Palmyra: Camels, Columns, & Geography

Palmyra, was the ancient Roman caravan city where camels, horses, and thousands of people rode through to get on the Silk Road to China. The city itself was incredibly well preserved, with columns and buildings were left as they were two thousand years ago. I had a nice time in Palmyra. The weather was simply beautiful. The wind combined with dry desert heat, particles of sand blew in the air. The night was so clear you could see every star perfectly, the moon shone like a silver dollar.

The hotel we stayed in, Zenobia's, was named after the beautiful Palmyran queen who, like the English Boudicca, stood up to Roman domination. Palmyra and the empire it controlled encompassed an area that spread from present day southern Turkey to modern Egypt. As with other short lived Roman era empires, it arouse from chaos within Rome, only lasting about 13 years. The ancient city of Palmyra now lies in ruins today because it was eventually crushed by the reorganized Romans.

Our tour guide was a sprightly Palmyran who loved to crack jokes about the Mukhabarat, Asad and Syria in general. Under normal circumstances this could land him in a lot of trouble, but I am guessing that with a load of Westerners he could get away with it. Even though he led on that he disliked Asad, he still subscribed to pan-Arabist and pan-Syrian propaganda. From claiming that much of the eastern Roman Empire was built on the backs of Arabs, to the claim that, at one point, the regions of Palestine (including Israel, the PA and Jordan), southern Turkey, and Lebanon were all part of Syria.

On the road to Palmyra we came upon a map of Syria that included the Turkish province of Hatay. Hatay, a region that used to belong to Syria (then under a French mandate), was given to the Turks by France following a popular referendum. The deal was also made to keep Turkey from joining the Axis power, and was unrecognized by Syria. In Hatay there were and are sizable Turkish and Arab communities. The district also contained the cities of Antioch (very important to Christians) and Alexandretta, the latter was considered Aleppo's port.

Here in the Levant, maps are incredibly important to the understanding of history, economics, and the people that inhabit the region. In Syria main inland cities such as Damascus, Aleppo, Hama and Homs all have connecting ports (see the map I've created and attached). One could draw an almost straight diagonal line from Syrian cities to their "natural ports." Currently, Syria's economy is stagnant, most goods have to come through the port of Latakiya, which is both far from the inland cities, and most definitely not a "natural port" to any Syrian city. Almost all of Syria's "natural ports" are in foreign states, its interesting to note that with almost all of these countries that hold ports that support Syrian cities, Syria has either tried to occupy them (take Lebanon for instance) or has ratcheted up pressure using terrorism (such as using the Kurdish PKK against Turkey).

At night I decided to wonder around Palmyra. The hotel was literally on top of the ruins, the night was very nice and I needed some time to suck in all of the history. The ionic and Corinthian columns shone in the moonlight as I walked through the desert scrub. I soon ran into a fellow student at LAU who was also taking in the history of the area. We decided to have an impromptu chat and walked all the way down to the central avenue in ancient Palmyra. Motor bikes went by us, about 2 every 10 minutes. I assumed the Bedouins were sizing us up, in the words of the LAU director, "they want money, they are all cheaters." Out of the blackness a Bedouin in full dish dash (the native white robe) and red and white kaffiah showed up on his camel offering us a ride. My classmate was hesitant at first, so was I, being in no mood to pay for anything that night.

Nevertheless, the Bedouin in true business fashion, decided that it was best to give us both free camel rides back to the hotel (a distance of about a mile), he felt that we could pass his card along to our tour guide. I learned later the man was the winner of the Qatar Camel Race, where he won €100,000 and a new Toyota Land Cruiser from the Shiek of Qatar. Incidentally I was riding the prized, winning camel that brought him all of this wealth and prestige. In the words of Goldie Hawn while on camel back in the film Protocol, "I [was] experiencing the new sights and smells."

After the camel ride under the stars, I danced the dabke and had an interesting meal of vegetables and half cooked meats (which later gave me that wonderful case of food poisoning), interrupted by skinny begging feral cats. The next morning we walked around the ruins, saw the amphitheater and the giant temples. In the amphitheater the Syrian Mukhabarat showed their heads. Some were in black dress pants and a button up white shirt, others wore jeans and baseball caps. They all had one thing in mind: watch the group of Americans. Their techniques of intelligence gathering were basic at best, one of them was "taking pictures of his friends" (aka more Mukhabarat). Holding a 1980s era large commercial plastic camera and wearing ill-fitting dress clothes, then started to snap pictures of the group, and was right behind us no matter where we went.

The Mukhabarat is strong in Palmyra, operating the infamous Tadmour Prison. Tadmour, the Arabic name for Palmyra, was the site of mass executions of the members of the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1980s. Even today the prison contains thousands of political prisoners.

Palmyra also served as an example regarding water security. In Roman times the city supported a population of 200,000, now the town of Palmyra (Tadmour) has but a few thousand. The region was much wetter and underground wells supported much of the population. With huge population growth in the Middle East over the past years, the wells have started to run dry. The same desertification and lack of water resources could effect the Levant over the next few years. The logical result would only be increased conflict and population displacement.

Syria and Lebanon have a fond place in my heart, but will be violent because of religion, resources, economic reasons, or tribal difficulties. The ruins of Palmyra truly show how the people here always want to be independent, will always be short of resources and how that urning for independence is fleeting. Even in the ancient world the Levant was known for its violence. Its more than fitting for the goddess Anat, lordess of the Levant used to hold and wear the hands and heads of those she killed.

Anat's soul was exuberant,
as she plunged knee-deep in the soldiers' blood,
up to her thighs in the warriors' gore …

Taken from Coogan, Michael D., translator, 1978. Stories from Ancient Canaan. Louisville, KY: Westminster

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