Place · caravan city · Syria
Palmyra
An oasis city in the Syrian desert that lived entirely on the caravan trade between the Euphrates and the Mediterranean, with its own merchant families, its own militia to escort convoys, and bilingual Greek and Palmyrene inscriptions recording the tariffs on everything that passed.
- Function
- Travel & migration
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 34.550, 38.270
Worth knowing
Palmyrene merchants ran ships from the Gulf to the Indus, and a Palmyrene inscription is among the graffiti left in the Hoq cave on Socotra by sailors on the India route. A desert city four hundred kilometres from any sea had agents in Indian ports.
Connections (2)
- Trade routeAntioch
Palmyra's caravans crossed the Syrian desert to the Euphrates and their goods went on to Antioch for shipment across the Mediterranean — the last two stages of the overland route. Palmyrene inscriptions record the tariff on every commodity that passed and name the merchants who financed the convoys, several of whom had agents at the Gulf ports and one of whom left his name in a cave on Socotra on the India run.
- Trade routeHoq Cave, Socotra
A Palmyrene inscription sits among the two hundred-odd graffiti in the Hoq cave on Socotra, alongside Indian Brahmi, Ethiopic, South Arabian and Greek — left by sailors sheltering on the India run. A desert city four hundred kilometres from any sea had merchants whose men were writing their names on a cave wall in the middle of the Arabian Sea, which is the clearest single measure of Palmyra's reach.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Palmyra”. Aurel Stein’s reports; Susan Whitfield, Life Along the Silk Road; the International Dunhuang Project.
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