Syrian Desert: Tadmor (Palmyra)

Orbit 34687 Frame 2912 8 December 2001 5:45 GMT

Image shows the Northern edge of the Syrian desert.
Upper centre: halfway between the Mediterranean and the Euphrates, on an age-old caravan route, 150 miles northeast of Damascus, 1300 feet a.s.l., lies the oasis of Palmyra - the City of Palms -, the pearl of the Syrian Desert, in Semitic ''Tadmor'', founded by Solomon, king of Israel.
Here rise the magnificent remains of the city, a settlement dating back to early second millennium BCE. Still standing, tall Corinthian columns (building the one km long Grand Colonnade), ancient walls and towers, monumental arches, and the well known Bel Temple appear as a surprise at the end of an extremely long and even boring journey. Alongside it, to the right: new Tadmor.
North and south: ranges of naked and barren mountains.
Upper left: the highly fertile belt of Taifah Gharbiyah, a densely cultivated area
Bottom centre: segment of a long road crossing the desert

Click on the thumbnail image to see a higher resolution version of this image; a very high resolution image, 1972 x 2020 pixels, 1180228 bytes, is also available.

Keywords: ESA European Space Agency - Agence spatiale europeenne, observation de la terre, earth observation, satellite remote sensing, teledetection, geophysique, altimetrie, radar, chimique atmospherique, geophysics, altimetry, radar, atmospheric chemistry