Hellenistic Palmyra

While history and culture of Palmyra, caravan city in the Syrian desert, are well known for the period of the Roman Empire (1 st to 3rd century AD) by literary and archaeological sources, the pre-roman-`hellenistic` settlement of Palmyra was known until now by literary evidence only. Thus, an international cooperation project has the aim to localize pre-roman Palmyra and to inquire the urbanistic structures of this early town. By geophysical prospection the settlement of early Palmyra, nowadays hidden under the sand, was localized south of the wadi outside the later roman town within an area, which was not overbuilt in late antique or even more recent times. Since 1999 test trenches were carried out within this area in order to explore parts of the urbanistic structures of this settlement exemplarily, furthermore to gain criterias for the relative and absolute chronology of the corresponding building structures by stratigraphical investigation, and thus to receive - for the first time - archaeological evidence for the hellenistic settlement of Palmyra. Due to the sequence of pottery examined allready, several different phases of construction can be proved, which can be dated from the 3rd century BC until the 3rd century AD. With this, for the first time not only for Palmyra but for the whole Near East, we get a secure sequence not only of pottery but also of settlement from the hellenistic up to the roman period. In the course of this project, the architectural structures on the one hand and further small findings - especially glass and metal ware - on the other hand have to be scientifically analysed and pub-lished. By doing this one can expect first basic information about the development and sequence of local building techniques, about early forms of watersupply and - in general - about the urban development of a hellenistic settlement and its relation to the later roman town. On the other hand the glass and metal findings can provide us with a first knowledge of production techniques and the economic and social history of early Palmyra. Thus, the archaeological evidence from the `hellenistic hill` of Palmyra openes the unique pos-sibility for the Near East, to answer questions of the transition from the hellenistic to the roman period.

History and culture of the caravan city Palmyra in the Syrian desert are well known for the period of the Roman Empire (1 st to 3rd century AD) by literary and archaeological sources. Whereas the pre-roman/`hellenistic` settlement of Palmyra was known till now by literary evidence only. An international cooperation project has the aim to localize pre-roman Palmyra and to inquire the urbanistic structures of this early town. By geophysical prospection, the settlement of early Palmyra, nowadays hidden under the sand, was localized south of the wadi outside the later roman town within an area, which was not overbuilt in late antique or even in more recent times. Thus, this area opened the possibility to investigate building structures from preroman-hellenistic times up to the Roman Empire. In spite of the large scale of the settlement discovered by the magnetogramm (about 20 ha), this can be done only exemplarily. Thus, test trenches had the aim to gain criterias for the relative and absolute chronology of the corresponding building structures by stratigraphical investigation, and thus to receive archaeological evidence for the Hellenistic settlement of Palmyra. Due to the evidence of the sequence of pottery, the architectural structures excavated can be dated from the 3rd century BC until the 3rd century AD. With this, for the first time - not only for Palmyra but for the whole Near East - we get a secure sequence of pottery and of settlement from the hellenistic up to the roman period. Moreover, the analysis and interpretation of many small findings from the test trenches (especially pottery, glass and metal ware) through a complete new light on the economic and social history of early Palmyra.