Combined Caesium Magnetometry and Resistivity Survey in Palmyra (Syria) 1997 and 1998

Cooperation of Bavarian State Conservation Office. Department Archaeological Prospection and Aerial Archaeology (H. Becker, J. W. E. Fassbinder), Institute for General and Applied Geophysics of Munich University (H. C. Soffel). Institute for Photogrammetry Technical University Munich (M. Stephani). Institut fur Klassische Archaologie der Universitat Wien (A. Sehmidt-Colinet, 1997 German Archaeological Institute Damascus and University of Bern). Museum of Palmyra (Khaled al-As'ad). German Archaeological Institute Damascus (S. Freyberger). Department for Geophysics of Damascus University (Faris Chouker. Khaldoun Kotaish. Bassam al-Shamali. Nazih Jaramani [1998]). "In Hellenistic times, the caravan city of Palmyra, situated in the Syrian desert, had almost no direct contact with the great centres in the west such as Pergamon in Asia Minor or Rome. During this early period, the politics, economy and culture of Palmyra were all oriented towards the east, to the recently founded cities on the Euphrates and Tigris, such as Seleucia or DuraEuropos. and later to Parthian cities such as Hatra. It was only later, after the peace treaty between Rome and the Partians (20 13. C), that Palmyra developed closer relations to western centres to Emesa and Antioch. to the cities in Asia Minor and to Rome in a periode when, especially through the unifying power of normative Augustan politics, a Hellenistic-Roman 'koine', a common language also in the arts were established. At that period, the first monumental buildings were also built in Palmyra, including sanctuaries, such as the temple of Bel dedicated in A.D. 32. and funerary monuments, such as the tower of Atenatan built in 9 B.C." (Schmidt-Colinet, 1997). This rather clear view of the political and cultural situation of Palmyra stands in contrast to the actual knowledge of the city of Palmyra in Hellenistic times, which is completely unknown except of the above mentioned temple of Bel. Following the ideas of Schmidt-Colinet the Hellenistic city of Palmyra may be situated in the south of the Roman city wall of Diocletianus which is still an upstanding monument like many other buildings in the Roman city. Nowadays this area is a vast field of ruins but without any architectural structures to be seen above ground. Only after careful fieldwalking some buildings eroded to the foundations appear, but their dating is almost uncertain. In spring 1997 after a long period of heavy rainfalls some building near the surface showed up as vegetation marks, but they vanished within several hours and could not been mapped before. In March 1997 and 1998 nondestructive geophysical methods were tested in the "Hellenistic city" of Palmyra for archaeological prospecting. A 700 m long main line (azimuth = 100/280°) was fixed by stable architectural elements in the field and a 40 m grid was marked by wooden stacks. Two geophysical techniques were applied for this project: