Dura-Europos, also spelled Dura-Europus, was a Hellenistic, Parthian and Roman border city built on an escarpment 90 metres above the eastern bank of the Euphrates river. It is located near the village of Salhiyé, in today's Syria. In 113 BC, Parthians conquered the city, and held it, with one brief Roman intermission, until 165 AD. Under Parthian rule, it became an important provincial administrative centre. The Romans decisively captured Dura-Europos in 165 AD and greatly enlarged it as their easternmost stronghold in Mesopotamia, until it was captured by the Sasanian Empire after a siege in 256–57 AD. Its population was deported, and after it was abandoned, it was covered by sand and mud and disappeared from sight.
The Qutb Minar complex are monuments and buildings from the Delhi Sultanate at Mehrauli in Delhi, India. Construction of the Qutub Minar "victory tower" in the complex, named after the religious figure Sufi Saint Khwaja Qutbuddin Bakhtiar Kaki, was begun by Qutb-ud-din Aibak, who later became the first Sultan of Delhi of the Mamluk dynasty. It was continued by his successor Iltutmish, and finally completed much later by Firoz Shah Tughlaq, a Sultan of Delhi from the Tughlaq dynasty (1320-1412) in 1368 AD. The Qubbat-ul-Islam Mosque, later corrupted into Quwwat-ul Islam, stands next to the Qutb Minar.
Septimius Odaenathus was the founder king (Mlk) of the Palmyrene Kingdom who ruled from Palmyra, Syria. He elevated the status of his kingdom from a regional center subordinate to Rome into a formidable state in the Near East. Odaenathus was born into an aristocratic Palmyrene family that had received Roman citizenship in the 190s under the Severan dynasty. He was the son of Hairan, the descendant of Nasor. The circumstances surrounding his rise are ambiguous; he became the lord (ras) of the city, a position created for him, as early as the 240s and by 258, he was styled a consularis, indicating a high status in the Roman Empire.
The Palmyrene Empire was a short-lived breakaway state from the Roman Empire resulting from the Crisis of the Third Century. Named after its capital city, Palmyra, it encompassed the Roman provinces of Syria Palaestina, Arabia Petraea, and Egypt, as well as large parts of Asia Minor.
The Emesenedynasty, also called the Sampsigeramids or the Sampsigerami, were a Roman client dynasty of Arab priest-kings known to have ruled by 46 BC from Arethusa and later from Emesa, Syria, until between 72 and 78/79, or at the latest the reign of Emperor Antoninus Pius (138–161). Iamblichus, the famous Neoplatonist philosopher of the third century, was one of their descendants, as was empress Julia Domna, matriarch of the Severan dynasty.
The National Museum of Damascus is a museum in the heart of Damascus, Syria. As the country's national museum as well as its largest, this museum covers the entire range of Syrian history over a span of over 11 millennia. It displays various important artifacts, relics and major finds most notably from Mari, Ebla and Ugarit, three of Syria's most important ancient archaeological sites. Established in 1919, during King Faisal's Arab Kingdom of Syria, the museum is the oldest cultural heritage institution in Syria.
The Temple of Bel, sometimes also referred to as the "Temple of Baal", was an ancient temple located in Palmyra, Syria. The temple, consecrated to the Mesopotamian god Bel, worshipped at Palmyra in triad with the lunar god Aglibol and the sun god Yarhibol, formed the center of religious life in Palmyra and was dedicated in AD 32. The temple would have been closed during the persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire in a campaign against the temples of the East made by Maternus Cynegius, Praetorian Prefect of Oriens, between 25 May 385 to 19 March 388. Its ruins were considered among the best preserved at Palmyra, until they were further destroyed by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria in August 2015. The arched main entrance into the temple is still intact, as well as its exterior walls and fortified gate.
The tomb of Marcus Vergilius Eurysaces the baker is one of the largest and best-preserved freedman funerary monuments in Rome. Its sculpted frieze is a classic example of the "plebeian style" in Roman sculpture. Eurysaces built the tomb for himself and perhaps also his wife Atistia around the end of the Republic. Located in a prominent position just outside today's Porta Maggiore, the tomb was transformed by its incorporation into the Aurelian Wall; a tower subsequently erected by Honorius covered the tomb, the remains of which were exposed upon its removal by Gregory XVI in 1838. What is particularly significant about this extravagant tomb is that it was built by a freedman, a former slave.
Halabiye is an archaeological site on the right bank of the Euphrates River in Deir ez-Zor Governorate, Syria. It was an ancient city and former bishopric known as Zenobia and a Latin Catholic titular see.
