My Tour in Ruins

I woke up Friday and it was clouded over in Palmyria and looked like it would rain as it had the night before. I started out by writing the last post in the internet cafe, exploring the tiny market at the intersection the town's two main streets, but after that I thought it would be best to walk a kilometer out of town to see the ruins of ancient Palmyria. They were much more extensive than I had expected and I ended up wandering around them all day as there was no admission cost.

Palmyria was a large and wealthy city state in ancient times (around 0 AD) and at some point became a province of Rome. It's most notable point in history centers around one queen, Zenobia. The king of the day died around 300 AD and his son was too young to rule so Zenobia made herself the commander of the territory instead of letting Rome send a governor as would be custom. Rome did not favor her decision and sent a detachment of the army to reason with her but she met them in battle and defeated the Romans. After that she headed south and captured many garrisons along the way and turned home after seizing territory as far away as Northern Egypt. That's a lot of ground to cover. Rome was willing to negotiate but when she minted coins in her image this was apparently an affront to the emperor personally and the army came and crushed her. She is remembered now by many statues and plaques around town. Fifty years after that incident the locals rebeled and killed a garrison of 600 Roman archers, so the Romans returned and leveled the town completely. It never recovered.

The ruins cover about 3 square miles and consist of the Hellenistic city, the towering crypts on the hillsides, and the nearby Arabic Castle that gracefully overlooks the town. I turned around after the clouds really got dark and reached my hotel just as the sky opened up around 5pm.

The next morning I futilely searched town for an ATM and met some American backpackers at my hotel when I came back to get some dollars to exchange. The group of them (2 guys and 4 girls) attend the American University in Cairo and are studying Arabic and Political Science. They seemed interesting enough so I agreed to tour the ruins again with them since I had skipped a few parts to avoid the rain. I acted as a bit of a guide telling the history that I knew, gave suggestions on haggling, and led the way to the best ruins. The lot of them were pretty disorganized and after touring the Temple of Bel at the near end of the main promenade of the Hellenistic city, I headed along the path with some speed because I really wanted to spend some time exploring the crypt towers and they were on a shortish schedule. One girl, Laura, wanted to move faster too so she and I walked and talked for the next 3 hours as we photographed the many broken columns and finally climbed to the top of a couple of the crypts. The crypts were above ground, built into the insides of huge stone towers 4 stories tall. There were ancient stairs that led all the way to the top and the views were breathtaking.

Later that afternoon they caught their bus to the next town and I stayed behind waiting for my laundry to be finished. Also, they weren't going the same direction as me so I would not have gone anyways. Later that night I had an entertaining episode, but I'll save that for the next post.