SYRIA PALMYRA ANCIENT SEMITIC CITY TEMPLE RUINS Antique 1834 Art Print Engraving

Description: PALYMRA (THADMOR) or the city of Columns in the Syrian Desert Artist: Stanfield ____________ Engraver: W. Wilkins NOTE: The title in the box above is also in the white border below this scene. PRINT DATE: This engraving was printed circa 1834; it is not a modern reproduction in any way. PRINT SIZE: Overall print size is 6 x 8 inches, actual scene size is 3 1/2 by 5 3/4 inches. PRINT CONDITION: Condition is excellent. Bright and clean. Blank on reverse. Paper is quality woven rag stock paper. SHIPPING: Buyer to pay shipping, domestic orders receive priority mail, international orders receive regular air mail unless otherwise asked for. Full payment details will be in our email after auction close. We pack properly to protect your item! PRINT DESCRIPTION: Between the Euphrates and the mountains of Palestine, a desert extends of several hundred square miles in surface : it reaches towards the North as far as the country of Aleppo—towards the South to the very boundaries of Arabia. For thousands of years it has been covered with a scorching sand, and fertility and cultivation have totally disappeared : beasts of prey, some kinds of the antelope, and a few small tribes of wandering, rapacious Arabians, are the only animated beings that inhabit it. In the midst of this desert of Syria — five journeys from Aleppo, and about as fer from Damascus—arise in silent, melancholy majesty, the ruins of Palmyra. Antiquity has not left anything so worthy of admiration as these fragments. Imagine upon a surface of fifteen miles in circumference, the aspect of more than 3000 erect colossean columns all of dazzling white marble, which, partly in groups—partly in symmetrical rows (like the trees of a pleasure-park) gradually vanish in the reddish grey of the desert. The upper part of many is gone, but the generality are unhurt and still partly bear entablatures and cornices—and form high porticos and splendid halls. Among them extend ill-shaped hills of rubbish—covered with a deep sand, out of which rise innumerable remnants of blocks—cornices—capitals pedestals—and plastic ornaments of every description, of the same precious stone and exquisite workmanship. Sepulchral monuments in a variety of forms— half buried in the ground or decayed—surround in a great semicircle the more elevated ruins of the city proper. In vain we search in history for a constant guide through the labyrinth of the fate of this problematic place, which was once the seat of immense riches—of science and the arts, the centre of commerce of one half of the world. Thadmor is its scriptural name—the desert's Palm City built by Solomon : it is even now called Thamar or Thamor, by the Arabians—which Grecians and Romans translated into Palmyra. Solomon lived a thousand years before Christ: Palmyra was of course founded 2800 years ago. Three hundred years afterwards it was conquered and destroyed, by Nebuchadnezzar. Traces of buildings of that early period—marked by the ancient style of Egypt—are perceptible to the present day. After its destruction by the Assyrians, Palmyra was probably rebuilt and populated again by Tyrian colonists, who appreciated its favorable situation as an intermediate emporium for the commerce with India and the countries of the Euphrates. For a period of 450 years universal history leaves us entirely in the dark about its vicissitudes. Not until the time of the Romans, a hundred years before Christ, is Thadmor again mentioned. We learn that it was taken by M. Antonius, a Roman general, and pillaged, for having assisted the Parthians, against whom the republic then carried on hostilities. For the sake of its riches, a contemporary author relates, the Roman rapacious soldier went to its siege as to a festival ; but his anticipations were disappointed ; for the inhabitants fled in time with their treasures into the interior of the desert and beyond the Euphrates, and the Roman army found the city void and abandoned. Since this second catastrophe we hear nothing of the metropolis of the desert until about the year 300 of our era. Then it appears again, shining with splendor and glory, and Palmyra and its chosen queen—the heroic Zenobia—arise during the reign of Gallienus and Aurelian, as towering figures in the history of the universal empire. So exalted was the sense of preserving their independence, so highly aware was this city of its power, that, when Rome required submission, it threw the gauntlet to the powerful giant's feet, for a combat for death or life. In this heroic struggle — more fertile in great deeds than that of Carthage—Palmyra yielded after long exertions. Aurelian took it by storm, exterminated its champions, gave it up to his legions for pillage, then fired it and levelled its walls to the ground ; Zenobia taken prisoner was, however, led by him in triumph to Rome. After this downfall Palmyra rose no more ! The emperor, indeed, repented afterwards the Vandalian-like destruction of the most gorgeous city on earth, and issued an ordinance for the purpose of having it rebuilt and re-populated: but destroying is easier than building up. Instead of the exterminated inhabitants, whose industry and commerce wealth and public spirit, had created in Thadmor everything grand and admirable, the rabble of all nations came hither with the purpose of settling it again, especially many exiled Hebrews, who, instead of building up again, by selling to the neighboring cities the works of art—ornaments, etc., which they removed from under the rubbish, accomplished the work of destruction every year more and more. Its entire ruin was accelerated by the decline of Rome's power in those regions, which soon after took place. Syria became during this period the theatre of destructive wars, and the helpless, exposed Palmyra was in these storms forsaken by its inhabitants. Its wasted fields were buried in the desert's sand ;—it was no more heard of. For almost a thousand years, Thadmor was not remembered at all, and a Hebrew author of itineraries first mentions it in the thirteenth century. He relates, that he found in the midst of the Syrian desert an immense marble city, and within it a colony of his compatriots, who led there many years a solitary, miserable life. One hundred and fifty years afterwards, it is again mentioned by the Arabian geographer, Abulfede, in his works, as "Thadmor, the city of Solomon, the white but leafless rose of the sandy desert." In the meantime the reports about the splendor of thosedesert-hidden ruins had greatly excited the curiosity of Europe. In 1678 some Englishmen undertook from Aleppoa journey for the single purpose of finding out Palmyra. They perfectly succeeded, and gave us the first authenticrelations of this remarkable place. The British found these ruins almost in the same condition in which they are seen at the present day, except the fragments of the great temple of the sun, which the bashaw of Bagdad had then changed into a citadel and garrisoned with a few hundred Turks, with a view of daunting the independent tribes of the Bedouins, who several times made irruptions beyond the Euphrates. This late experiment for a lasting settlement in Thadmor was of but little avail. The next succeeding travellers even found the fort destroyed and abandoned, and Palmyra has since been the abode of beasts of prey, and the occasional camp of the Bedouins. THIS IS AN ACTUAL ENGRAVING PRINTED IN THE 1840s! A GREAT VIEW OF A FAMOUS LANDSCAPE, CITYSCAPE, ARCHITECTURE PLACE IN THE WORLD !

Price: 22.39 USD

Location: New Providence, New Jersey

End Time: 2025-01-24T18:30:31.000Z

Shipping Cost: 7.95 USD