Great Colonnade at Palmyra
principal colonnaded street and ancient ruin in Palmyra, Syria
The Great Colonnade at Palmyra was the main colonnaded avenue in the ancient city of Palmyra in the Syrian Desert. The colonnade was built in several stages during the second and third century CE and stretched for more than a kilometer (approximately .75 miles). It linked the Temple of Bel, in the southeastern end of the city, to the West Gate and the Funerary Temple in the northwestern part.
The colonnade was damaged during the Syrian Civil War, especially when Palmyra was occupied by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant from May 2015 to March 2016. However, large parts of it are still intact.
Overview
The colonnade consists of three sections that were built separately over the course of the second and third century CE. The western stretch of the colonnade is the oldest and started at the West Gate near the Funerary Temple. The eastern section stretched from the Monumental Arch in the center of the town to the entrance of the Temple of Bel. The middle section was built last to connect the two separate colonnades. It met the western stretch at the Great Tetrapylon, and the eastern stretch at the Monumental Arch.
Western section
The western colonnade was the first section to be built.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Great Colonnade at Palmyra” as principal colonnaded street and ancient ruin in Palmyra, Syria. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the places & architecture register because the source frames it as principal colonnaded street and ancient ruin in Palmyra, Syria. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Place names and jurisdictional language are key evidence: both can reveal earlier catalogue descriptions and overlooked record series. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5598980. Authority coordinates are 34.550, 38.269. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2015 and 2016.
Modern boundaries and familiar names can conceal earlier jurisdictions or structures that do not align with the present site. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Great Colonnade at Palmyra” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.