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• 1 media/Object_9_thumbnail.JPG 2022-03-03T14:08:38-08:00 The Ruins of Palmyra 4 plain 2022-03-04T13:12:44-08:00 The Ruins of Palmyra was written by Robert Wood and printed in 1753 in London. In this book, Wood documented his journey with James Dawkins and Giovanni Battista Borra to the Mediterranean coast in 1751, during which they visited ancient ruins in Greece, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt. The three men spent the most time in Palmyra taking measurements of artifacts, copying inscriptions, and making detailed drawings of ruined structures and the surrounding landscape, with the hope to rescue what remained of the city from oblivion through their work. The volume that resulted from their labor was considered an elephant folio, meaning that it is a large-size book (measuring 22 inches x 15 inches) and bound by marbled boards covered in calf leather. It is comprised of sixty-two etchings depicting general views of Palmyra as well as architectural elements of select buildings such as the doors, ornaments, and sepulchers. Along with descriptions of what each plate depicts, Wood also describes the current state of the monument at hand and what it might have suffered over time.
  
  The many meticulous, precise architectural drawings in Wood’s The Ruins of Palmyra have made the book an impressive object to behold. The colored, marbled inner covers show how much Wood emphasized the aesthetic appeal of his work. While the overall presentation of the book is stately, the amount of text that accompanies the plates is underwhelming in comparison. A closer examination of the plates gives the impression that The Ruins of Palmyra was conceived as an architectural analysis rather than as a faithful documentation of the site. Tab XIX, for example, depicts two undersides of a roof, showing only the designs as a flat picture (figure 9.1). If Wood’s aim were to accurately represent the buildings both in their past and present forms, he could have offered a more comprehensive discussion of the building, potentially by incorporating diagrams showing from where the piece in question was taken or by noting the proportions of the illustrations relative to the rest of the building. Due to the absence of these details, the plates could easily be misinterpreted and taken out of context. Wood’s true intention, it seems, was to fully restore the glory of each building through reconstruction rather than to faithfully document the structure in its current state.
  
  The publication of Ruins of Palmyra rekindled interest in the ancient city across Europe, luring many to seek out the site themselves. By the mid eighteenth century, Palmyra had evolved for over a millennium an oasis city in the Tadmurean Desert that thrived on trade and cultural exchange between the Mediterranean world and Western Asia. In antiquity, Palmyrene merchants navigated between the Roman and Parthian Empires, bringing goods, ideas, and customs from around the world to the city. They also made their way further east by traveling to the Euphrates from which they rafted downstream to ports connecting with the Indian maritime network [1]. Although they did not travel the overland routes across Central Asia, Palmyrene merchants still managed to import desirable products of the Silk Road trade such as Chinese silk textiles to Syria and across the Roman Empire, as evidenced by the discovery textile fragments from Han-dynasty China in tombs in Palmyra [2].
  
  The Ruins of Palmyra by Robert Wood was not the first publication from Early Modern Europe to recount travels to the Middle East. The Travels of Sir John Chardin into Persia and the East Indies by John Chardin from 1686 was another influential book of the time that gave readers an engrossing account of East-West exchange from a European’s perspective (featured in the Doheny Exhibition) [3].  Written a few decades before Wood’s journey to Palmyra, John Chardin wrote about his voyage from Paris to Isfahan in The Travels. Although these two books cover the same part of the world, the authors focus on subjects in their respective works. Chardin’s book is a personal account of his experience traveling, attempting to collect objects, and participating in high-profile events on behalf of the Parliament of France. Due to the vast array of topics covered in Chardin’s book, the reader is able to learn and develop an opinion about the culture and lifestyle of those residing in Middle Eastern countries. Wood’s book, on the other, amplifies the reader’s curiosity about Palmyra’s ruins and supplies intricate details to help them visualize the past. Chardin’s book captivates the reader, allowing them to fall in love with the people and cultures of the Middle East through his vivid descriptions. However, Wood’s book makes the reader feel nostalgic by presenting them with images of classical monuments as what they might have looked like in their original form through reconstructions.
  
  -Esther Hsu and Hanna Persky

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  [1] Joan Aruz, Return to Palmyra, Palmyra: Caravan City and Cultural Crossroads, accessed 2022/02/20, https://www.getty.edu/research/exhibitions_events/exhibitions/palmyra/essay.html
  
  [2] Ibid.
  
  [3] John Chardin, The Travels of Sir John Chardin into Persia and the East Indies, the First Volume,  Containing the Author’s Voyage from Paris to Ispahan: To Which Is Added, the Coronation of This Present King of Persia, Solyman the Third. (1686).