In the news
If shops can reopen in April, why can’t museums?
Museums in England will have to wait until May to reopen but shops, gyms and libraries are set to open in April. What’s the logic in that?
American museums should not be selling their art to keep the lights on
Deaccessioning rules for US museums have been relaxed to raise money for collection care – and even the Met may take advantage. It’s a slippery slope, says Thomas P. Campbell
Most popular
- google_a
- comments
- Recent
- google_a
- comments
- Recent
Podcast
The Apollo 40 under 40 podcast: Mohamad Hafez
The Syrian-born, US-based artist talks to Gabrielle Schwarz about his sculptural dioramas of cities ravaged by war – and offers a message of hope for the future
Art news daily
The week in art news – museums in Germany to open from Monday
Plus: V&A to merge departments and cut 140 jobs | UK government announces £390m to help arts venues reopen | Alan Bowness (1928–2021) | and missing Jacob Lawrence painting discovered in Manhattan
Missing Jacob Lawrence painting discovered in Manhattan apartment
The panel from one of the American painter’s great narrative series is the second to have shown up by chance in quick succession
The week in art news – Amnesty report points to massacre in Ethiopian town of Axum
Plus: Swiss museums reopen next week, while UK museums must wait until May | Experts confirm message on The Scream is by Munch | and National Gallery in London and Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin update Hugh Lane bequest deal
Reviews
The Met’s Old Masters, seen in a new light
European paintings still occupy prime real estate on Fifth Avenue – but a redisplay offers fresh insight into the Met’s hallowed holdings
Vein glorious: an epic history of marble, reviewed
For millennia, marble was taken to be a gleaming reflection of the heavens – and, in Fabio Barry’s new book, it regains its divine mysteries
Why does Palmyra matter?
Palmyra, Syria. Photo: Arian Zwegers/Flickr
Share
As I write, the news is that ISIS has been using the 2nd century AD theatre at Palmyra for executions but says it will not demolish the buildings. To do so would be a challenge anyway, given Palmyra’s enormous size and the huge monumental structures on the site, mostly dating from the first and second centuries AD. Palmyra (‘place of palms’, the Roman name for Tadmor) was rediscovered in the late 17th century, and the publication of The Ruins of Palmyra by Wood and Dawkins in 1753 caused great excitement. Country house owners vied with each other to have ‘Palmyra ceilings’, based on the zodiac ceiling in the great Temple of Bel, perhaps the most famous being Robert Adam’s at Osterley Park, with others at Blair Castle, Dumfries House, Stratfield Saye, West Wycombe Park and elsewhere. Lady Hester Stanhope was also a famous visitor to Palmyra in 1812.
To visit Palmyra is an unforgettable experience. Built on an oasis in the Syrian desert, on trade routes to Damascus and the coast from the Euphrates and beyond, it became immensely rich on the proceeds of the caravan trade. The Tariff of Palmyra is a famous bilingual Greek and Palmyrene inscription from the third century AD, the longest known in the Palmyrene version of Aramaic, which lays down prices for commodities from slaves to oil and perfume. It was the proceeds from this trade that enabled the inhabitants to build Palmyra’s great temples to Bel, Baal Shamin, Allat and other eastern deities, its long colonnaded street, monumental arch and theatre. The temples are built in grand Hellenistic style – but the dress, the women’s veils and the frontality of the portrait busts of the Palmyrenes and their families that lined their huge frescoed tombs reveal a striking mixture of classical and eastern influences. Palmyra’s location made it a middle ground between the Roman and the Parthian empires, and the many funerary sculptures in the Damascus Museum portray a rich merchant elite confident in its mixed identity.
In the third century AD the Palmyrene ruler and Roman governor Odenathus defeated Shapur I, the second of the new Sasanian rulers of Persia. He then made a bid to take Shapur’s title, was killed and succeeded by his equally ambitious wife Zenobia. However her troops could not withstand the Roman emperor Aurelian and Palmyra surrendered to Rome in AD 272. Less is known of Palmyra in the later Roman period, but recent excavation by Polish archaeologists has revealed several large churches, probably of the sixth century.
Related Articles
Haunting 19th-century photographs of Palmyra
Can Iraq’s antiquities be saved? Mark Altaweel makes the case for intervention.
How can we protect cultural sites in war zones? Peter Stone discusses Blue Shield.
The destruction of Nimrud is a crime against humanity Maggie Gray on the cultural desecration of Iraq.
Lead image: used under Creative Commons licence (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Share
Recommended for you
Palmyra archaeologist killed by Isis militants
Khaled al-Asaad served as director of antiquities of Palmyra for 40 years
Museums must work together to combat cultural destruction
Julian Raby, director of the Smithsonian’s Freer and Sackler galleries, speaks to Apollo
Editor’s Letter: The cultural desecration of Iraq
As Iraq and its heritage suffer, we must seek out and celebrate the great Assyrian artefacts in our own museum collections