Valley of the Tombs   Temples Theater Tombs Museum Desert Palaces   When you cross the southern front of this wall at the end of the perpendicular street, you will reach, at about 300 m., the Tomb of Yamblick (erected in 83 A.D. in the form of a five-storied tower). Other funeral towers still stand at the entrance of this Valley of the Tombs which are some of the most fascinating sights of your walk. The Tower of Elabel, 500 m. from the first one, still has four out of its five original floors. It is one of the most interesting monuments of the Valley of the Tombs with its bas-relief in the form of sarcophagus on the third floor. Around this edifice there are other burial places, either of the house-tomb type, the funeral tower type, the underground (hypogee) type, or finally the combination of tower and hypogee. Underground tombs better endured the test of centuries. They are ornamented with relieves, statues and paintings of an astonishing freshness of colors such as in the Hypogee of the Three Brothers, located at the left of the Damascus and Homs road, dating from 140 A.D. Lots of niches, very easy to find, were assigned to many Palmyranians in 241 and were the object, later on, of various transactions. The Three Brothers who gave their name to the hypogee built this tomb as we build a block of flats. In those days the first buyers were speculators who resold graves as we sell apartments nowadays. Fifty meters beyond this hypogee we find, also on the left of the road coming from Damascus, the Tomb of Atenatan, and it should be visited. A foundation text indicates that it was erected in 98 A.D. Designed also as an underground tomb, it was enlarged in 229 A.D. with exedra. A road ending at the entrance of the village, opposite the Museum, leads to the house-tomb of Marouna, erected in 236 A.D., about 1 km. away. Ibn Maan Castle Now that there is a road to the slopes of the rocky hill dominating Palmyra to the north and to Qalaat Ibn Maan, you would certainly want to visit this Arab (or Turkish) castle, attributed by local tradition to the Druze Emir Fakhreddin (1590-1635), but which is probably older. It is not the state of conservation of this fortress that will interest you but rather the exceptional view of the antique site and the oasis, in the grandiose frame of this desert area, the Palmyrene. Sand layers, salt deposits, and phosphates appearing on the surface at the south beyond the ruins, will make you aware of the ungrateful nature of this part of Syria and about the miraculous character of the oasis .
© UR Travel 2006