Palmyra, the grief and the joy
[ by Charles Cameron — “the landscape, in general, is in good shape” says Syrian antiquities chief Abdulkarim ]
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First, let me DoubleQuote the joy and the grief of Palmyra, in the form of the Temple of Bel before —
— and after IS wrought its iconoclastic destruction on that site sacred to its original devotees, and sacred also (seculo-sacred?) to contemporary humanists and historians —
In that pairing of grief and joy, the grief predominates.
**
Palmyra, though, has now been retaken from IS, and we can accordingly make a further DoubleQuote in images, this time moving from grief to joy, with the joy predominant, Alhamdulillah! — pairing the “after” image from the previous pair —
— with this image of the theater at Palmyra — recently used by IS for executions, though thankfully not by them demolished —
— thus returning a measure of joy after so tragic an episode.
**
Sources:
Daily Mail, ISIS show off their destruction of 2,000-year-old temple at Palmyra BBC News, Syria civil war: Palmyra damage in pictures
