Qasr al-Hayr al-Gharbi
Qasr al-Hayr al-Gharbi is the western of the two famous Umayyad palaces built to the east and west of Palmyra. This palace was built on the site of an earlier building and the stone tower still extant from that earlier phase has an inscription suggesting that it may have been part of a C6th monastery complex. The Qasr ("little castle") was built of mud brick, field stone and bricks and the whole was covered with a layer of stucco. The façade was covered with stucco decoration that was excavated from the site in the early C20th and reconstructed in Damascus as the façade of the National Museum. The frescoes and a number of stucco figurative three dimensional sculptures taken from the site are now on display in the National Museum.
Emma Loosley
2001-07-22
2002-07-13
Daniel Hull
Metadata and all media released under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA International licence unless otherwise indicated
The photographs of the 2001-2003 survey and excavation seasons have been lodged with the Archaeological Data Service and are reproduced here with their permission. For those who would like more specialised information such as context and intervention numbers or direction of shot please refer to: http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archives/view/dmeap_ahrb_2004/gallery.cfm.
Architecture
Hammam Abu Rabah
Hammam Abu Rabah gets its name because sulphurous steam rises from underground at the site and rooms have been built to harness this steam for use as a sauna. To the west of the "baths" is a substantial medieval ruin, possibly of a Khan/Caravanserai.
Emma Loosley
2001-07-27
Emma Loosley
Daniel Hull
Metadata and all media released under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA International licence unless otherwise indicated
The photographs of the 2001-2003 survey and excavation seasons have been lodged with the Archaeological Data Service and are reproduced here with their permission. For those who would like more specialised information such as context and intervention numbers or direction of shot please refer to: http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archives/view/dmeap_ahrb_2004/gallery.cfm.
Architecture