This monograph is an essential introduction to the city of Palmyra, Syria. It dispels notions of Palmyra as a remote desert settlement, painting instead the image of a bustling, connected, multi-cultural city that thrived as a centre of trade and played an important economic role during the Roman imperial phase. Covering the Hellenistic era to the modern day, with a focus on the first three centuries ce, the paradoxical nature of Palmyra emerges time and again. Internationally reliant economically but relatively closed off socially, geographically isolated but politically connected, and highly adaptable but steeped in tradition, Palmyra integrated a range of foreign influences to create an idiosyncratic, local culture all its own. Sharing the accessible style and approach that characterises much of R.'s work, while this book provides specialists with up-to-date research, it is also aimed at a general readership interested in the classical world beyond Greece and Rome.
Chapter 1, ‘The Archeology and History of Palmyra’, contextualises the city within its geographical and historical landscapes, describing the mountainous desert topography surrounding the oasis site before giving an overview of its history, art and architecture. Reference is made to the often-overlooked settlements of the hinterlands (pp. 5–6), supporting R.'s argument for the vital interconnectivity between urban environment and surrounding territory, as relationships with the nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes who wielded control over agriculture were essential in sustaining the city population. Given the scarcity of literary sources on Palmyra during the imperial period, reliance on Pliny the Elder's Historia Naturalis is unavoidable, but it is tempered here with an awareness of the gaps in the account, such as details on trade connections. The wealth of epigraphy, such as the Palmyra Tax Tariff of 137 ce, and funerary sculpture, alongside architectural remains, fill many gaps left by the dearth of literature and form the core of this work's analysis.
The following chapter, ‘Urban Island or Node in a Network? The World of the Living’, explores the urban environment – construction of the monumental city centre spurred on by the booming trade economy at the start of the millennium. In addition to urban layout and institutional organisation, this section focuses on the religious life of the city, a keystone of Palmyrene society. Through overviews of the main sanctuary, dedicated to Bel, and the temples of Nabu, Baalshamin, Allat and Arsu, the plurality of religion in Palmyra is highlighted (pp. 42–8). Not only were a range of deities worshipped in these sanctuaries by multiple tribes and communities, but temple architecture reflects an eclectic mix of influences, from Mesopotamian merlons and Graeco-Roman peristyles, to the inclusion of banqueting halls within temenoi in line with local sacred banqueting practices. Pushing back against a tendency in scholarship to view Roman provinces as merely ‘acted upon’, the combination of elements from various cultures in the art, architecture and urban layout of Palmyra is stressed as the result of conscious, complex decision-making by local elites.
Turning to the funerary sphere, Chapter 3, ‘Family Networks: the World of the Dead’, is well supported by the extensive collection of funerary sculpture catalogued through the Palmyra Portrait Project (currently standing at 4,000+ pieces and founded by R.). While this area has received much attention in scholarship within studies of the Roman Near East (notably the work of H. Seyrig and M. Gawlikowski), this database has enabled comprehensive iconographic and linguistic studies of Palmyrene funerary portraiture for the first time. Two painted figures from the Tomb of Ḥairan (Pl. 8) are interpreted as representations of honorary statues that were set up in public areas, as indicated by inscriptions as well as brackets set high on columns, as opposed to depictions of the individuals themselves (pp. 80–1). Based on the presence of plinths in the paintings and the showcasing of imperial trends through dress and hairstyle (compared to the preference for Greek and local styles in funerary portraits), this reading expands our scant knowledge of the role of women in the public life of the city and displays again the duality of Palmyra, consciously adapting their sculpture to a public context. Alongside showing how the database aids close analysis of specific portrait groups (e.g. priestly representations, depictions of children), R. links fluctuations in sculpture production to economic and societal circumstances. For example, the stability and resultant prosperity triggered by the Pax Romana increased production during the first and second centuries ce (pp. 84–7), while Roman-Sassanian conflict in the third century had a detrimental effect on Palmyra's economy as funds were diverted towards increasing military costs and away from luxury goods, including funerary sculpture (pp. 106–7). Rather than engaging with outdated debates that search for evidence of spiritualism or afterlife beliefs in the mortuary archaeology of Palmyra, R. asserts the pragmatic nature of these tombs as arenas for commemorating elite culture and family ties, and as social tools for mourning (pp. 70–1).
Chapter 4, ‘Making – and Breaking – Ties: Palmyra, Rome, and Parthia’, explores the shifting relationships between Palmyra and the two great empires flanking it, culminating in the final sack of the city in 273 ce, and accompanied by a discussion of the romanticisation of Queen Zenobia in the sources. Palmyra became increasingly integrated into the imperial administrative system over the course of the third century, adopting Roman titles such as duumvir, further contributing to the imperial army and producing public honorific inscriptions pledging loyalty to the emperor (pp. 92–3). While the evidence, largely epigraphic, displays an increasing allegiance to Rome, R. reiterates the sense of agency in this integration, arguing that the local population retained their strong local identity throughout. The highlighting of evidence for worship of Palmyrene and Syrian cults in Rome (in written sources and temple dedications, pp. 97–103) reminds readers that cultural influence runs in multiple directions, a fact too often overlooked in studies of interaction between Graeco-Roman and Near Eastern cultures.
The penultimate chapter, ‘Changing Ties: Palmyra After Rome’, explores the life of the city as a Roman garrison in late antiquity and subsequent occupations under the Byzantines, Umayyads and Abbasids, up to its ‘rediscovery’ by European travellers in the seventeenth century. Dispelling the view that Emperor Aurelian left the site abandoned and in ruins, most famously claimed by E. Gibbon (1776–1789), a compelling argument is made for the survival, albeit in a reduced state, of communities in Palmyra despite the sparseness of available evidence. Such evidence includes the continued use of tombs, religious dedications and inscriptions in the local Aramaic, some recording renovations to the area around the Great Colonnade, as well as the augmentation of the Bellerophon Mosaic (Pl. 11) with an open hand motif known from altars in the city (p. 119).
‘Cutting Ties: Palmyra in a Warzone’ brings readers to present-day Syria, where years of civil war have caused a devastating humanitarian crisis. The destruction of numerous monuments over these years, including The Temple of Bel in 2015 by ISIS, and the use of others as stages for pushing political and religious ideology highlight how cultural heritage is often used as a tool for propaganda. The current inaccessibility of the site emphasises the importance of efforts, by both individual researchers and organisations, to archive and digitise existing material.
To be taken away from this volume is the versatility and dynamism of Palmyra in adapting to changes over time while ultimately still serving the needs of the elites who governed it. It was a city whose visual culture and administrative organisation were influenced by both Greece and Rome, but that maintained firm ties to local and regional traditions, absorbing influences from the wider Near East and Mesopotamia. Far from viewing Graeco-Roman features as a ‘veneer’, this work encourages readers to consider them as one integral facet of a complex, unique culture, that researchers have a responsibility to preserve in any form possible.
