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The Caravan-Gods of Palmyra

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

M. I. Rostovtzeff
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No ruins of the ancient world outside Italy are more famous than the beautiful romantic remains of Queen Zenobia's city—the desert-city of caravans. No city of the Near East has yielded such an abundance of inscriptions, sculptures and fragments of painting. For more than a century and a half collectors and dealers have found in Palmyra a happy hunting ground; almost every museum has its Palmyrene bust or Palmyrene inscription or some small object such as the common clay tessera. A considerable number of the antiquities found at Palmyra have been published—most of the inscriptions in the Palmyrene dialect of Aramaic or in Greek, numerous sculptures, and many paintings found in tombs. The most important Palmyrene texts have been translated and will shortly be available to those historians who are not acquainted with Semitic languages.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 22 , Issue 1: Papers Dedicated to Sir George MacDonald K.C.B. , 1932 , pp. 107 - 116
Copyright
Copyright ©M. I. Rostovtzeff 1932. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

page 107 note 1 All the inscriptions found at Palmyra are to be published in the forthcoming volume of the Corpus lnscriptionum Semiticarum (referred to hereafter as CIS), vol. ii, 3, which will also contain an excellent up-to-date (to 1926) bibliography. I am indebted to the generosity of its editor, M. J.-B. Chabot, for his kind permission to use the volume and to quote from it before publication. Cf. also the same author's excellent book, Choix d'inscriptions de Palmyre (Paris, 1922Google Scholar), and my forthcoming work on Caravan Cities: Petra and Jerash, Palmyra and Dura (Oxford, Clarendon PressGoogle Scholar).

page 107 note 2 Since the above was written, two essays by Février, M. J.-G. have appeared—Essai sur l'histoire politique et économique de Palmyre and La religion des Palmyréniens. (Paris: Librairie J. Vrin, 1931).Google Scholar I have not been able to consult either of these works.

page 107 note 3 CIS ii, 3.

page 108 note 1 Being unable to contribute a paper on Roman Britain, I thought that perhaps a short article on a subject of provincial history might interest one who has done so much for the history of a Roman province, though that province is at the opposite end of the Empire to Palmyra, and has nothing in common with Palmyra beyond the fact that they both formed part of the Empire and similar duties were demanded of each—see, for example, the tombstones of a Palmyrene soldier and his British wife found in Britain (at Corbridge and South Shields respectively). The last, which was discovered first, was thought to refer to the wife of a Palmyrene merchant until the second tombstone (of the man) was dug up at Corbridge in 1911. CIL vii, 496, 497; Eph. Ep. iv, p. 212, no. 718a, ix, 1153a; CIS ii, 3, 3901.

page 108 note 2 Satrapes is a deity of Irano-Phoenician origin.

page 108 note 3 This inscription has been often discussed. A bibliography will be found in CIS 3974; cf. also Chabot, Choix d'inscriptions de Palmyre, p. 68; Ingholt, H., Studier over Palmyrensk Skulptur (Copenhagen, 1928), p. 42 ff.Google Scholar, pl. vii; Cumont, F., ‘Un dieu syrien à dos de chameau,’ in Syria, 1929, p. 30 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar (Relief from Ras-el-Ain (anc. Resaina) in Mesopotamia); Ingholt, H., Syria, 1929, p. 179 ff.Google Scholar (a relief showing three camels on their knees and the body of a horse).

page 108 note 4 Princeton Expeditions to Syria, iv, Semitic Inscriptions; Palmyrene Inscriptions, no. 8, p. 77 ff.

page 109 note 1 Douglas Van Buren, E., Clay Figurines of Babylonia and Assyria (Yale Univ. Press, 1930), p. xlvii ff.Google Scholar, pls. xvi, xxx fig. 146, xxxi fig. 147. Mrs. Van Buren unfortunately has not included in her useful catalogue the figures of the seated boy.

page 109 note 2 The hundreds of a date are very commonly omitted in Palmyrene inscriptions.

page 110 note 1 CIS 3975.

page 110 note 2 I have discussed this god and given bibliographical details in Excavations at Dura-Europos, Prelim. Report II (Yale Univ. Press, 1931), p. 199 f.

page 110 note 3 Or. iv, pp. 150, 154 (Sp.); cf. Clermont-Ganneau, , Rec. d'arch. or., iv, 165.Google Scholar

page 110 note 4 Le Bas-Waddington, Inscr. grecques et latines 2314; CIG 4619 (bust, on the top of which sits an eagle).

page 110 note 5 ILS 4345–48; cf. 7142. Syrian cults are common in Dacia, especially in cities. We have dedications to Sol Hierobolus (ILS 4344), and to the Palmyrene Malakbel (ILS 4341; cf. CIL iii, 7955, 7956) and there were two temples to Palmyrene gods at Sarmizegetusa (cf. my book Gesellschaft u. Wirtschaft im röm. Kaiserreich i, p. 338, n. 78). It is well known that Palmyrene inscriptions have been found in Dacia and Moesia (CIS ii, 3, 3906, and 3907). Twin gods closely resembling ‘Azizu were also worshipped at Petra; I cannot help thinking that the two Disocuri of the famous EI Khazne at Petra are caravan-gods, the two stars who lead caravans in the desert, the Petraean version of ‘Arsu and’ Azizu being more like the latter than the former. See my forthcoming book The Caravan Cities: Petra and Jerash, Palmyra and Dura.

page 110 note 6 Les Arabes en Syrie avant l'Islam (Paris, 1907) p. 142Google Scholar ff.

page 110 note 7 ILS 4350; CIS i, no. 137.

page 110 note 8 Brit. Mus. 102, 480. Prof. Ryckmans intends publishing it in the RES.

page 111 note 1 See CIS iv, 2, no. 504 bis, and pl. 19.

page 111 note 2 Mordtmann, , Zeitschr. der deutsch. morgenl. Gesellsch. xxxix (1885), 235Google Scholar; cf. Osiander, ibid. viii (1857), 474.

page 111 note 3 See Dussaud, , Les Arabes en Syrie avant l'Islam (Paris, 1907Google Scholar): cf. Kammerer, A., Petra et la Nabatène (Paris, 1930), p. 267Google Scholar, fig: 21; CIS i, p. 349 ff.; Huber, Ch., Journal d'un voyage en Arabie 1883–1884 (1891), p. 287.Google Scholar

page 111 note 4 Not having examined all the collections of Palmyrene tesserae, I am not in a position to produce a Corpus.

page 112 note 1 On these inscriptions see my article, ‘Les inscriptions caravanières de Palmyre,’ in the forthcoming Mélanges Glotz.