Palmyra: commentary

PALMYRA WATCH: no new developments today, but some commentary and background are worth noting.

Historical background: How Ancient Palmyra, Now in ISIS's Grip, Grew Rich and Powerful. A distinctly multicultural trading center grew rich on trade between east and west, until it rebelled against its most powerful customer. (Kristin Romey, National Geographic).

In Palmyra, history is literally written on the walls: across temples and above doorways, encircling funerary monuments and snaking up the towering limestone columns that rise above the Syrian desert some 134 miles (215 km) northeast of Damascus.

These inscriptions were often written both in Greek and Palmyrene Aramaic, a bilingual phenomenon unique to Palmyra. The site is a UNESCO World Heritage site that has been a focus of international attention since May, when the Islamic State (ISIS) seized the territory around the ancient ruins.

The inscriptions provide unique insight into life in a distinctive frontier city where, for centuries, local merchants controlled trade between the Mediterranean and Mesopotamia.

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An editorial: The Crimes of Palmyra (NYT).

Yet it is impossible to read Sunday’s reports of the demolition of one of the best-preserved and grandest relics in the ancient ruins of Palmyra, the Temple of Baalshamin, and not feel anguish at the loss of another irreplaceable monument of our shared past. True, the temple stood near a Roman amphitheater where ISIS is reported to have executed 25 prisoners last month. But to grieve at the loss of a great work of art does not diminish the horror at the loss of human lives, and in tandem they amount to a unified and barbaric attempt to erase not only whole peoples but also their religions, cultures and histories.

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However daunting the struggles of the Middle East, ISIS stands out in the threat it poses to humanity. But for all its well-publicized atrocities, it is neither all powerful nor immune to military and economic pressures from the West. It can and must be stopped, and the United States and its allies cannot relent in their efforts toward that end.

Historical background on cultural destruction: Islamic State's war on antiquities takes leaf out of ancient book (Associated Press and Israel Hayom Staff).

Destruction unleashed by jihadi group on historic sites in area it overruns has not been seen in decades, archeologists say, warn of potential ramification to heritage research • But Islamic State is only following the footsteps of other fanatics.

Background here and links.