Palmyra
- Comments: No Comments Yet
We’re sweating it out in the sand in the Syrian desert oasis town of Palmyra. It’s amazing how the stereotype of the desert oasis is a reality here – you literally drive for hundreds of kilometers through nothing but sand, dunes, rock (and the occasional camel race track) to come upon an island of green in the middle of the sand. It’s easy to see why this area has been populated for thousands of years – it’s the only water around for miles.
The ancient city of Palmyra dates back to before the times of Christ, and it covers more than 16 sq km. As you drive across the desert, you look across the blinding yellow – white sands to see a series of mud brick watch towers on top of every dune for a few kilometers, until they culminate in a massive mud brick fort on top of the highest hill amongst the dunes. You think this is Palmyra, until you drive further down the highway past the fort, and you see the vast columned city of Palmyra spread out for miles behind the hill. It’s incredible to see – it goes on for ever. As it turns out, the fort on the hill has nothing to do with the ancient city – it was built during the Crusades, but was not used until WWII by the French. I can’t imagine what they were fighting about – it’s all sand here.
The city of Palmyra is most famous for it’s female ruler – Queen Zenobia, who history suspects of having murdered her husband for his position – which she apparently did an admirable job of filling. Under her reign they Palmyrians conquered all of the Middle East, almost up to what was then the German border. The streets of the city were lined with stone columns with statues of local dignitaries on each one (there literally must have been thousands of statues). There was a fresh water and waste water conduction system, a series of temple to various gods, royal baths, a recreation court, a theater, and tombs that look like towers (45 m tall each) on the outside of the city, where they buried their mummies. As you stand in the ancient city today, you can see the layout of the old city streets and the remains of the temples and baths – everything is yellow sandstone against a yellow sand dune background, with palm trees lining the perimeter of the place. A hot wind off the desert blows sand in your eyes, and you wish you had a turban to shade yourself from the driven sand and the relentless sun.
It is fascinating to us that an ancient civilization that was so advanced in the art of water transport thousands of years ago (ie – they built incredible aquaduct systems) seems to have lost the technological knowledge associated with making water flow properly through a toilet or down a shower drain in the present day. Sorry – just a necessary comment on a common frustration in the Middle East. I feel better now…
As always – we miss everyone and our doggies. Thanks to everyone who is leaving comments – we can’t always write back because of significant sensorship from Middle Eastern internet controls.
P.S. We were not in Istanbul at the time of the bombings – if anyone was concerned…
Noel & George
There are presently no comments for this post.
You must be logged in to post a comment.