ablished in Palmyra and although no longer an important trade center, it nevertheless remained an important junction of Roman roads in the Syrian desert.
Diocletian expanded the city to harbor even more legions and walled it in to try and save it from the Sassanid threat. The Byzantine period following the Roman Empire only resulted in the building of a few churches; much of the city went to ruin.
Islamic rule
The city was captured by Muslim Arabs under Khalid ibn al-Walid in 634 but left intact. After the year 800 and the civil wars that followed the fall of the Umayyad caliphs, people started abandoning the city. At the time of the Crusades, Palmyra was under the Burid emirs of Damascus, then under Toghtekin, Mohammed the son of Shirkuh, and finally under the emirs of Homs. In 1132 the Burids had the Temple of Ba'al turned into a fortress. In the 13th century the city was handed over to the Mamluk sultan Baybars. In 1401, it was sacked by Timur, but recovered quickly, so that in the 15th century it was described as boasting "vast gardens, flourishing trades and bizarre monuments" by Ibn Fadlallah al-Omari.
In the 16th century, Qala'at ibn Maan castle was built on top of a mountain overlooking the oasis by Fakhr ad-Din al-Maan II, a Lebanese prince who tried to control the Syrian Desert. The castle was surrounded by a moat, with access only available through a drawbridge. It is possible that earlier fortifications existed on the hill well before then.
The city declined under Ottoman rule, reduced to no more than an oasis village with a small garrison. In the 17th century its location was rediscovered by Western travellers, and was studied by European and American archaeologists starting in the 19th century. The villagers who had settled in the Temple of Ba'al were dislodged in 1929 by the French authority
