No one around as far as the eye can see, hiking through 50c heat through the ancient city of Palmyra I follow the rows of massive colonnades leading up to the remnants of a Roman temple constructed in the first century AD.

 

The temple was originally dedicated to Bel, the superior Babylonian god who was subsequently adapted by the Greeks as Zeus and by the Romans as Jupiter.

 

View On White

As seen in the Metropolitan Museum New York 'Travel with the Met' programme, 2009.