Palmyra–Tadmor in the Syrian Desert

Type:

Book Chapter

Author:

Rubina Raja

Published:

2024

Publisher:

Oxford University Press

Abstract This chapter serves as an introduction to the thirty-six handbook chapters in the book and summarizes Palmyra’s archaeology and history and its development, as well as the city’s place in the history of research on the ancient world. It urges the reader to follow-up on bibliography in the footnotes and explore the literature about the broader history of the region, including the periods during which it was under Ottoman and later French rule, during the Mandate period. Those periods were also the time when archaeological interest in the site grew and when European touristic interests mixed with scholarly interests to produce publications on the site, its art, archaeology, history, and writing. Today scholars cannot ignore the impression that Palmyra’s colonial past has left on the way in which scholarship has been conducted at the site for far more than a century. The chapter opens with a discussion about how future scholarship should view this heritage in a critical light while acknowledging that Palmyra is also a world heritage site that stands at the centre of understanding a global cultural heritage that is important to the entirety of human kind.

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