Tetrapylon. Judith McKenzie/Manar al-Athar

Agora. Judith McKenzie/Manar al-Athar

While religious structures in Palmyra, such as the Temple of Bel Sanctuary exemplify an extreme form of Roman/Near-Eastern hybridization, civic structures like the agora, colonnade, tetrapylon and the theater provide a more definitive link with the Roman architectural West. Colonnaded streets and arches are commonly seen as an indicator of Roman urbanism; with sculptures and inscriptions illustrating the importance of civic euergetism, or public munificence. Regional comparisons may be drawn to other cities, for example the civic structures in Bosra; this Roman style of urbanism appears to peak in Palmyra in the second and third centuries AD (Ball, 206).

Colonnaded street. Judith McKenzie/Manar al-Athar

At Palmyra, the agora consisted of a rectangular space, surrounded by columns and oriented on axis with central streets of the city. The columns radiate out along the main central roads and were decorated with, “… statue brackets honouring Roman and Palmyrene officials, merchants, caravan leaders, military officers and senators” (Butcher, 253)—the inclusion of these statues, with their honorific inscriptions below represent an honorific practice unique to Palmyra.

Colonnaded street with inscription. Judith McKenzie/Manar al-Athar

Another unique characteristic of Palmyrene civic architecture is the nature of its inscriptions. Many of the monumental inscriptions were not in Greek or Latin, as would ordinarily be the case in the western provinces, but Aramaic, thus demonstrating the persistence of a distinct local culture (Miller, 334). “At Palmyra the deliberate use of Aramaic script for monumental inscriptions in a Hellenizing civic environment was a distinct cultural practice that remained vigorous right down to the fall of the city to Aurelian in 272” (Butcher, 275).

Theater. Judith McKenzie/Manar al-Athar

Finally, while theater buildings are not traditionally part of Eastern culture (poetry yes, theater no), the theater at Palmyra mixes a typical Roman structure (scaenae frons, or stage backdrop) with Eastern decorative motifs such as heavy patterning on the entablature, inclusion of a central disk in pediment, dentals, and vegetal decorative elements.

Theater detail. Judith McKenzie/Manar al-Atha