Visited on a group tour to Syria in May 2023.
Our Syrian guide was most nervous about visiting Palmyra, and he was very anxious to get us out of there while it was still light. ISIS has been pushed back to the mountainous regions of Syria, but it is precisely in this region that jihadists still make their forays from time to time, although tourism is slowly but reviving.
Palmyra was once the largest trading center between Rome and Parthia, and this oasis literally bathed in money. But the inhabitants of the city managed to remain in history in a non-trivial way, through the creation of many necropolises of the local elite with a unique culture of posthumous portraits, which became the main witnesses of the phenomenal prosperity of this city for the whole world.
Palmyra was ruined by political ambitions, the legendary queen Zenobia began to seize neighboring lands and mint her own coins. The Romans could no longer stand this, and under the emperor Marcus Aurelius Palmyra was captured by the Roman army and looted. The ruins of the once majestic city were also destroyed by Islamic fundamentalists from ISIS, another unexpected tragedy.
A vivid reminder to us that barbarism has not gone anywhere in the contemporary era. Militants of the Islamic State captured the ancient capital of the trading kingdom twice, and they purposefully destroyed the monuments of the past.
They blew up the temple of Bel, the triumphal arch, the massive tetrapylon, looted and destroyed the underground tombs. The chief archaeologist of Palmyra, Khaled al-Asaad, was publicly killed by Islamists after he refused to reveal to them the location of historical treasures.
The Islamists were kicked out of Palmyra, the historical site is currently being restored, the museum is still closed, as are most of the underground tombs.
But it was possible to visit the Hypogeum of the Three Brothers, where the Islamists defended themselves, they also destroyed the fresco with the image of Achilles in the underground tomb. When the militants tried to find an alternative exit from this tomb, they made their way into the catacombs, which were not yet known to archaeologists.
If it used to be one of the most popular places for tourists in the Middle East, our small group met only two American women and one Swedish guy. However, a bus arrived with Russian tourists at the end of our visit.