Syria Trails › Places

Monumental Arch of Palmyra

قوس النصر في تدمر

The Roman-era monumental arch linking Palmyra's colonnaded street to the Temple of Bel; destroyed by ISIS in 2015.

The Monumental Arch was the most famous image of Palmyra. Built in the Roman period, around the late 2nd or early 3rd century AD, it stood where the great colonnaded street changed direction, cleverly masking the bend behind a grand façade leading to the Temple of Bel.

A large central opening flanked by two smaller ones, it was covered in finely carved plant and geometric ornament in Palmyra's golden limestone. With the columns beyond, it created a panorama glowing at sunset, drawn and photographed by travellers for centuries.

The arch was built in the reign of Emperor Septimius Severus (193–211) to link the Great Colonnade with the Temple of Bel. It had a double façade, its two faces angled apart to hide a 30° bend in the street. It is sometimes wrongly called "Hadrian's Arch", though Hadrian had been dead for over half a century. The British traveller Robert Wood engraved it in The Ruins of Palmyra (1753), and it was restored in the 1930s.

Palmyra was a desert oasis and caravan city between East and West, flourishing in the 2nd–3rd centuries and reaching political fame under Queen Zenobia. The arch was destroyed in October 2015; only parts of its bases remain. Palmyra is a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Note: photos may not reflect the site's current condition.

For the visitor

Photos

Photos: Bernard Gagnon — via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA) · Vyacheslav Argenberg — via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY) · Scan by NYPL — via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain) · Getty Research Institute — via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY)