The towering stone columns of the ancient city of Palmyra in central Syria rise majestically from the desert sands, lining the main avenue that once connected its temples, markets and amphitheater.
Its hilltop castle still provides commanding views of the city’s remains, which are so vast and well preserved that they have attracted explorers, archaeologists and tourists for hundreds of years.
But up close, the damage from Syria’s 13-year civil war is clear: historic arches felled by explosions, statues defaced by extremists and temples reduced to heaps of rubble.
Since rebels toppled the strongman Bashar al-Assad in December, effectively ending the war, Syrians and rare international tourists have been visiting Palmyra to take in one of the country’s most stunning heritage sites and ponder how it may fit into Syria’s future.
“There was civilization in this place, and despite the shelling and destruction, there is still civilization,” said Ziad Alissa, a Syrian doctor who lives in France and visited Palmyra with friends one recent day. “This changes the picture in people’s minds of Syria, of destruction and war.”
A loud boom shook the ground as he spoke. He and his friends jumped. Locals said it was the explosion of a land mine planted during the war, one of two such blasts heard and felt that day.
Syria’s conflict, which displaced more than half of the country’s prewar population of 22 million and killed more than 500,000 people, according to most estimates, also brutalized historic sites scattered across a land central to many ancient Middle Eastern civilizations.
The historic souks, caravansaries and mosques of Aleppo are largely in ruins. Displaced families have sought refuge in long-abandoned towns and temples in the northwest. And in the ancient city of Apamea, dozens of treasure hunters with pickaxes and metal detectors have been digging near the site’s famed colonnade.
Even amid Syria’s archaeological richness, Palmyra stands out, containing “the monumental ruins of a great city that was one of the most important cultural centers of the ancient world,” according to UNESCO, which designated it a World Heritage Site in 1980.
The scale and beauty of the site still impress, although some of the showcase monuments are so badly damaged that it is hard to imagine what they had looked like. On the recent day, the place was also empty, save for the Syrian doctor and his friends; some other curious Syrians; one Italian tourist and his taxi driver; a group of desperate merchants hawking beads, trinkets and postcards; and the locals periodically driving their trucks or motorcycles through the ruins.
When the vehicles were gone, you could hear sparrows chirping between the pillars. You could also hear the buzz of a drone throughout the day, although it was unclear who was flying it.
“Do you know where the prison is?” asked a man driving through the area with a car full of gunmen.
The visitors’ center and museum were closed.
Palmyra was an oasis community integrated into the Roman Empire in the first century A.D. that grew into a key stop along the Silk Road and was ruled for a time by Queen Zenobia. Its blend of Greek, Roman and Persian architecture remained influential for centuries as it fell under Byzantine, Arab and French control.
After the civil war began in 2011, Palmyra’s strategic location rendered it a battleground between anti-government rebels, Syrian forces, the Russian military and Afghan militiamen backed by Iran.
Those forces all left their marks on the city, but the Islamic State, which seized Palmyra in 2015, carried out a campaign of deliberate destruction, driven by its extremist aversion to depictions of the human form and monuments to any faith other than its version of Islam.
They blew up sanctuaries, including the Temple of Baalshamin and the inner chamber of the Temple of Baal, a significant pre-Islamic religious site. Now, in the middle of the temple’s vast courtyard, only its rectangular portico remains, next to a mess of large stone blocks, some adorned with carved leaves and grapes.
The jihadists also beheaded the city’s retired antiquities chief, Khalid al-Asaad, and hung his body from a traffic light with his head between his feet.
A short drive from the main ruins, a tunnel descended to an underground burial complex that the extremists had used as a base. Sandbags protected its entrance, and graffiti on its walls recalled its former occupants.
“The Islamic State. Fire on the Christians,” read one inscription.
Another urged the fighters to keep the base tidy: “Brother mujahid, cooperate with your brothers to clean the place after eating.”
The rooms held stone sarcophagi ornately carved with lounging figures in flowing robes, all now headless.
Before ISIS arrived, the innermost room had been decorated with frescoes of animals, winged goddesses and the men buried in the vaults. Now, only the red, white and green honeycomb pattern on the ceiling remained. All of the other art had been hastily covered with white paint.
The jihadists also toppled the triple arch gateway known as the Monumental Arch, which stood at the start of the colonnade, and filmed young militants shooting dead 25 government soldiers on the stage of the amphitheater.
In 2016, Syrian government forces with Russian backing reclaimed the city, and in May of that year, Russia flew in a symphony orchestra and V.I.P. audience for a classical music concert that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said signaled “hope for Palmyra’s revival as the heritage of the whole humanity.”
A few months later, the Islamic State retook the city and blew up the nearby tetrapylon, a much-photographed monument with four square platforms atop 16 pillars. The government re-retook the city in 2017.
Resting in the shade near the amphitheater, Mohammed Awad, 36, a hawker, said all of the fighting had made the city unlivable.
“We had Afghans, Iranians, Russians, Hezbollah, Chechens,” he said. “They all passed through Palmyra.”
He had been working at the site since he was a child, he said, and had learned enough English, Russian, Italian, Spanish, German, French and Japanese to have basic conversations — and to make sales.
He longed for tourists to return.
“Every day we see foreigners, two or three or four,” he said. “But we hope that they will come back in buses, like they used to.”
There were also traces elsewhere of the other forces who had fought for Palmyra.
Entering the city’s castle required crossing a rickety footbridge built by the Russians. The detritus of their forces, or Syrian Army units they supported, filled its rooms: empty ammunition boxes, battered fatigues and boots, empty beer bottles and Russian-made rations.
Near the castle’s entrance was an empty wire rack with a sign that read “Syria Guides and Tourist Books” — a relic of better times.
On the edge of town stood the former Dedeman Palmyra Hotel, which had been taken over by Iran and its Fatemiyoun Brigade of Afghan militiamen who had been sent to help the Syrian Army.
They had lived in its rooms, turned a large meeting hall into a mosque and availed themselves of the swimming pool. Persian-language posters and slogans on the walls praised Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, and sought to inspire the troops.
“The Fatemiyoun fight for Islam,” read one.
“We will stand until the end,” read another.
Now, they, too, were gone. The hotel’s buildings had been pounded by airstrikes and damaged white pickup trucks were scattered near the entrance like crumpled cans. The pool and fountain were dry, and a young shepherd led his flock through the grounds.
“We never came here before,” said the shepherd, Hamadi al-Qassim, 13. “They would have killed us.”
Amr Al-Azm, a professor of Middle Eastern history and anthropology at Shawnee State University in Ohio and a former antiquities official in Syria, said the country’s new authorities lacked the means to do much about the damage to Palmyra.
But that did not negate the site’s historical value, he said.
“In the grand scheme of things, this is part of human history, and whatever damage has occurred is part of the story of these places,” he said. “There was Temple of Baal once upon a time, and now it is gone. That is part of the story.”
Hwaida Saad and Muhammad Haj Kadour contributed reporting.
Ben Hubbard is the Istanbul bureau chief, covering Turkey and the surrounding region.
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