• Syria—Echoes of an Interesting Past
    Awake!—2003 | February 8

    • Palmyra​—A Historic Oasis

      About a three-hour drive northeast of Damascus is a remarkable archaeological site: Palmyra, called Tadmor in the Bible. (2 Chronicles 8:4) Situated midway between the Mediterranean Sea and the Euphrates River, this oasis is watered by underground springs that emerge here from the mountains to the north. The ancient trade route between Mesopotamia and lands to the west followed the Fertile Crescent and therefore ran far north of Palmyra. However, in the first century B.C.E., political instability in the north made a shorter, more southerly route desirable. Palmyra thus entered its heyday.

      Useful to Rome as a buffer on the eastern outskirts of its empire, Palmyra was integrated into the Roman province of Syria, but it was eventually declared a free city. Large temples, monumental arches, baths, and a theater lined a magnificent colonnaded street. The porticoes on each side were paved for pedestrians, but the main central street was left unpaved for the convenience of the camel trains that passed through. Caravans plying the trade route between China and India in the East and the Greco-Roman world in the West made stopovers in Palmyra. There they were forced to pay taxes levied on the silks, spices, and other commodities they transported.

      At its zenith, in the third century C.E., Palmyra had a population of about 200,000. It was at this time that its ambitious Queen Zenobia crossed swords with Rome and was finally defeated in 272 C.E. In this way, Zenobia unwittingly fulfilled part of a prophecy recorded by the prophet Daniel some 800 years earlier.a (Daniel, chapter 11) After Zenobia’s defeat, Palmyra survived for a time as a strategic outpost of the Roman Empire, but it never regained its former power and splendor.