Day 106: Palmyra, Syria

Syria has Roman ruins better than those in Rome. With the world's oldest inhabited cities of Damascus and Aleppo, Syria is built on layers of great civilizations.  But where in Rome the artifacts of the past are being eroded by encroaching apartment blocks and metro lines, the Syrian monuments remained untouched, preserved by the hostility of the surrounding desert and lack of infrastructure investment.

It's one of the great magnanimities of Islam that they allowed existing religious buildings to stand following the Arab conquest of the 7th century.  In Rome, the newly converted Christians made a point of destroying or defacing anything that held religious significance for any rival pagan religions.

Palmyra is everything you would expect from one of the richest cities of the Roman empire, a city that gorged itself on the wealth of passing trade caravans.  Palmyra is a golden framework of temples, pillars, baths and avenues.  The opulent child born of marvellous Roman engineering and eastern wealth.