Beyond fieldwork : research and studies of the Italian-Syrian joint Mission in Palmyra (Pal.M.A.I.S.)

In 2007 the Italian-Syrian joint mission PAL.M.A.I.S., organized by the University of Milan and the General Directorate of Antiquities and Museums of Damascus, started a new archaeological project in Palmyra. The research concerned an area that had never been systematically investigated, the South-West Quarter, situated between the Hellenistic city to the South, investigated by the Syrian-Austrian mission, and the Roman Imperial Age quarter to the North, investigated by the Polish mission. After running the topographic map of the quarter in 2007, a stratigraphic excavation carried out between 2008 and 2010 in the so-called Peristyle Building, the most monumental edifice of the area, located near the southern tract of Diocletian’s Wall. The preliminary hypotheses about the foundation of the building - dated back to the Severan age (late 2nd - early 3rd centuries AD) - and its last occupation - between the 6th and the 8th centuries AD - were presented at the 2010 Warsaw conference. Despite the interruption of fieldwork, the archaeological studies never stopped and focused on architecture and building techniques, materials and epigraphs, in order to specify the chronology and the interpretation of the building. A website on the Palmyra project was also created (www.progettopalmira.unimi.it).