Palmyra

Syrian desert oasis city, once a wealthy caravan hub under Queen Zenobia and Roman colonnades.

Approaching Palmyra by road through the Syrian desert, you turn a corner and suddenly see a vast expanse of columns and arches rising from a green oasis. It is one of those moments that stops you cold.

Palmyra was one of the great cities of the ancient world — a wealthy caravan stop on the Silk Route between Rome and the Orient, ruled for a time by the legendary Queen Zenobia, who conquered Syria, Egypt, and parts of Asia Minor before Rome crushed her in 272 AD. What remained was an extraordinary Roman-era city: the Great Colonnade stretching for nearly a kilometre, a monumental arch, the Temple of Bel, towers, a theatre, and thousands of funerary monuments in the Valley of the Tombs.

Much of that is now gone. When ISIS took Palmyra in 2015, they executed the site's chief archaeologist Khaled al-Asaad, blew up the Temple of Bel, the Temple of Baalshamin, the Arch of Triumph, and dozens of tower tombs. Syrian government forces retook the city in 2016, ISIS returned briefly in late 2016 and destroyed more, and Syrian forces retook it again in early 2017. The damage is severe and, in places, irreversible.

The ruins that survive — the colonnaded street, the theatre, parts of the Temple of Bel's precinct, the Valley of the Tombs, Palmyra Castle on the hill above — are still remarkable. Palmyra before ISIS was spectacular; what remains is diminished but not trivial. Scholars and archaeologists have documented the damage carefully, and some reconstruction is underway.

Travel to Palmyra is currently not possible for most visitors. Syria has been in civil war since 2011, and while the Palmyra area is under Syrian government control, the country remains extremely dangerous, access is tightly restricted, and most Western governments advise against all travel. The information on this page reflects the pre-2011 situation; treat it as historical record rather than a travel guide until Syria reopens.

Guide

Things to Do

Palmyra's ruins are among the most significant archaeological sites in the world. Before the Syrian Civil War, the site covered several square kilometres of well-preserved Roman-era structures: the Great Colonnade, the Temple of Bel, the Arch of Triumph, the theatre, the Valley of the Tombs, and the hilltop Palmyra Castle.

ISIS caused severe damage to the site between 2015 and 2017: the Temple of Bel, the Temple of Baalshamin, the Arch of Triumph, and many tower tombs were deliberately destroyed, and the site's chief archaeologist Khaled al-Asaad was publicly executed. The ruins that survive — the colonnaded street, the theatre, the Valley of the Tombs, portions of the Temple of Bel's precinct, and the castle above the town — remain remarkable. This section records what was here and what remains, as a historical record.