A few days ago, one of my colleagues (an ancient historian) and I looked at some of the picture postcards from the “Syria” folder, and this is as good a time to share some of them as any. So, here goes:
Shown is the so-called Gate of Emperor Hadrian, part of a monumental promenade. The below paragraph is from the German-language Wikipedia (machine translation, with my light edits for clarity):
The boulevard was given its present form around 220 AD. It is about 1 kilometre long. The streets in Palmyra were not paved, but consisted of tamped clay. The boulevard does not run in the typical Roman straight line, but bends twice: when the colonnaded street was built in several stages in the 2nd century, existing buildings had to be taken into consideration. The changes in direction were concealed by the construction of the Tetrapylon and the large Hadrian’s Gate. Hadrian’s Gate was built as the entrance to the boulevard in honour of the Roman Emperor Hadrian. The gate consisted of three archways decorated with reliefs; it was blown up by members of the IS militia in autumn 2015. Almost all the important buildings are located between Hadrian's Gate and the Tetrapylon. The street was 11 metres wide at this point. The street was bordered by columns around 9.5 metres high and bronze statues of Palmyrene dignitaries. There are small bases on the columns for statues of the colonnade's sponsors or distinguished Palmyrenes, which have now disappeared. They were identified by inscriptions in two or three languages.
Here’s a picture of the Hadrian’s Gate in 2004 (source):
The below photograph by one Francisco Jarque is dated Oct. 2022 (source), and it shows the sad remnants of this once-magnificent ancient building:
Sigh.