-status symbol, embroidered boots, chlamys fastened with a brooch, as well as the decorated drinking vessels (shallow bowls, skyphoi, and rhyta). Yet this was just one of possible codes: men belonging to the city elite could also be presented in a chiton, himation, and with wreath, diadem, or the local priestly modius on their head. Motifs were borrowed either from the East or from the West, as deemed fit, but the core Palmyrene elite identity was constructed along three axes: participation in the banquet, priesthood, as well as display of wealth. Banquet was the foundation of that culture, with banqueting at homes, temples, and tombs. Palmyrene sarcophagi usually illustrate a family group participating in this most culturally characteristic practice, and the scene reflects the relations and bonds among family members, while at the same time the leading roles in the social structure, and markers of Palmyrene social hierarchy. As such, contrary to a much more individualized portrait on the loculi slab, the sarcophagus is a social document of collective identity. It is thus a medium communicating an autonomous and strong local identity characteristic of Palmyrene culture. The fact of it being documented is decisive for the outstanding value of the discussed publication.

The second part of the monograph comprises a comprehensive catalog of all the addressed objects, obtained through many years of work scrupulously conducted by the team from Aarhus. This ambitious undertaking is an important declaration in forwards and backwards on trajectories in classical archaeology and the role of cataloging in its ongoing methodological transformations.Footnote ³⁸ The thoroughness and multi-aspect nature of this work are visible in the extensive form that each catalog entry takes. Each sarcophagus, after being allocated an individual number and specific name, is described in detail, providing: Palmyra Portrait Project database number, acquisition history, measurements, dating, references, all known bibliography to date, preservation, identification of figures (portraits), location of inscription, transcription and translation of the inscription, identification of inscriptions, transliteration, identification of script, comments of inscription. The description is supplemented with photos of the objects, showing the lid and chest, and – if the context is known – plans of the tombs and in situ photos, often of historical value. And, again, such a careful description forms the basis for research on Palmyrene culture, art, and visual language, as well as historiographic studies. But this is not all. The material is structured in a manner stressing the importance of chronology and context. First, descriptions of all 12 dated sarcophagi are provided, with each group, of sarcophagi originating from tower tombs, hypogea, and funerary temples discussed in a different chapter. This is a fabulous idea since it enables tracing the development of the form of sarcophagi in the Palmyrene funerary culture and the portraits that were sculpted as a part of their decoration. This way, context is given priority over the formal approach still popular in studies of Roman art. Through this arrangement, the authors remain consistent with the postulates presented in the introduction. Owing to this, the published material can act as the starting point for decoding the ontology of Palmyrene tombs and portraiture. Potential works, including 3D reconstructions, might be of pivotal value both archaeologically and from the perspective of preserving and protecting Palmyra’s cultural heritage.

The potential of the study is immense, and, from the methodological perspective, it illustrates changes to the methodology of writing catalogs forming the basis for research in classical archaeology. It also offers extensive research opportunities created by working on and with databases, including those covering smaller objects of material culture, applied arts, works of art, and architectural elements. In volume one, the authors present a manual to study Palmyrene sarcophagi with vast references to the Graeco-Roman corpus and the analytical tools adapted for the purposes of the study. After discussing the dated and contextualized objects, in volume two, the authors present a more formal approach to the material. It is initially divided according to the possibly known context or unknown origin; in further parts, however, the form serves as the selection criterion, with the discussion covering, subsequently, the sarcophagi reliefs (cat. 445–450), fragments from either sarcophagus lids or boxes (cat. 451–476), smaller possible sarcophagus fragments (cat. 477–488), heads from sarcophagi (cat. 489–683), and banqueting reliefs (cat. 684–729) – the total of 452 objects. The whole is supplemented with seven appendices that include (1) lost dated reliefs (963–964); (2) lost reliefs from tower tombs, both fundamental from the perspective of progressive losses, including the ones from before 2015 (965–966); (3) lost reliefs from temple tombs (likewise) (967–968); (4) marble sarcophagi from Attica, pivotal source of potential comparanda between global marble products and locally produced objects (969–970); (5) sarcophagi without portraits (971–981); (6) objects known only through publications, important, hence some Palmyrene sculptures disappear from the market, placed in unknown private collections (982–990); (7) reliefs with frame, without portraits, mostly animal representations (991–993).

If volume one focuses on rather generally known objects, the second part often provides breakthrough material which will enrich the studies on the art and cultural history of Palmyra in the future. The presented reliefs thus form the image not only of the banqueters themselves, but also of the vessels used, the menu (roasted lamb – cat. 415, 724; vegetables – cat. 386, 697), as well as servants (pages or junior banquet attendants), clothes and hairstyles, changing with time and becoming increasingly richer and more refined, with decorations (embroideries, jewelry, curls) depicted with increasing precision. This iconographic motif also involves a gender aspect. Reliefs dating from the 3rd c. feature as the main characters reclining women, prosperous and overloaded with jewelry (cat. 719, 948). This may be an indicator of women’s status in Palmyrene society and Syria that either grew with time or was high in general.Footnote ³⁹ Depictions include the dressing of the ladies, with female servants handing them jewelry boxes. Another motif involves camels and military parades, perhaps an element of religious celebrations (cat. 447, 757–758). Preserved specimens include a known scene of a ritual libation and mythological narration (“The Senator Sarcophagus”: cat. 260, 609), one can also see sacrificers carrying lambs (cat. 433, 740). In Palmyrene art, the devil is in detail: although it seems standardized and homogeneous at a first glimpse, when analyzed closer, it becomes evident that a vast number of details were selected individually, which affects the interpretation and the state of knowledge. This is the case of small medallions with images of male busts in priest’s modii, placed at the corners of banquet beds, fragments of fulcra (cat. 417, 726). Possibly, the medallions are depicted in relation to presenting imagines clipeatae on sarcophagi boxes and as decorations in wreaths that documented the genealogy of the deceased.Footnote ⁴⁰ If this is true, the deceased Palmyrenes were depicted as feasting in the afterlife with a complete genealogical program, signaled even with elements of the furniture where they were shown.

