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“Palmyra is a Bedouin laughing because she is dressed up as a Roman lady.”
Vita Sackville-West, Twelve Days, 1928
“The Arabs built it, dazzled by what they had seen or heard of the Roman models.”
Vita Sackville-West, Twelve Days, 1928
The Temple of Bel, devoted to Palmyra’s chief god of the same name, is a massive structure with high fortress-like walls and all sides, and a huge courtyard in the middle. Unlike most of Palmyra’s city central which was built in a typical Roman way, this structure is indigenously Arab. This is understandable, Bel is a “home-grown” god from Mesopotamia proper, and somewhat Arabic. And presumably, gods prefer to live in a culturally more familiar environment, than one that is foreign and merely in vogue. At the far end of the temple is the shrine itself, with carvings of gods, caravans, officials, processions, etc.
After the Temple, it was almost early evening and it was time to watch the sunset at Qalaat ibn Maan or Castle of the Chief of Maan, which only opened for a few hours a day around that time. And we were courted by two drivers who almost fought with each other, to drive us the steep way up the hill on which the Castle was located. In the end, we chose a third taxi who drove by in time, and left those two swearing angrily at the third. This reminded me of the Chinese proverb “he pan xiang zheng, yu ren de li,” or “when the crane and the clam fights, the fisherman becomes the victor by capturing both.”
The Qaalat ibn Maan was built in the 17th century by Fakr ad-Din the
Maanite, a local warlord (who came from Maan, a city in Jordan).
Rising high above the city, one not only obtain a panoramic view of the
ancient city, but also the new city, the lush greenery of the palm oasis
that gave the city its name, as well as the vast expense of the Syrian
Desert far beyond. The sunset was a beautiful sight, and no doubt
one of Palmyra’s chief attractions, as the Castle was by this time crowded
with tourists. One hardly sees a crowd elsewhere in Palmyra.
Most of them were Dutch, French or German. As with the other Syrian
localities, no Americans were seen.
| Apart from the vast walls of the Temple of Bel and scattered buildings, the destruction appeared to be so complete. Coupled with the bare desert landscape, it looked as though an atom bomb had dropped onto the city. A whole civilisation had been destroyed by war. All glories and fame had come to nought through the greed and vanity of mankind. |
Looking at the vast area of ruins beneath, the walls, columns, and rubble
all looked so minute. Apart from the vast walls of the Temple of
Bel and scattered buildings, the destruction appeared to be so complete.
Coupled with the bare desert landscape, it looked as though an atom bomb
had dropped onto the city. A whole civilisation had been destroyed
by war. All glories and fame had come to nought through the greed
and vanity of mankind. To the southwest, just beyond the funerary
towers, what could be the shiny rooftop of a notorious prison camp of the
Ba’thist regime was in sight, or at least that was where the prison camp
was supposed to be located according to some books. I wonder if prisoners
still languish there.
25 July 1996
LEAVING PALMYRA
Tower Tombs of Palmyra : Tombs with a view
We decided to leave for Aleppo the next day, though not before visiting the “Valley of Tombs” and the Palmyra Museum. At about 6:30am, we took a slow cool morning stroll to the tombs passing the ruins we visited the day before. Again we walked along the Colonnade, though we headed southwest at a point near the Tetra Pylon. Along the way, we met a cute little Bedouin shepherd boy with his herd of black, brown and white sheep. We had a little conversation, took some pictures and gave him a pen. I wonder if he will ever have a chance to use it.
We trekked across the ruins, rubble, as well as the crumbling ancient city walls of Palmyra which the Romans breached in 273 A.D. Beyond the walls was the “Valley of Tombs”. There wasn’t any such official term, though the term was used from time to time to describe this valley at the edge of the city. Here, the valley stretched from near the ancient walls towards the west, and on both sides of the valley were little hills. The funerary towers were scattered on these hills on both sides of the valley and some had excellent views overlooking the city. The whole setting was nothing short of a spectacle - a tower here and another fifty meters away, and another and yet another some distance away. They were all over the valley, and one could see the rising Qalaat ibn Maan - a much younger creation compared to the ancient towers - faraway. It looked like a mysterious lost civilisation and the scene was a little like the valley of gorillas in the closing scenes of the movie Congo.
Prominent families of ancient Palmyra interred their members in elaborately-carved
stone coffins placed in these towers, some of which were up to five storeys.
Many of these towers used to contain brightly covered frescoes and murals,
but most had gone through the ravages of time. Those which were still
well preserved, such as the funerary tombs of Yemliko and Jambliq, could
only be visited on a guided tour. The other less famous tombs with
no preserved interior frescoes could be visited freely. No great
loss as we were to visit Egypt later, a country with much grander tombs.
| I wonder why the Palmyrenes built these tower tombs. Maybe so that they would remember their ancestors whenever they see the towers from the city. And so that their ancestors would be able to bless them from their watchtower-tombs overlooking the city. If this was the case, the ancestors’ blessings apparently didn’t have any effects during the Roman siege. I could imagine the spirits of dead Palmyrenes mourning the destruction of the city, weeping as they watched their beloved city fell to the Romans and their descendants massacred. |
We visited the tower-tombs at random, though not before uttering some
simple prayers for forgiveness, Chinese-style. It wasn’t difficult to make
one’s way up the towers, though one had to be mindful of crumbling rocks
and the animal faeces inside. For some reasons, local sheep like
to do their business here. Maybe it’s more cosy, though I’m sure
their ancient owners would not sleep peacefully with this. From the
top, we could see the ruins of ancient Palmyra - the city walls, the columns,
the temple of Bel, etc. I wonder why the Palmyrenes built these tower
tombs. Maybe so that they would remember their ancestors whenever
they see the towers from the city. And so that their ancestors would
be able to bless them from their watchtower-tombs overlooking the city.
