Palmyra, a 2,000-year old city with Roman ruins in the middle of the Syrian desert, is in the hands of ISIS. The city was noted in the annals of the Assyrian kings, and may have been mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. Palmyra was incorporated by the Seleucid Empire and then the Roman Empire, which brought prosperity. The major attraction of the area is the stunning ruins – the most famous and well-preserved of which are the Temple of Bel, the Theatre, the colonnade, the funerary towers, the hypogeum of 3 brothers, and the Arab castle, all in this very particular desert context.
credit: varunshiv