Apparently, Palmyrene art (as well as Palmyra itself) can still surprise us, which justifies work on the catalog, and indicates that the catalog remains an important tool in classical archaeology – in the methodological, analytical, and interpretational aspects. The fragments of sarcophagi we have referred to also clearly exemplify the mastery of Palmyrene craftsmen in the production of the outstanding medium placed in tombs, namely the sarcophagus relief and the related sarcophagus forms.

Future – between archive archaeology and infinity of cataloging

The overwhelming extent of work undertaken by the Palmyra Portrait Project in the presented publications spans between the recently emerging field of archive archaeology and the infinity of cataloging, which indeed seems to be the endless part of practising the production of archaeological knowledge. It is the sculptures that are the objects of study in this work, but also the archive sheets and photographs, which constitute the prepared corpora of the dataset being the object of inquiry. Importantly, the objects published here played the role of media in their original context, as did their later documentation and the prepared publications. Objects, fieldwork diaries, working notebooks, finds sheets, and photographs interact and intermingle, creating a new line of archaeological interpretation on the grounds of digitalization, communication, mediation, and re-mediations of objects and archaeological knowledge. The preserved ancient media used to shape the Palmyrene material and social world. Their re-mediation by means of and in modern media contributes to forming (trans)cultural legacy of Palmyra.

The reviewed books convey information necessary to understand the ontologies and potential reconstruction of damaged Palmyrene tombs. The presented material is of significant comparative value because it proves that Palmyrenes used a coherent and well-defined language of images in Palmyra, with several recurring motifs. Of critical value is also the fact that HI began working at Palmyra in 1924 and finished in the 1930s. This was a period of site reorganization, as it was spatially re-invented and reintroduced into scientific discourse in a brutal manner.Footnote ⁴¹ For this reason, the publication of HI’s archive emerges as a source for archaeology’s own history in the period between World War I and World War II and, as such, has ultimate potential for discovering alternative archaeological histories and knowledge production.Footnote ⁴²

The elaborate publishing project of the Aarhus team, which applies methods of documentation and dissemination of information, indeed seems to be one of the fundamental tools for preserving Palmyrene cultural heritage, which is destroyed, endangered, or inaccessible. The potential of these activities may soon become apparent when archaeologists return to Palmyra, and its restoration becomes possible again after the fall of Bashar Al-Asaad’s regime in December 2024. The full faculty of these methods will be revealed with the publication of the corpus of all Palmyra portraits, scheduled for the end of 2025. A significant methodological shift in the research and documentation of monuments introduces archives, scanning, tokenization, and cataloging of objects as an alternative to excavations, similar to 3D. This will be a particularly important moment for Palmyrene Studies and classical archaeology. Importantly, at the heart of this revolution in the research methods, there is catalog – a form of organizing material present in science since at least the mid-19th c.Footnote ⁴³

Also, the set of Palmyrene portraits is open and can always be supplemented with a new element, found at a hiding place of traders with stolen heritage, or during future digs. Consequently, the results of HI’s immense determination are now undertaken by Raja and her collaborator. Their efforts help to fully capture the immense volume of HI’s work conducted with Benedictine patience, as well as his meticulous and particularly systematic scientific methodology, which can now be applied in developing innovative research.

The concluding paradox of the enterprise is that it largely relied on the documentation from the colonial period, which will now help to convey the accumulated knowledge to a wide audience, sites, and the local communities living around them. Recent research demonstrated that local communities from the Middle East are attached to nearby sites, monuments, and ruins.Footnote ⁴⁴ In the Palmyrene context, this can also be demonstrated by the notion of the inhabitants of Palmyra feeling uprooted by the activities of French archaeologists during the French Mandate.Footnote ⁴⁵ Currently, the numerous publications by Syrian scholars who have left their country,Footnote ⁴⁶ the creation of the Mirath initiative,Footnote ⁴⁷ founded by expats from Syria, and the constant exchange of messages with researchers and residents of Syria who remained in the country, sometimes at the endangered sites, strongly indicate the significance of that attachment. The ruins and remains, the legacy and heritage of Palmyra, are thus the object of cultural negotiations, just as thousands of years ago, between the Syrian community and the influences from the East and the West. The archaeological object seemingly attracting the most attention in this process, always at the heart of academic discussion (and at the same time a significant symbol), is the Palmyra portrait, carved on loculi slabs and sarcophagi, the most expressive, the most original, and the most culturally developed local adaptation of the Roman form. The Palmyra portrait is a syncretic object with a complex message and a hub in a network of associated meanings, much like the site where it was produced, now so thoroughly documented by the Aarhus team.