Occurrence of Attributes in Original Text
The text related to the cultural heritage 'Site of Palmyra' has mentioned 'City' in the following places:
| Occurrence Sentence | Text Source |
|---|---|
| Ancient city in Homs Governorate, Syria | WIKI |
| For the modern city, also known as Tadmur, see Palmyra (modern). | WIKI |
| Palmyra (/xcbx8cpxc3xa6lxcbx88maxc9xaarxc9x99/; Palmyrene: Tadmor; Arabic: xd8xaaxd9x8exd8xafxd9x92xd9x85xd9x8fxd8xb1xe2x80x8e Tadmur) is an ancient Semitic city in present-day Homs Governorate, Syria. | WIKI |
| Archaeological finds date back to the Neolithic period, and documents first mention the city in the early second millennium BC. | WIKI |
| 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. | WIKI |
| The city's social structure was tribal, and its inhabitants spoke Palmyrene (a dialect of Aramaic), while using Greek for commercial and diplomatic purposes. | WIKI |
| The city's inhabitants worshiped local Semitic deities, Mesopotamian and Arab gods. | WIKI |
| In 273, Roman emperor Aurelian destroyed the city, which was later restored by Diocletian at a reduced size. | WIKI |
| The city became a Roman colonia during the third century, leading to the incorporation of Roman governing institutions, before becoming a monarchy in 260. | WIKI |
| During the Syrian Civil War in 2015, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) destroyed large parts of the ancient city, which was recaptured by the Syrian Army on 2 March 2017. | WIKI |
| Contents 1 Etymology 2 Region and city layout 2.1 Layout 3 People, language, and society 3.1 Ethnicity of classical Palmyra 3.2 Language 3.3 Social organization 4 Culture 4.1 Art and architecture 5 Site 5.1 Cemeteries 5.2 Notable structures 5.2.1 Public buildings 5.2.2 Temples 5.2.3 Other buildings 5.3 Destruction by ISIL 5.3.1 Restoration 6 History 6.1 Early period 6.2 Hellenistic and Roman periods 6.2.1 Autonomous Palmyrene region 6.2.2 Palmyrene kingdom 6.2.2.1 Persian wars 6.2.2.2 Palmyrene empire 6.2.3 Later Roman and Byzantine periods 6.3 Arab caliphates 6.3.1 Umayyad and early Abbasid periods 6.3.2 Decentralization 6.4 Mamluk period 6.4.1 Al Fadl principality 6.5 Ottoman era 6.6 20th Century 6.7 Syrian Civil War 7 Government 7.1 Military 7.1.1 Relations with Rome 8 Religion 8.1 Malakbel and the Roman Sol Invictus 9 Economy 9.1 Commerce 10 Research and excavations 11 See also 12 Notes 13 References 13.1 Citations 13.2 Sources 14 External links | WIKI |
| [3][4] The etymology of the name is unclear; the standard interpretation, supported by Albert Schultens, connects it to the Semitic word for "date palm", tamar (xd7xaaxd7x9exd7xa8xe2x80x8e),[note 1][7][8] thus referring to the palm trees that surrounded the city. | WIKI |
| [7] 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 (date "palm"),[1] in reference to the city's palm trees, then the name reached its final form "Palmyra". | WIKI |
| Region and city layout[edit] | WIKI |
| The city of Palmyra lies 215xc2xa0km (134xc2xa0mi) northeast of the Syrian capital, Damascus;[12] along with an expanded hinterland of several settlements, farms and forts, the city forms part of the region known as the Palmyrene. | WIKI |
| [13] The city is located in an oasis surrounded by palms (of which twenty varieties have been reported). | WIKI |
| [8][14] Two mountain ranges overlook the city: the northern Palmyrene mountain belt from the north and the southern Palmyrene mountains from the southwest. | WIKI |
| [15] 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. | WIKI |
| [21] Remains of the Assyrian city are found beneath the Hellenistic settlement. | WIKI |
| [16] Although the city's walls originally enclosed an extensive area on both banks of the wadi,[16] the walls rebuilt during Aurelian's reign surrounded only the northern-bank section. | WIKI |
| [23][16] Most of the city's monumental projects were built on the wadi's northern bank,[24] among them is the Temple of Bel, on a tell which was the site of an earlier temple (known as the Hellenistic temple). | WIKI |
| Also north of the wadi was the Great Colonnade, Palmyra's 1.1-kilometre-long (0.68xc2xa0mi) main street,[27] which extended from the Temple of Bel in the east,[28] to the Funerary Temple no.86 in the city's western part. | WIKI |
| [46][47] Arabs arrived in the city in the late first millennium BC. | WIKI |
