Description
Book SynopsisIn this important and timely publication, top international scholars present current research and developments about the art, archaeology, and history of the ancient city of Palmyra, a UNESCO World Heritage site located in Syria. Palmyra became tragic headline news in 2015, when it was overtaken by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), which destroyed many of its monuments and artifacts. The essays in this book include new scholarship on Palmyra’s origins and evolution as well as developments from both before and after its damage by ISIS, providing new information that will be relevant to current and future generations of art historians and archaeologists. The book also includes a moving tribute by Waleed Khaled al-Asa’ad to his father, Khaled al-Asa’ad, the Syrian archaeologist, who was the head of antiquities and curator at Palmyra, who was brutally murdered by ISIS in 2015 for defending the site.
Table of ContentsContributors to the Volume
Acknowledgments
Maps
Introduction
Joan Aruz
A Tribute to the Late Khaled al-As`ad, Martyr of Human Civilization
Waleed Khaled al-As’ad
The Bride of the Dry Steppe: Palmyra and the Surrounding Territory
Jørgen Christian Meyer
The First Occupation of Palmyra: Soundings in the Sanctuary of Bêl and Tell ez-Zor
Michel al-Maqdissi and Eva Ishaq
Bel and Baalshamin: Two Lost Temples
Michał Gawlikowski
Looking Back on Thirty Years of Syro-German/Austrian Archaeological Research at Palmyra in Memory of Khaled al-As‘ad Andreas Schmidt-Colinet
“Ich Bin Ein Palmyrener” Or “Je Suis Tadmor”: On How To Be a Proper Citizen of the Queen of the Desert
Ted Kaizer
Out of a Palmyrene Family. Notes on The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Palmyra Collection
Eleonora Cussini
Palmyrene Funerary Portraits: Collection Histories and Current Research
Rubina Raja
Embodied Identities in the Funerary Portraiture of Palmyra
Maura Heyn
Palmyrene Sculpture in Context: Between Hybridity and Heterogeneity
Lucinda Dirven
Zenobia in History and Legend
Judith Weingarten
Bibliography
