*WS 14 ( re-post ) - The Roman ruins at Palmyra, Syria*
We visited Syria in 2010, about a year before it went into civil war.
Palmyra in central Syria was a rich vassel city state of the Roman Empire in the 1st century AD because of trade along the old Silk Road. However in 273 the new Queen rebelled against the Romans and the city was duly levelled by the Roman army.
The ruins that remains today include the Great Colonnade and the Temple of Baal and other minor structures.
The Temple of Baal (3rd and 4th photos) is 210 m by 205 m, the largest building in the Middle East in the first century AD. The next 2 photos show the columns in the 1.1 km long main avenue or Great Colonnade, with a monumental arch (6th photo) leading to the temple. The 7th photo shows the funerary temple while the last photo is an off shot: very productive olives in the desert.
This is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. To us this place is more impressive than those more well known Roman ruins in Turkey or Greece. Parts of the ruins were destroyed by the ISIS in 2016.
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