| [52] The classical city also had a Jewish community; inscriptions in Palmyrene from the necropolis of Beit She'arim in Lower Galilee confirm the burial of Palmyrene Jews. | WIKI |
| [53] 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. | WIKI |
| [54] The Palmyrenes seem to have disliked the Greeks, considered them foreigners, and restricted their settlement in the city. | WIKI |
| [55] Benjamin of Tudela recorded the existence of 2000 Jews in the city during the twelfth century. | WIKI |
| Palmyra's population was a mixture of the different peoples inhabiting the city,[59][60] which is seen in Aramaic, Arabic and Amorite names of Palmyrene clans,[note 4][61] but the ethnicity of Palmyra is a matter of debate. | WIKI |
| [65] Seland noted the epigraphic evidence left by the Palmyrenes outside the city. | WIKI |
| [67] Aside from the existence of a Palmyrene ethnicity, Aramean or Arab are the two main ethnic designations debated by historians;[62] Javier Teixidor stated that "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. | WIKI |
| [75] The archaeologist Karol Juchniewicz ascribed it to a change in the ethnic composition of the city, resulting from the influx of people who did not speak Aramaic, probably a Roman legion. | WIKI |
| [76] After the Arab conquest, Greek was replaced by Arabic,[74] from which, although the city was surrounded by Bedouins, a Palmyrene dialect evolved. | WIKI |
| [note 6][79] By the time of Nero Palmyra had four tribes, each residing in an area of the city bearing its name. | WIKI |
| [note 8][80] Even the four tribes ceased to be important by the third century as only one inscription mentions a tribe after the year 212; instead, aristocrats played the decisive role in the city's social organization. | WIKI |
| According to the historians Emanuele Intagliata, the change can be ascribed to the Roman reorganization following Zenobia's fall, as Palmyra ceased to be a rich caravan city and became a frontier fortress, leading the inhabitants to focus on satisfying the needs of a garrison instead of providing the empire with luxurious oriental items. | WIKI |
| Such a change in functions would have made the city less attractive for an aristocratic elite. | WIKI |
| [86] Palmyra benefited from the Umayyad rule since its role as a frontier city ended and the East-West trade route was restored, leading to the re-emergence of a merchant class. | WIKI |
| Palmyra's loyalty to the Umayyads led to an aggressive military retaliation from their successors, the Abbassids, and the city diminished in size, losing its merchant class. | WIKI |
| The scarce artifacts found in the city dating to the Bronze Age reveal that, culturally, Palmyra was most affiliated with western Syria. | WIKI |
| [115] A damaged frieze and other sculptures from the Temple of Bel, many removed to museums in Syria and abroad, suggest the city's public monumental sculpture. | WIKI |
| [29] The city had other cemeteries in the north, southwest and southeast, where the tombs are primarily hypogea (underground). | WIKI |
| [138] The building was probably used by the rulers of the city;[136] the French general director of antiquities in Syria, Henri Seyrig, proposed that it was a small temple before being turned into a triclinium or banqueting hall. | WIKI |
| [152] The shrine might have been connected to the royal family as it is the only tomb inside the city's walls. | WIKI |
| [23] After 273, Aurelian erected the rampart known as the wall of Diocletian;[23] it enclosed about 80 hectares, a much smaller area than the original pre-273 city. | WIKI |
| According to eyewitnesses, on 23 May 2015 ISIL militants destroyed the Lion of Al-lxc4x81t and other statues; this came days after the militants had gathered the citizens and promised not to destroy the city's monuments. | WIKI |
| In response to the destruction, on 21 October 2015, Creative Commons started the New Palmyra project, an online repository of three-dimensional models representing the city's monuments; the models were generated from images gathered, and released into the public domain, by the Syrian internet advocate Bassel Khartabil between 2005 and 2012. | WIKI |
| The city entered the historical record during the Bronze Age around 2000xc2xa0BC, when Puzur-Ishtar the Tadmorean (Palmyrene) agreed to a contract at an Assyrian trading colony in Kultepe. | WIKI |