The Sultan Al-Ghuri Complex or Funerary complex of Sultan al-Ghuri, also known as al-Ghuriya, is a monumental Islamic religious and funerary complex built by Sultan Qansuh al-Ghuri between 1503 and 1505 CE. The complex consists of two major buildings facing each other on al-Mu'izz li-Din Allah street, in the Fahhamin Quarter, in the middle of the historic part of Cairo, Egypt. The eastern side of the complex includes the Sultan's mausoleum, a khanqah, a sabil, and a kuttab, while the western side of the complex is a mosque and madrasa. Today the mosque-madrasa is still open as a mosque while the khanqah-mausoleum is open to visitors as a historic site.
Al-Qaryatayn, also spelled Karyatayn, Qaratin or Cariatein, is a town in central Syria, administratively part of the Homs Governorate located southeast of Homs. It is situated on an oasis in the Syrian Desert. Nearby localities include Tadmur (Palmyra) to the northeast, Furqlus to the north, al-Riqama and Dardaghan to the northwest, Mahin, Huwwarin and Sadad to the west, Qarah, Deir Atiyah and al-Nabk to the southwest and Jayrud to the south. Al-Qaryatayn translates as "the two villages".
The Roman Theatre at Palmyra is a Roman theatre in ancient Palmyra in the Syrian Desert. The unfinished theatre dates back to the second-century CE Severan period. The theatre's remains have since been restored. It was occupied by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in May 2015 and recaptured by the government forces in March 2016 with the support of Russian airstrikes.
The Camp of Diocletian was a Roman military complex, or castra, built in the ancient city of Palmyra in the Syrian Desert. The complex was built under the Roman Emperor Diocletian in the late third-century CE and served as the military headquarters for the Legio I Illyricorum.
Deliberate destruction and theft of cultural heritage has been conducted by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Syria since 2014 in Iraq, Syria, and to a lesser extent in Libya. The destruction targets various places of worship under ISIL control and ancient historical artifacts. In Iraq, between the fall of Mosul in June 2014 and February 2015, ISIS had plundered and destroyed at least 28 historical religious buildings. Valuable items from some buildings were looted in order to smuggle and sell them to foreigners to finance the running of the Islamic State. By March 2019, ISIS lost most of its territory in the Middle East.
Palmyra is an ancient Semitic city in present-day Homs Governorate, Syria. Archaeological finds date back to the Neolithic period, and documents first mention the city in the early second millennium BC. Palmyra changed hands on a number of occasions between different empires before becoming a subject of the Roman Empire in the first century AD.
The Temple of Baalshamin was an ancient temple in the city of Palmyra, Syria, dedicated to the Canaanite sky deity Baalshamin. The temple's earliest phase dates to the late 2nd century BC; its altar was built in 115 AD, and the temple was substantially rebuilt in 131 AD. The temple would have been closed during the persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire in a campaign against the temples of the East made by Maternus Cynegius, Praetorian Prefect of Oriens, between 25 May 385 to 19 March 388. With the spreading of Christianity in the region in the 5th century AD, the temple was converted to a church.
Palmyrene funerary relief busts were first produced in Palmyra in the middle of the first century BC a decorative slabs closing the burial niches inside underground tombs. The reliefs were carved into square pieces of limestone and depicted figures in a direct frontal pose cut off at mid-torso. Arms and hands were portrayed in various gestures and poses. Most busts display a solitary figure, however some sculptures incorporate multiple figures of family members. Names and lineage of the deceased are engraved in Aramaic above the shoulders, and in some cases, with Greek or Syriac.
The Temple of the Gadde is a double temple in the Syrian city of Dura-Europos, located near the agora. It was dedicated to the protective deities Gaddē of Dura-Europos and the nearby city of Palmyra. It was excavated between 1934 and January 1936 by the French/American expedition of Yale University, led by Michael Rostovtzeff.
Odaenathus, the king of Palmyra from 260 to 267 CE, has been identified by modern scholars as the subject of sculptures, seal impressions, and mosaic pieces. His city was part of the Roman Empire, and he came to dominate the Roman East when in 260 he defeated Shapur I, the Sasanian emperor of Persia, who had invaded the Roman Empire. Odaenathus besieged the Sasanian capital Ctesiphon in 263, and although the city did not fall, the campaign led to a full restoration of Roman provinces taken by Shapur I. In the aftermath of his Persian war, Odaenathus assumed the title King of Kings, which was a challenge to the Persian monarch's claims of authority in the region. Odaenathus ruled the Roman East unopposed with imperial consent. In 267, he was assassinated alongside his eldest son Herodianus while conducting a campaign against Germanic raiders in Bithynia; he was succeeded by his son Vaballathus under the regency of the widow queen Zenobia.
The Valley of the Tombs is a necropolis at the west of Palmyra, Syria. It is one of the three necropoleis present around the ancient city. It is one kilometre long, and easily recognizable by its tower-tombs, among which the former towers of Atenatan, Kitot, Iamblichus and Elahbel where the earliest finds of silk were made and that were destroyed by ISIS in 2015.
