This book casts light on a much neglected phase of the UNESCO world heritage site of Palmyra, namely the period between the fall of the Palmyrene ‘Empire’ (AD 272) and the end of the Umayyad dominion (AD 750).
The goal of the book is to fill a substantial hole in modern scholarship - the late antique and early Islamic history of the city still has to be written.

In late antiquity Palmyra remained a thriving provincial city whose existence was assured by its newly acquired role of stronghold along the eastern frontier. Palmyra maintained a prominent religious role as one of the earliest bishoprics in central Syria and in early Islam as the political centre of the powerful Banu Kalb tribe.

Post-Roman Palmyra, city and setting, provide the focus of this book. Analysis and publication of evidence for post-Roman housing enables a study of the city’s urban life, including the private residential buildings in the sanctuary of Ba’alshamin. A systematic survey is presented of the archaeological and literary evidence for the religious life of the city in Late Antiquity and Early Islam. The city’s defences provide another focus. After a discussion of the garrison quartered in Palmyra, Diocletian’s military fortress and the city walls are investigated, with photographic and archaeological evidence used to discuss chronology and building techniques. The book concludes with a synthetic account of archaeological and written material, providing a comprehensive history of the settlement from its origins to the fall of Marwan II in 750 AD.

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• List of illustrations
• Introduction
  • Framing the research. Secondary literature on Late Antique and Early Islamic Palmyra
  • The evidence in use and its limits
• 1. The Palmyrene
  • Palmyra’s hinterland
  • A city ‘built in a neighbourless region by men of former times’? Remarks on the regional road system, and evidence for travel and commerce
  • The human occupation of the Palmyrene: the state of the evidence
  • Conclusions
• 2. A changing townscape
  • Palmyra: polis, colonia, phrourion, and madīna
  • Size and limits of the settlement
  • Street network
  • Water sources and water supply systems
  • Large-scale urban changes: the formation of new specialised quarters
  • Small-scale urban changes: the transformation ‘from polis to medina’
  • Conclusions
• 3. Society and housing
  • Late Antique and Early Islamic Palmyrene society: facing the lack of evidence
  • Housing: an overview of the evidence
  • Remarks on post-Roman Palmyrene housing
  • The post-Roman Palmyrene house as a ‘barometer of social change’
  • Conclusions
• 4. Religious life and communities in Late Antique and Early Islamic Palmyra
  • Framing post-Roman Palmyra’s religious history through written sources and epigraphic evidence
  • The archaeological evidence
  • Conclusions
• 5. The military
  • The garrison at Palmyra
  • The Camp of Diocletian
  • Conclusions
• 6. The city walls
  • A still unresolved case: the chronology of the so-called ‘Wall of Diocletian’
  • Written sources
  • Description of the remains
  • Building techniques
  • Palmyra’s city wall and Late Antique military architecture
  • Conclusions
• 7. Palmyra after Zenobia: a history
  • Prologue: the destructions of 273
  • The immediate aftermath
  • The 4th century
  • The 5th century
  • The 6th and the first three decades of the 7th century
  • Early Islamic Palmyra
  • Epilogue: Palmyra after the fall of the Umayyad dynasty
• 8. Conclusions: Palmyra in perspective
  • Late Antiquity
  • Early Islamic period
  • Conclusions: Palmyra in perspective
• Bibliography
• Appendix – Written sources
  • Late Antiquity (273–633)
  • Early Islamic period (634–750)