| [178] The city became the eastern border of Aram-Damascus which was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire in 732 BC. | WIKI |
| The Hebrew Bible (Second Book of Chronicles 8:4) records a city by the name "Tadmor" as a desert city built (or fortified) by King Solomon of Israel;[180] Flavius Josephus mentions the Greek name "Palmyra", attributing its founding to Solomon in Book VIII of his Antiquities of the Jews. | WIKI |
| [144] Later Arabic traditions attribute the city's founding to Solomon's Jinn. | WIKI |
| [181] The association of Palmyra with Solomon is a conflation of "Tadmor" and a city built by Solomon in Judea and known as "Tamar" in the Books of Kings (1 Kings 9:18). | WIKI |
| [26] By the late second centuryxc2xa0BC, the tower tombs in the Palmyrene Valley of Tombs and the city temples (most notably, the temples of Baalshamin, Al-lxc4x81t and the Hellenistic temple) began to be built. | WIKI |
| [204] The Roman imperial period brought great prosperity to the city, which enjoyed a privileged status under the empirexe2x80x94retaining much of its internal autonomy,[48] being ruled by a council,[205] and incorporating many Greek city-state (polis) institutions into its government. | WIKI |
| The earliest Palmyrene text attesting a Roman presence in the city dates to 18xc2xa0AD, when the Roman general Germanicus tried to develop a friendly relationship with Parthia; he sent the Palmyrene Alexandros to Mesene, a Parthian vassal kingdom. | WIKI |
| [note 20][212] The Romans used Palmyrene soldiers,[213] but (unlike typical Roman cities) no local magistrates or prefects are recorded in the city. | WIKI |
| [212] Palmyra saw intensive construction during the first century, including the city's first walled fortifications,[214] and the Temple of Bel (completed and dedicated in 32xc2xa0AD). | WIKI |
| [note 22][48] In 129 Palmyra was visited by Hadrian, who named it "Hadriane Palmyra" and made it a free city. | WIKI |
| [221] Roman garrisons are first attested in Palmyra in 167, when the cavalry Ala I Thracum Herculiana was moved to the city. | WIKI |
| [note 23][224] By the end of the second century, urban development diminished after the city's building projects peaked. | WIKI |
| [226] Toward the end of the second century, Palmyra began a steady transition from a traditional Greek city-state to a monarchy due to the increasing militarization of the city and the deteriorating economic situation;[227] the Severan ascension to the imperial throne in Rome played a major role in Palmyra's transition:[225] | WIKI |
| The Severan-led Romanxe2x80x93Parthian War, from 194 to 217, influenced regional security and affected the city's trade. | WIKI |
| [228] The new dynasty favored the city,[228] stationing the Cohors I Flavia Chalcidenorum garrison there by 206. | WIKI |
| [233] The weakness of the Roman Empire and the constant Persian danger were probably the reasons behind the Palmyrene council's decision to elect a lord for the city in order for him to lead a strengthened army. | WIKI |
| [242][243] Palmyra itself remained officially part of the empire but Palmyrene inscriptions started to describe it as a "metrocolonia", indicating that the city's status was higher than normal Roman colonias. | WIKI |
| [244] In practice, Palmyra shifted from a provincial city to a de facto allied kingdom. | WIKI |
| [270] She escaped east to ask the Persians for help, but was captured by the Romans; the city capitulated soon afterwards. | WIKI |
| Aurelian spared the city and stationed a garrison of 600 archers, led by Sandarion, as a peacekeeping force. | WIKI |
| [286] Aurelian repaired the Temple of Bel, and the Legio I Illyricorum was stationed in the city. | WIKI |
| [153] Shortly before 303 the Camp of Diocletian, a castrum in the western part of the city, was built. | WIKI |
| [153] The 4-hectare (9.9-acre) camp was a base for the Legio I Illyricorum,[153] which guarded the trade routes around the city. | WIKI |
| [286] Palmyra became a Christian city in the decades following its destruction by Aurelian. | WIKI |
| Palmyra was conquered by the Rashidun Caliphate after its 634 capture by the Muslim general Khalid ibn al-Walid, who took the city on his way to Damascus; an 18-day march by his army through the Syrian Desert from Mesopotamia. | WIKI |
