Across the Desert to Palmyra

Doura Europos

Christmas Day started over breakfast with a few desultory wishes of "Happy Christmas" but not much other evidence of the season of good cheer - but that was, ostensibly, one of the reasons I came on this trip :Bah Humbug !

We drove South to what been the caravan city and great Greco-Roman fortress at Dura Euopos.  During a decisive battle against the Sassanians, the town’s inhabitants piled up sand against the Western walls as a defence against the under-mining of the walls.  Although the battle was lost, the paintings were beautifully preserved and we had seen some in the National Museum - it was here that the synagogue in the museum had been found buried.  Apart from the walls there was little left of this large site - what it did offer was the opportunity to pick over the thousands upon thousands of pottery shards littering the site.  The high vantage point of the walls looming over the Euphrates River gave us an eagle's view of the valley floor and its extensive agriculture - neat little fields bounded by small bunds to contain the water, the regular lines left by the plough, the background rhythmical thump of a pump raising water from the papyrus lined river and small figures walking up & down their fields hand broadcasting seeds or fertiliser.

We then moved on to the royal city state of Mari – once a great trading centre and important for the production of tin, an essential ingredient of bronze.  However, hosted four civilisations over the millenia, there is little there bar some sketchy ruins and a large cover excavation of a palace.  These archaeologists must have vivid imaginations to reconstruct detail of building design & use and everyday life from the barest fragments, shards and degraded walls.  Today my imagination finally failed me and I could see any of the lives and peoples being described.

From Mari, we continue our journey into the one of the towns at the heart of the Syrian Desert - Palmyra - "Bride of the Desert"-  one of the most famous caravan cities in the world.   The bankers of this highly developed oasis financed the camel convoys moving between the East and West, and Palmyra grew so rich that, under the leadership of Queen Zenobia, it became a challenge to Rome itself.   Roman legions razed the city walls in 271AD and carried the spirited lady off to Italy in golden chains.   Its former glory can still be seen in the colonnades, triumphal arches, monuments and temples dyed pink by time and sun (or more mundanely, from the rusting iron oxide in the rock  !).

HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO EVERYBODY