The Ancient Tombs of Palmyra
Tower Tombs and Hypogeum Burials in Ancient Syria
The cemeteries of Palmyra are a unique and noticeable feature of the city. Lying outside the city walls, they consist of two different types of tomb. Tower Tombs are the most visible, appearing to stand guard over the city. The later, underground hypogeum burials are more discretely.
Many of these tombs date from the Hellenistic and Roman periods. Yet both types are more Semitic rather than classical, representing in their design and decor Palmyran beliefs in life after death.
The Ancient Cemeteries of Palmyra
The cemeteries of Palmyra encircle the city of Palmyra just outside the city walls. They consist of two main sites: the main necropolis to the south west of the city and the Valley of the Tombs to the West. Each cemetery is dominated by a particular type of burial.
The oldest types of burial at Palmyra were tower tombs. The most visually prominent types of burial in the city, tower tombs began as exclusively above ground structures. Later they evolved to include a single underground crypt. This laid the foundation for Palmyra’s final type of tomb, the underground hypogeum tomb which was completely hidden from view.
Tower Tombs
The earliest type of Palmyran burial, these multi story towers can be found in the Valley of the Tombs. Built of solid stone, they are square based and interred the dead above ground. They probably accommodated family groups.
Palmyra has one hundred and fifty tower tombs. They consisted of several stories and were entered by a single entrance on the ground floor.
Each story consisted of a single central room, decorated with painted reliefs with long rectangular niches set around the edge like shelves. These shelves were large enough to take a single inhumed body. Each opening was sealed with a stone plaque decorated with a sculpted relief of the deceased and their name. Many of these plaques survive and show individual portraits in an eastern rather than classical style. The result is a unique portrait of each deceased person.
As time progressed, tower tombs also incorporated an underground burial chamber into their structure. One such example is the Tower of Elahbel. Built in 103AD, it is the tallest of Palmyra’s tower tombs having four complete remaining stories. It is even possible to still climb to the top. The tomb contained approximately 3000 burials. Its most spectacular remains were in its crypt. Here, the burial chamber was completely faced in monumental stone reliefs and included not only shelf burials but huge stone sarcophagi. These remains can now be seen in Damascus’s museum.
Hypogeum Burials
The final types of burial at Palmyra, these tombs were completely hidden below ground. So far, archaeologists have discovered approximately fifty hypogeum burials at Palmyra.
The burials were reached by a stair way that terminated at the doorway of the tomb. Generally, the arrangement for burial was very similar to tower tombs: a central room with shelves for the inhumed remains of family groups. Like the later versions of tower tombs, hypogeum also utilized sarcophagi for burial. They were also painted with brightly coloured frescos. Whilst many of these paintings utilized classical myths, they also expressed a particularly Palmyran attitude and the tombs still retained their Semitic character.
One of the best examples of a hypogeum is the Hypogeum of the Three Brothers. Dating to 160-191 AD, it is named after the three sarcophagi of the eponymous brothers that lay within. Despite being built when Palmyra was a Roman city, the wealthy occupants of the tomb chose to have their memorials depicting them not as Romans but as Palmyrans. The clothes and ornaments of the figures of the sarcophagi are distinctly eastern.
The tomb’s frescos also reflect an eastern, semitic identity. Figures are again portrayed in Palmyran dress. A number of the frescos contain allegorical references to classical myths but these are used to express Palmyran beliefs in life after death. A scene showing the unveiling of Achilles as a man by Odysseus actually represents the unveiling of an individual’s true self after death. As Achilles casts off his female clothes, so the Palmyrans believed that the soul cast of the body. Likewise, a painting on the ceiling of the tomb depicting Zeus in the form of an eagle lifting Ganymede to Olympus represents the ascendancy of the soul to a higher plane after death.
Sources
Ancient Cities: The Archaeology of Urban Life in the Ancient Near East and Egypt, Greece and Rome (2003) Charles Gates. Routledge: London and New York.
The Tower Tombs of Palmyra
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