| [88] After the conquest, the city became part of Homs Province. | WIKI |
| [293] That year, Marwan ordered the city's walls demolished. | WIKI |
| [296] After his defeat Abu Muhammad took refuge in the city, which withstood an Abbasid assault long enough to allow him to escape. | WIKI |
| The population of the city started to decrease in the ninth century and the process continued in the tenth century. | WIKI |
| [299] In 955 Sayf al-Dawla, the Hamdanid prince of Aleppo, defeated the nomads near the city,[300] and built a kasbah (fortress) in response to campaigns by the Byzantine emperors Nikephoros II Phokas and John I Tzimiskes. | WIKI |
| [307] Toghtekin's nephew was killed by rebels, and the atabeg retook the city in 1126. | WIKI |
| [308] The Burids transformed the Temple of Bel into a citadel in 1132, fortifying the city,[309][310] and transferring it to the Bin Qaraja family three years later in exchange for Homs. | WIKI |
| [324] Contemporary historian Ibn Fadlallah al-Omari described the city as having "vast gardens, flourishing trades and bizarre monuments". | WIKI |
| [345][343] During World War II, the Mandate came under the authority of Vichy France,[346] who gave permission to Nazi Germany to use the airfield at Palmyra;[347] forces of Free France, backed by British forces, invaded Syria in June 1941,[346] and on 3 July 1941, the British took control over the city in the aftermath of a battle. | WIKI |
| [349] According to Maamoun Abdulkarim, the Syrian Army positioned its troops in some archaeological-site areas,[349] while Syrian opposition fighters positioned themselves in gardens around the city. | WIKI |
| [354][355] On 18 August, Palmyra's retired antiquities chief Khaled al-Asaad was beheaded by ISIL after being tortured for a month to extract information about the city and its treasures; al-Asaad refused to give any information to his captors. | WIKI |
| [358] Following the recapture of the city, Russian de-mining teams began clearing mines planted by ISIL prior to their retreat. | WIKI |
| [359] Following heavy fighting, ISIL briefly reoccupied the city on 11 December 2016,[360] prompting an offensive by the Syrian Army which retook the city on 2 March 2017. | WIKI |
| [364] During the first half of the first century AD, Palmyra incorporated some of the institutions of a Greek city (polis);[206] the notion of an existing citizenship first appears in an inscription, dated to AD 10, mentioning the "people of Palmyra". | WIKI |
| [365] In AD 74, an inscription mentions the city's boule (senate). | WIKI |
| The Palmyrene council consisted of about six hundred members of the local elite (such as the elders or heads of wealthy families or clans),[note 33][205] representing the city's four-quarters. | WIKI |
| With the elevation of Palmyra to a colonia around 213xe2x80x93216, the city ceased being subject to Roman provincial governors and taxes. | WIKI |
| The monarchy continued most civic institutions,[376][378] but the duumviri and the council were no longer attested after 264; Odaenathus appointed a governor for the city. | WIKI |
| [379] In the absence of the monarch, the city was administered by a viceroy. | WIKI |
| [383][384] After the Roman destruction of the city, Palmyra was ruled directly by Rome,[385] and then by a succession of other rulers, including the Burids and Ayyubids,[307][315] and subordinate Bedouin chiefsxe2x80x94primarily the Fadl family, who governed for the Mamluks. | WIKI |
| "[387] Palmyra's army protected the city and its economy, helping extend Palmyrene authority beyond the city walls and protecting the countryside's desert trade routes. | WIKI |
| [388] The city had a substantial military;[201] Zabdibel commanded a force of 10,000 in the third century BC,[48] and Zenobia led an army of 70,000 in the Battle of Emesa. | WIKI |
| [389] Soldiers were recruited from the city and its territories, spanning several thousand square kilometers from the outskirts of Homs to the Euphrates valley. | WIKI |
| [18] Palmyra's recruiting system is unknown; the city might have selected and equipped the troops and the strategoi led, trained and disciplined them. | WIKI |
| [404] The city's chief pre-Hellenistic deity was called Bol,[405] an abbreviation of Baal (a northwestern Semitic honorific). | WIKI |
