“She survived for 2000 years, but the civil war ravaged Palmyra”this is how the article published on April 21, 2025 begins in the New York Timesrelating the state of the ancient city north-east of Damascus, in Syria, after the departure of Bashar al-Assad in December 2024.
Journalists from the American media went to the archaeological site, which reopened to the public two months ago, say: “That day, the place was deserted except for a Syrian doctor, his friends, a few other curious Syrians (…) of a group of merchants selling pearls, trinkets and postcards (…)”. Then they note the damage on the site: historical arches destroyed by explosions, statues disfigured by the Islamic State and temples reduced to lots of rubble.
The Baalshamin temple as well as the interior chamber of the Baal temple – an important pre -Islamic religious site – are among the most affected. “Today, in the midst of the vast courtyard of the temple, only its rectangular gantry remains, alongside a tangle of large blocks of stone, some decorated with leaves and sculpted grapes”.
Among the other monuments affected, the National Council for Spanish Research (CSIC) reported in February 2025 damage to the tetrapylon (a monumental square platform carrying at each angle a tight group of four columns, dating from the IIᵉ century) and in the Roman theater (both from the iiᵉ century), at the Diocletian camp (III century), at the Château de Palmyre or Qalouse Maʿn (XIII century), and at the Valley of the tombs (1st century).
In the Roman theater, the researchers found evidence of the collapse of the facade, damaged by the bombings. Signs of illegal excavations have also been discovered, looted objects as well as works destroyed or stolen in its archaeological museum, now closed. The number of disappeared parts is estimated at around 4,000.
Among the ruins are also traces of the recent conflict. THE New York Times reports the presence of graffiti on the walls where “The Islamic State. Shoot Christians “. Military uniforms also littered the floor of the old castle located on a hill overlooking Palmyra, as well as Russian army detritus: empty ammunition boxes, trellis and damaged boots, empty beer bottles, Russian newspapers.
THE New York Times did not fail to note the presence of a sign indicating “Guides and tourist books on Syria”vestige of a happier period, memory to which the local population tries to reconnect. In a video broadcast by AFP last February, we see residents of Palmyre picnic on the ruins: “We used to come here every Friday, before the war. We have not returned here since 2015 ”said Yasser Al-Mahmoud.
In 2015 took place the taking of Palmyra by the Islamic State, already a battlefield since 2011. After the start of the civil war, its strategic position made it a place of confrontation between the anti-regime rebels of Bashar al-Assad and the Syrian forces supported by Russia, as well as the Afghan militiamen supported by Iran.
The taking then by the Islamic State had caused, in the name of its vision of Islam – which considers human or animal statues as of idolatry -, a campaign of deliberate destruction. The IS had beheaded the chief of retirement antiques of the city, Khalid Al-Asaad, and had used the Roman theater for public executions. The Syrian regime then took over the city in 2016-interrupted by the site’s resumption by IS on December 11, 2016. The government had regained control of the city in 2017, and the site was still weakened by an earthquake in 2023. In 2024, the rebels offensive led by Abu Mohammed al-Joulani led to the fall of Bashar al-Assad.
Listed as UNESCO’s heritage in 1980, the city of Palmyre – mentioned for the first time in the husband’s archives in the second millennium before J.-C., then under Roman control in the first half of the 1st century – is today in large part destroyed, but that “Do not question the historical value of the site”explains Amr al-Azm, professor of history and anthropology from the Middle East at Shawnee State University in Ohio and former antiquities in Syria, at New York Times.
In his first official press release to Aleppo, Abu Mohammed al-Joulani called the rebels and the population to be respected “The heritage of all communities”. A subsequent press release prohibits looting.
