“Every person has two homelands,” the French archaeologist Andre Parrot once commented; “His own and Syria”. T.E Lawrence (of Arabia), who spent a great deal of time exploring Syria, wrote specifically of Palmyra; “Nothing in this scorching, desolate land could be so refreshing”. It might also have been Lawrence who labelled Palmyra (or the ‘City of Palms’) as the ‘Venice of the Sands’; an appellation that continues to this day. The Syrian Army’s recapturing of the historic city ends the so-called Islamic State‘s control of the area since May last year. The horror story of ISIL’s control of Palmyra – … Continue reading PALMYRA of the Centuries: The History, the Fall & the Restoration…