| [421] Each of the city's four-quarters had a sanctuary for a deity considered ancestral to the resident tribe; Malakbel and Aglibol's sanctuary was in the Komare quarter. | WIKI |
| The priests of Palmyra were selected from the city's leading families,[423] and are recognized in busts through their headdresses which have the shape of a polos adorned with laurel wreath or other tree made of bronze among other elements. | WIKI |
| [425] Palmyra's paganism was replaced with Christianity as the religion spread across the Roman Empire, and a bishop was reported in the city by 325. | WIKI |
| Palmyra's Agora; the two front entrances lead to the interior, the city's marketplace | WIKI |
| Palmyra's economy before and at the beginning of the Roman period was based on agriculture, pastoralism, and trade;[18] the city served as a rest station for the caravans which sporadically crossed the desert. | WIKI |
| [194] By the end of the first century BC, the city had a mixed economy based on agriculture, pastoralism, taxation,[434][435] and, most importantly, the caravan trade. | WIKI |
| [135][437] The law regulated the tariffs paid by the merchants for goods sold at the internal market or exported from the city. | WIKI |
| The classicist Andrew M. Smith II suggested that most land in Palmyra was owned by the city, which collected grazing taxes. | WIKI |
| [434] The oasis had about 1,000 hectares (2,500 acres) of irrigable land,[440] which surrounded the city. | WIKI |
| [442] The most notable irrigation work is Harbaqa Dam which was constructed in the late first century AD;[note 39][443] it is located 48xc2xa0km (30xc2xa0mi) southwest of the city and can collect 140,000 cubic metres (4,900,000xc2xa0cuxc2xa0ft) of water. | WIKI |
| [446] The city regained some of its prosperity during the Umayyad era, indicated by the discovery of a large Umayyad souq in the colonnaded street. | WIKI |
| [447] Palmyra was a minor trading center until its destruction in 1400;[448] according to Sharaf ad-Din Ali Yazdi, Timur's men took 200,000 sheep,[449] and the city was reduced into a settlement on the desert border whose inhabitants herded and cultivated small plots for vegetables and corn. | WIKI |
| If the Laghman II inscription in Afghanistan is referring to Palmyra, then the city's role in Central Asian overland trade was prominent as early as the third century BC. | WIKI |
| Since Palmyra was not on the main trading route (which followed the Euphrates),[18] the Palmyrenes secured the desert route passing their city. | WIKI |
| [18] The Palmyrene route connected the Silk Road with the Mediterranean,[457] and was used almost exclusively by the city's merchants,[18] who maintained a presence in many cities, including Dura-Europos in 33 BC,[215] Babylon by AD 19, Seleucia by AD 24,[209] Dendera, Coptos,[458] Bahrain, the Indus River Delta, Merv and Rome. | WIKI |
| [463] French artist and architect Louis-Franxc3xa7ois Cassas conducted an extensive survey of the city's monuments in 1785, publishing over a hundred drawings of Palmyra's civic buildings and tombs. | WIKI |
| An oasis in the Syrian desert, north-east of Damascus, Palmyra contains the monumental ruins of a great city that was one of the most important cultural centres of the ancient world. | UNESCO |
| It grew steadily in importance as a city on the trade route linking Persia, India and China with the Roman Empire, marking the crossroads of several civilisations in the ancient world. | UNESCO |
| A grand, colonnaded street of 1100 metres' length forms the monumental axis of the city, which together with secondary colonnaded cross streets links the major public monuments including the Temple of Ba'al, Diocletian's Camp, the Agora, Theatre, other temples and urban quarters. | UNESCO |
| Outside the city's walls are remains of a Roman aqueduct and immense necropolises. | UNESCO |
| Discovery of the ruined city by travellers in the 17th and 18th centuries resulted in its subsequent influence on architectural styles. | UNESCO |
| The carved sculptural treatment of the monumental archway through which the city is approached from the great temple is an outstanding example of Palmyrene art. | UNESCO |
| The regional strategic action plan currently under preparation is expected to provide guidelines to expand and redefine the site as a cultural landscape, with respect to the transitional zones around the archaeological site, the oasis and the city. | UNESCO |