Palmyra

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Palmyra an ancient city of Syria, an oasis in the Syrian desert north-east of Damascus on the site of present-day Tadmur. First mentioned in the 19th century bc, Palmyra was an independent state in the 1st century bc, becoming a dependency of Rome between the 1st and 3rd centuries ad. A flourishing city on a trade route between Damascus and the Euphrates, it regained its independence briefly under Zenobia. The name is a Greek form of the city's modern and ancient pre-Semitic name Tadmur or Tadmor, meaning ‘city of palms’.

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