The ancient city of Palmyra was located in present-day Syria. Among others, Queen Zenobia ruled here. She presided over a thriving metropolis in the Syrian desert from 267 AD. Zenobia even dared in her time to challenge the Roman Empire. Not that it went very well. It ended with the city being defeated, and the queen and the people losing both their freedom and their kingdom. Palmyra was sacked and reduced to an insignificant town. The picturesque ruins were “rediscovered” by Western travelers at the end of the 17th century. The history of the ancient city has fascinated and amazed people for a long time. But now Norwegian and Danish researchers believe that the historical narrative is jarring. Were the Romans really to blame for Palmyra’s fall in 273? Not necessarily. Historians and archaeologists from Bergen and Aarhus have studied Palmyra since the early 2000s. Grown grain in a desert city One of the questions that has been important to get an answer to is how it was possible to get food for people in a big city in the middle of the desert. Investigations in the years before the Syrian civil war started showed how the Palmyrenes collected rainwater with the help of dams and walls in the terrain. This way they could obtain enough water to grow grain in the dry landscape. Researchers have arrived at this with the help of good computer models. – Scientific studies carried out by other researchers mean that we can know with certainty how much it rained in this area in Roman times. And further how the climate developed, says Eivind Heldaas Seland to news. Eivind Heldaas Seland is a professor at the University of Bergen. He is an expert on ancient history and older global history. Photo: Eivind Senneset / Eivind Senneset He is employed at the University of Bergen and is one of the researchers behind the study, which was published in the journal Plos One. – By comparing the amount of rainfall with the area suitable for agriculture, we can use modern models to calculate how much grain it was possible to grow in the old days. This is how they got answers to how many people could be fed, and how this changed in line with the climate. But what do warlike Romans have to do with this? The researcher explains. The picture shows the view of the ruins of Palmyra. Photo: Jørgen Christian Meyer Revenge or climate challenge? The results of the new study show that food could be grown for approximately 40,000 people in the area around Palmyra over the course of a year. This should correspond well with what is already known about other cities in the ancient world, which could not get food via sea. And in the middle of the 200s, rulers used the opportunities that presented themselves to become the leading power in the area. Without resorting to open rebellion, explains Seland. This was at a time when the Roman Empire itself struggled with war and civil war. But in the year 270 a new Roman emperor came to the throne. In Palmyra, the city’s queen reacted by going to war. She wanted her own son to become the Roman emperor. The rebellion ended with the Romans destroying the ancient city. A forced situation The Palmyrene rebellion was one of the most serious in the long history of the Roman Empire. But this also happened at a time when the climate in the Middle East became noticeably drier. – Our calculations show that the Palmyrenes’ opportunities to feed their own population deteriorated during this period. We therefore believe that Zenobia and the inhabitants of Palmyra were in a forced situation. The choice was between war against the Romans or a situation where parts of the city’s population risked starvation. – Food safety was always the first priority for a big city in a very inhospitable environment. We can now see how the situation became progressively more difficult as the climate worsened and the population grew, says Dr. Iza Romanowska. She is one of the authors behind the new study, and is employed at Aarhus University. Historians have long tried to understand how climate change affected the development of different societies. History from a new angle The study of Palmyra is a small piece in such a puzzle, explains Eivind Heldaas Seland. – This provides a concrete example of such a possible connection. The method (computer model) can also be transferred to other historic cities, to other times and in other areas, he says. Rubina Raja agrees with this. She is a professor of classical archeology at Aarhus University, and believes that the new approach makes it possible to see the history of Palmyra from a new angle. The researchers believe this will open up similar analyses. In this way, one can study old cities to assess how often food security played a key role in historical development, says Raja.
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Was Palmyra’s fate really the Romans’ fault? Norwegian researchers cast doubt on the fall to historic city – news Trøndelag
