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, standing 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 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 southwest of the city and the Valley of the Tombs to the West. A particular type of burial dominates each cemetery.

The oldest types of burial at Palmyra were tower tombs. The most visually prominent kind 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 had a single entrance on the ground floor. Each level 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 was the Tower of Elahbel. Built in 103AD, before its destruction by ISIL in August 2015, it was the tallest of Palmyra’s tower tombs, with four complete stories remaining, allowing visitors to climb to its top. The tomb contained approximately 3000 burials, with the most spectacular remains in its crypt. Here, the burial chamber was faced entirely with monumental stone reliefs — later moved to Damascus’s museum — and shelf burials and huge stone sarcophagi. 

Hypogeum Burials

The final type of burial at Palmyra, these tombs were hidden entirely below ground. So far, archaeologists have discovered approximately fifty hypogeum burials at Palmyra.

The burials were reached via a stairway that led to 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 utilised sarcophagi for burial, with the walls painted with brightly coloured frescos. While many of these paintings portrayed classical myths, they also expressed a particularly Palmyran attitude, contributing to the distinctly Semitic character of the tombs. 

One of the best examples of a hypogeum is the Hypogeum of the Three Brothers. Dating to 160-191 AD, the tomb’s name comes from the three sarcophagi of the three brothers interred inside. 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, with the clothes and ornaments of the figures on the sarcophagi distinctly eastern.

The tomb frescos also expressed the continuing Semitic beliefs of the Romanised Palmyrans. Although many scenes included allegorical references to classical myths, these were used to express Palmyran beliefs in life after death. 

One scene showing the unveiling of Achilles as a man by Odysseus 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 casts off 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. 

Resources

Gates, Charles (2003) Ancient Cities: The Archaeology of Urban Life in the Ancient Near East and Egypt, Greece and Rome. Routledge: London and New York.