Palmyra

A caravan city in the Syrian desert whose merchants ran colonies along the Silk Road, and which in the 260s under Odaenathus and then his widow Zenobia broke with Rome and briefly ran its own empire from a city of over 200,000 people. UNESCO listed it in 1980 and put it on the danger list in 2013. Then ISIL held it twice, May 2015 to March 2016 and December 2016 to March 2017, and destroyed a great deal on purpose: the Temple of Baalshamin on 23 August 2015, the inner chamber of the Temple of Bel on 30 August, the Tower of Elahbel and tombs in the Valley of Tombs, damage to the Monumental Arch and the Tetrapylon, and around 200 artefacts. The Lion of Al-lāt was pieced back together by October 2017 and restoration work resumed after 2024. Syria carries severe travel advisories; this entry is here as a record.