If asked whether Palmyra is worth all this trouble, I should reply “No” and “Yes.” No, if you merely go there, stay two days, and return, especially after sighting noble Báalbak. Certainly not for the Grand Colonnade of weather-beaten limestone, by a stretch of courtesy called marble, which, rain-washed and earthquake-shaken, looks like a system of galleries. Not for the Temple of the Sun, the building of a Roman emperor, a second-rate affair, an architectural evidence of Rome’s declining days. Yes, if you would study the site and the environs, which are interesting and only partially explored, make excavations, and collect coins and relics, which may be bought for a song.
The site of Palmyra is very interesting; she stands between the mountains and the sea; like Damascus, she sits upon the eastern slope of the Anti-Libanus, facing the wilderness, but unhappily she has a dry torrent bed, the Wady el Sayl, instead of a rushing Barada. She is built upon the shore cape, where the sandy sea breaks upon its nearest headlands. This sea is the mysterious Wilderness of the Euphrates, whose ships are camels, whose yachts are high-bred mares, and whose cock-boats are mules and asses. She is on the very threshold of the mountains, which the wild cavalry cannot scour, as they do the level plain. And her position is such that we have not heard the last of the Tadmor, or, as the Arabs call
her, Tudmur. Nor will it be difficult to revive her. A large tract can be placed under cultivation, where there shall be protection for life and property; old wells exist in the ruins; foresting the highlands to the north and west will cause rain; and the aqueducts in the old days may easily be repaired.
I am unwilling to indulge in a description of the modern ruin of the great old depôt, which has employed so many pens. But very little has been said concerning the old tomb-towers, which have taken at Palmyra the place of Egyptian pyramids. Here, as elsewhere in ancient Syria, sepulture was extramural, and every settlement was approached by one or more Viâ Appia, much resembling that of ancient Rome. At Palmyra there are, or, rather, were, notably two: one (south-west) upon the high road to Damascus; the other, north-west of the official or monumental city, formed, doubtless, the main approach from Hauran and Hamah. The two are lined on both sides with those interesting monuments, whose squat, solid forms of gloomy and unsquared sandstone contrast remarkably with the bastard classical and Roman architecture, meretricious in all its details, and glittering from afar in white limestone. Inscriptions in the Palmyrian character prove that they date from about A.D. 2 and 102; but they have evidently been restored, and this perhaps fixes the latest restoration. It is highly probable that the heathen method of burial declined under the Roman rule, especially after A.D. 130, when the Great Half-way House
again changed its name to Adrianopolis. Still, vestiges of the old custom are found in the Hauran and in the Druze Mountain west of the great valley, extending deep into the second century, when, it is believed, Gassanides of Damascus had abandoned their heathen faith for Christianity. I found in the tombs, or cells, fragments of mummies, and these, it is suspected, were the first ever brought to England. Almost all the skulls contained date-stones, more or less, and a peach stone and an apricot stone were found under similar circumstances. At Shathah we picked up in the mummy-towers almond shells with the sharp ends cut off and forming baby cups.
There are three tomb-towers at Palmyra still standing, and perhaps likely to yield good results. The people call them Kasr el Zaynah (Pretty Palace), Kasr el Azin (Palace of the Maiden), and Kasr el Arus (Palace of the Bride). They number four and five stories, but the staircases, which run up the thickness of the walls, are broken, and so are the monolithic slabs which form the lower floors. Explorers, therefore, must take with them ropes and hooks, ladders which will reach to eighty feet, planks to act as bridges, and a short crowbar. We had none of these requirements, nor could the wretched village provide them. I have little doubt that the upper stories would be found to contain bones, coins, and pottery, perhaps entire mummies.
The shortness of our visit allowed me only a day and a half to try the fortune of excavation at Palmyra.
It was easy to hire a considerable number of labourers at two and a half piastres a head per diem—say 6d.—when in other places the wages would be at least double. Operations began (April 15th) at the group of tomb-towers bearing west-south-west from the great Temple of the Sun: I chose this group because it appeared the oldest of the series. The fellahs, or peasants, know it as Kusin Ahi Sayl (Palaces of the Father of a Torrent); and they stare when told that these massive buildings are not royal residences but tombs. Here the tombs in the several stages were easily cleared out by my forty-five coolies, who had nothing but diminutive picks and bars, grain-lugs and body-cloths, which they converted into buckets for removing sand and rubbish. But these cells and those of the adjoining ruins had before been ransacked, and they supplied nothing beyond skulls, bones, and shreds of mummy cloth, whose dyes were remarkably brilliant.
The hands were then applied to an adjoining mound: it offered a tempting resemblance to the undulations of ground which cover the complicated chambered catacombs already laid open, and into one of which, some years ago, a camel fell, the roof having given way. After reaching a stratum of snow-white gypsum, which appeared to be artificial, though all hands agreed that it was not, we gave up the task, as time pressed so hard. The third attempt laid open the foundation of a house, and showed us the well, or rain-cistern, shaped, as such reservoirs are still in the Holy Land,
like a soda-water bottle. The fourth trial was more successful; during our absence the workmen came upon two oval slabs of soft limestone, each with its kit-cat in high relief. One was a man with straight features, short, curly beard, and hair disposed, as appears to have been the fashion for both sexes, in three circular rolls. The other was a feminine bust, with features of a type so exaggerated as to resemble the negro. A third and similar work of art was brought up, but the head had been removed. It would be hard to explain the excitement caused by these wonderful discoveries; report flew abroad that gold images of life-size had been dug up, and the least disposed to exaggeration declared that chests full of gold coins and ingots had fallen to our lot.