Encyclopaedia Britannica > Volume 15, NIC-PAR

PAL [ 718 1 PAL
Palmyra, temple of the sun, he discovers some pity for the rem-
——v ‘ nant of the Palmyrenians, to whom he grants the per¬
mission of rebuilding and inhabiting their city. But it
is easier to destroy than to restore. The seat of com¬
merce, of arts, and of Zenobia, gradually sunk into an
obscure town, a trilling fortress, and at length a miser¬
able village.
Little is known concerning the fortunes of Palmyra
since the time of Mahomet, except that, it was consi¬
dered as a place of strength: and that in the 12th
century there were 2000 Jews in it. With respect
to the ruins, they appeared to he of two different and
distinct periods •, the oldest are so far decayed as not to
admit of mensuration, and look as if they had been re¬
duced to that state by the hand of time ; the others ap¬
pear to have been broken into fragments by violence.
Of the inscriptions none are earlier than the birth of
Christ, and none are later than the destruction ol the
city bv Aurelian, except one, which mentions Diocle-
sian.
Mr WTood is of opinion, that the face of the coun¬
try which surrounds Palmyra was always the same ;
but though Palmyra was always said to be situated
in a wilderness, it does not follow that the wilderness
was always of the same extent: It is perhaps more
probable, that when Palmyra was first settled, the
rich soil mentioned by Pliny extended much farther •,
ffpr whatever were the reasons for making a settlement
there, Palmyra can scarcely be supposed to have in¬
vited a greater number of people than it could feed.
The palms and fig trees that were formerly found on
the hills, and in the borders of the desert, that are now
totally barren, confirm this opinion. Mr Wood ob¬
serves, that while he was there a whirlwind happened,
which took up such quantities of sand as quite darken¬
ed the sky ; this sand therefore might by degrees en¬
croach upon the fertile environs of Palmyra, and re¬
duce the number of inhabitants as it reduced their sus¬
tenance, till the few wretched families only w'qre left,
who found it difficult to furnish food for Mr Wood and
his company, though they did not continue longer than
a fortnight among them. It will also appear from his¬
tory, that what is supposed to have happened here has
happened at other places, where such an event was
* Memoirs muc^ ^ess probable. * On the sea coast in the neigh-
of French hourhood of St Pol de Leon, in Lower Bretagne, there
Academy is a considerable tract of land which before the year
for 1718. 1666 was inhabited, but which was rendered uninha¬
bitable by a sand, which, encroaching every year, co¬
vered it to the depth of above 20 feet. In the year
171-8 it had advanced more than six leagues, and within
one league of St Pol ; so that it was then thought pro¬
bable that the town would of necessity he abandoned.
Tills sand is raised by the east or nortk-east wind, which
drives it in clouds with great swiftness, and in a pro¬
digious quantity. It was also attested by the captain
of a ship, and all on board, that in the year 1719 there
fell in the Atlantic ocean, at 15 degrees of north la¬
titude, and at the distance of more than eight leagues
from any land, a shower of sand, some of which they
I Hist, of produced, and deposited in the academy at Paris f.
the Acad. The company with whom Mr Wood, the publisher
177a* of the Ruins of Palmyra, travelled, arrive^ at length
at, the end of the plain, where a ridge of barren hills,
by which it was divided on the right and left, seemed
to meet ; between them there was a vale, through Palmvra,
which an aqueduct formerly conveyed water to Pal- —1
myra. On each side of this vale they remarked seve¬
ral sepulchres of the ancient Palmyrenes, which they
had scarce passed, when the hills opening on a sudden,
they discovered such piles of ruin as they had never
seen. They were all of white marble 5 and beyond
them, towards the Euphrates, wras a wide level, stretch¬
ing farther than the eye could reach, totally desolate,
without variety, and without bounds. After having-
gazed some time upon this prospect, which rather ex¬
ceeded than fell short of their expectations, they were
conducted to one of the huts of the Arabs, of which
there are about 30 in the court of the great temple.
The inhabitants of both sexes were well shaped, and
the women, though very swarthy, had good features.
They were veiled, but did not so scrupulously conceal
their faces as the eastern women generally do. They
paint the ends of their fingers red, their lips blue, and
their eyebrows and eyelashes black. They had large
rings of gold or brass in their ears and nostrils, and ap¬
peared to be healthy and robust. The walls of the
city are flanked by square towers, into which some an¬
cient funeral monuments have been converted; but the
walls are in most places level with the ground, and
sometimes not to be traced. It is, however, probable,
by their general direction, that they included the great
temple, and are three miles in circumference. The
Arabs showed a tract which was near ten miles in cir¬
cumference, the soil of which vras raised a little above
the level of the desert: this, they said, was the extent
of the old city; and that by digging in any part of it
ruins were discovered.
These ruins consist of temples, palaces, and porti¬
coes of Grecian architecture and lie scattered over
an extent of several miles. They were accidentally
discovered by some English travellers from Aleppo
somewhat more than a century ago. By far the most
remarkable of them is the Temple of the Sun, of which
the ruins are spread over a square of 220 yards. It
was encompassed with a stately wall, built of large
square stones, and adorned with pilaster’s within and
without, to the number of 62 on a side. Within the
court are the remains of two rows of very noble marble
pillars 37 feet high, with their capitals of most exqui¬
site workmanship. Of these only 58 remain entire $
but there must have been many more, for they appear
to have gone round the whole court, and to have sup¬
ported a double piazza. The walks on that side of
the piazza which is opposite to the front of the castle
seem to have been the most spacious and beautiful.
At each end of this line are two niches for statues,
with their pedestals, borders, supporters, and canopies,
carved with the utmost propriety and elegance. The
space within this inclosure, which is now filled with
the dirty huts of the inhabitants, seems to have been
an open court, in the middle of which stood the temple,
encompassed with another row of pillars of a different
order, and much taller, being 50 feet high 5 but of
these 16 only remain. The whole space contained
within these pillars is 59 yards in length, and near 28
in breadth. The temple is no more than 33 yards in
length, and 13 or 14 in breadth. It points north and
south ; and exactly into the middle of the building, on
the west side, is a most magnificent entry, on the re¬
main*