Palmyra

Palmyra is an ancient city in the Tadmur district of Syria's Homs Governorate, roughly 215 kilometres northeast of Damascus, first mentioned in documents from the early second millennium BC and grown wealthy in antiquity as a caravan stop on Silk Road trade routes across the Syrian desert. The city reached its greatest power in the 260s AD under King Odaenathus and, after his death, his widow Queen Zenobia, who briefly carved out an independent empire before the Roman emperor Aurelian recaptured and largely destroyed the city in 273 AD. Its surviving monumental architecture, built chiefly under Roman influence, includes the Temple of Bel, dedicated in 32 AD, a colonnaded main street stretching about 1.1 kilometres, a Roman theatre, and the Valley of the Tombs with its distinctive multistory tower tombs. The Islamic State occupied Palmyra twice between 2015 and 2017 and, during that occupation, destroyed or severely damaged major monuments including the Temple of Baalshamin, the interior of the Temple of Bel, the Monumental Arch and numerous tower tombs.