Publisher's Synopsis
How did ancient cities like Palmyra survive? How did their people produce and manage the resources required for both their short- and long-term needs? Were their methods circular or wasteful? What materials did they reuse, and how? What form did their routine exchanges take? The material culture of Palmyra offers unique potential for addressing these questions in a concrete way. A century of excavations at the site, together with a series of recent print publications and digital enterprises, have provided scholars with unprecedented amounts of material objects, among them inscriptions, statues, tesserae, coins, glass and metal finds, textiles, and other objects, all of which shed new light on Palmyra's economy and how its inhabitants consumed, maintained, exchanged, or reused key resources