Michal Gawlikowski

University of Warsaw | UW · emeritus

The Oxford Handbook of Palmyra comprises 37 chapters written by specialists, ancient and global historians, archaeologists, epigraphers, and philologists working on the ancient world, all of them with a particular interest in Palmyra, ancient Tadmor, the famous oasis city in the Syrian steppe desert. The handbook covers the site’s archaeology and h...

Résumé – Le site de Haouarté, fouillé et publié par P. Canivet et M. T. Fortuna Canivet, a récemment révélé une grotte sous-jacente consacrée au culte de Mithra. Détruit et remblayé, ce mithraeum a été remplacé par la première église, qui n’était pas datée exactement. La découverte d’un nouveau baptistère rattaché à cette première église de Haouart...

The 34 articles published in this volume form the proceedings of the 9th Red Sea conference held at Lyon in July 2019, whose core topic was the “spatiality of networks in the Red Sea”, including the western Indian Ocean. In the networked space that the Erythra Thalassa never ceased to be, stable factors such as landscape, climate, and wind patterns...

The jubilee book is dedicated to the outstanding archaeologist, Professor Michał Gawlikowski, who was in charge of the Polish excavations in Palmyra in the years 1973–2011. The publication contains 65 articles on the different aspects of Palmyra, from architecture and sculpture to religion and commerce. The texts were published from 1966 to 2010 in...

Evidence for trade in the Greco‐Roman East, as for the ancient economy in general, is asymmetric, fragmentary, and often inconclusive. The main reason for this is the prevailing attitude among the ancient elites to hold trade and traders in low esteem. A paramount source is an anonymous writing known as the Periplus Maris Erythraei . The economic h...

Aynuna was excavated by a Saudi-Polish team from 2014 t0 2018. It is a Nabataean port dated to the first century BC, with a later occupation in the fourth century AD and with some Islamic presence. It is composed of two sites: a commercial factory and a fortified settlement. We identify it with Leuke Kome mentioned by the Periplus and by Strabo in...

La maison de la rue des Églises a été fouillée entre 1988 et 2004 au centre de l’ancienne Palmyre, immédiatement au nord de la Grande Colonnade. C’est une vaste demeure d’une surface de 2 000 m2 sans compter l’étage, qui a abrité une large famille aisée. La maison est disposée autour de plusieurs cours, certaines à portiques. Elle a été fondée dans...

This essay evaluates the relative importance of the maritime trade between the Roman Empire and India along two routes that were in use: one started and ended on the Egyptian shore of the Red Sea, the other at the head of the Gulf. Both continued on land along caravan tracks to the Nile valley or through the Syrian desert to Palmyra. The latter lan...

Some sixty new Aramaic epitaphs from Palmyra are published. Most of them have been found by the Palmyra Museum in the area of the ancient city Northern wall. Before those epitaphs, several new foundation and concession inscriptions are given as well. Those data give new insights on the onomastic and the funerary sculpture of Palmyra.

The double anniversary of 50 years of archaeological research and the 75th birthday of prof. Wiktor Andrzej Daszewski has been honored with the publication of a book: Classica Orientalia. Essays Presented to Wiktor Andrzej Daszewski on his 75th Birthday. Classica Orientialia is a collection of essays presented to Prof. Wiktor Andrzej Daszewski by h...

A new displaced inscription found in Palmyra, in Latin, Greek and Palmyrene, gives the names of two freedmen who have built together a tomb in AD 56/57. They were C. Virius Alcimus and T. Statilius Hermes. The former is also known from his likeness in the British Museum (WA 125036), where he is shown with his wife Viria Phoibe. The same man is also...

One of the most uncertain points of historical geography of ancient Syria concerns the site of Thapsacus, even if the uncertainty has sometimes been disguised by assertive pronouncements. This city had enjoyed considerable importance during the Persian period, and possibly earlier, as a major crossing of the Euphrates and the main link between Syri...

Ever since the Rostovtzeff's famous book Palmyra is commonly called a “caravan city”. As a matter of fact, it is the only real caravan city among those considered as such by the great scholar. Both Gerasa and Dura-Europos were calm, provincial towns living off the countryside, and no signs of a commercial vocation are on record in either. Petra was...

The ghost rivers of the oriental desert. This paper argues for identity between Saocoras, a tributary of the Euphrates in Ptolemy, and the canal of Nahr Dawwarîn which had linked the lower Khabur and the Euphrates at the rock of ‘Irsî. Ptolemy located the source of the Saocoras near Nisibis, i.e. at the headwaters of the Jaghjagh, while the source...