If this was the case, the ancestors’ blessings apparently didn’t have any
effects during the Roman siege. I could imagine the spirits of dead
Palmyrenes mourning the destruction of the city, weeping as they watched
their beloved city fell to the Romans and their descendants massacred.
Dead Palmyrenes
and their alphabet
The Palmyra Museum is located near the edge of the town central, on the way to the ruins of the ancient ruins. It has an excellent collection of well-preserved Palmyra artefacts - not only sculpture and carvings, but also dead Palmyrenes as well. The latter were wrapped up like Egyptian mummies and preserved to a certain extent, by the desert sand and turpentine. The Palmyrenes had used a technique somewhat similar to the ancient Egyptians, though their mummies didn’t look as well preserved as those in the Egyptian Museum. In fact, the Damascus National Museum only had fragments of mummies to boast of - yes, fragments - they displayed a hand, a leg, and so on, and these gruesome parts were still wrapped with silk and cloth. The Palmyra Museum, at the bare minimum, have full bodies ! Bizarre body talk...
Funerary sculptures and carvings were the chief attractions of the Museum. Palmyrene nobility had sculptures of the family in their family tombs. Entire families - father, mother, grandma, kids, etc could be found here. The figures carved were adorned in Greco-Roman style clothing but their facial features, though a little Greek-like, were somewhat different. Perhaps, the local artists were trained in Greek sculptures but gave the figures a local Arab look. Also interesting were the ancient Palmyrene alphabets, which one see on some of the carvings and panels. It has 22 letters and was written from right to left. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, it was derived from Aramaic around 200 B.C. and that : “Palmyrene inscriptions have been found in Palmyra, Palestine, and Egypt and elsewhere in North Africa and from as far afield as the Black Sea coast, Hungary, Italy, and England. The earliest surviving Palmyrene inscription dates from 44 BC; the last dates from AD 274.”
After a whole morning of tombs and dead bodies, we packed up and set off for Aleppo, metropolis of the North. We boarded the first microbus to Homs, the transportation hub of Syria - it’s our second time here. We first came here on our way to Krak des Chevelairs. We had a quick meal of roast chicken at the private bus waiting area (almost every eating place served roast chicken). Getting a ticket was no problem as there were so many buses to Aleppo, and ticket-sellers of rival bus companies were always shouting “Halab, Halab, Halab”. (Halab is the Arab name for Aleppo.) Many of these buses started from Damascus and would pick up passengers along the way. The air-conditional bus ticket to Aleppo cost us only S.L. 85 (US$2) per person !
The journey north passed through the region known as the Orontes Valley.
After the past few days of continuous desert landscape, we were relieved
to enter a region of comparatively greener landscape. Fields of wheat
and oats were seen on many stretches of the highway. No wonder
this valley has always been a prized territory of the land of Greater Syria.
The river began in the snow-capped mountains of Lebanon, and entered Syria
at an area known as Kadesh in the ancient times, where the Egyptians under
Rameses II were defeated by the Hittites (from Anatolia, Turkey) at an
extremely bloody and historically significant battle in 1300 B.C.
And then the river flows through the plains of northern Syria, nourishing
the great cities of Homs and Hama, before it finally reached Antakya (or
ancient Antioch, now in Turkey) and the warm Mediterranean.
I had wanted to look at the garden city of Hama (also famous for its
gigantic norias, or waterwheels) while the bus passed it but had fallen
asleep. Ancient Hama was a prosperous Aramaean city state and
a valued prize of faraway conquerors. The city had been sacked and
rebuilt many times. The latest occurred in 1982, when the Muslim
Brotherhood, a fundamentalist Islamic rebel group, rose in rebellion against
the Assad regime. Assad quickly crushed the rebellion with great
brutality, with the air and artillery forces bombing the city with great
ferocity. Once they entered the city, the army shot anyone they encountered.
After a series of great massacres, 25,000 people had perished and the city
was left in ruins. The city had since been rebuilt, as the Lonely
Planet “Jordan and Syria” said, and the new Apamee Cham Palace Hotel was
built over “the houses and bodies of thousands”.
| Fatima was a pretty Kurdish teenage girl on her way to Aleppo so as to catch another bus to Ath-Thaura, where her family lived. Curious about these strange looking foreigners, she bought us ice cream when the bus stopped for an ice cream man. |
Fatima was a pretty Kurdish teenage girl on her way to Aleppo so as
to catch another bus to Ath-Thaura, where her family lived. Curious
about these strange looking foreigners, she bought us ice cream when the
bus stopped for an ice cream man. We had a brief chat with her and
she invited us to her home. It was a tempting offer for Ath-Thaura
lies on the banks of Lake Assad, a 60km-long lake that was formed after
the 1973 damming of the Euphrates River (one of the two great Mesopotamian
rivers ; the other was Tigris). This was also a land of ancient civilisations
and great modern aspirations. The very possibility of visiting a
Kudish family also appealed to me since I visited ancient Edessa (now known
as Urfa) in southeast Turkey in 1995, where the Kurds, Turks and Arabs
lived in harmony (although Kurdish guerrillas were fighting for an independent
state further east). At that time, looking at the forbidding Turkish-Syrian
border from the “bee-hive” village of Harran (also an ancient biblical
city), I decided that I would visit Syria one day. Now that I had
realised my dream, the possibility of visiting a region on the Syrian side
of the border was a romantic notion too good to be true. But unfortunately,
we had a tight schedule and could not afford unplanned deviations.
Otherwise we might miss the booked package tour in Egypt. We had
to give it a miss. What a disappointment ! I will never book
a package tour again.
Next : Aleppo : Fair City of the North
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