Temple of Bel

The Temple of Bel was Palmyra's greatest religious monument — a vast walled complex surrounding a temple dedicated to the Babylonian god Bel, consecrated in 32 AD and incorporating earlier pre-Roman structures. The outer temenos (sacred precinct) walls were over 200 metres on each side and survive largely intact; the main cella was destroyed by ISIS in 2015.

Bel was the supreme deity of Palmyra, a Semitic equivalent of Zeus who absorbed Greco-Roman characteristics over centuries of cultural mixing. The temple's decoration combined Roman architectural vocabulary with Near Eastern religious traditions — a fusion typical of Palmyra's position as a wealthy trading city where different civilisations met and mingled.

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The Temple of Bel was consecrated in 32 AD and was one of the most complete Roman-era temples in the Middle East. In its later life it became a mosque, and before the Syrian Civil War it was still in remarkably good condition. ISIS blew up the main cella (inner sanctuary) in August 2015. The precinct walls and outer colonnades largely survived. What remains gives some sense of the building's original grandeur, but the sanctuary is gone.