PALMYRA

SYRIA

goes back to the first half of the 1st cen-
tury AD at the latest.
It thus appears that this wall was demo-
lished when an extension to the temenos
was constructed, most probably funded by
Shalamallat shortly before AD 64. Testing
for this extended eastern limit of the
sanctuary did not produce results, pre-
sumably because the construction of the
later military barracks destroyed anything
in the way.
We were able, on the other hand, to
excavate and study a curious monument
standing in front of the gate of Allat, right
in the middle of the Via Principalis. This
square foundation is oriented like the Allat
temenos and measures 4.05 m to a side, are
taking into account the missing corners
[cf. Figs 1, 2}. It was built of irregular
broken stones, bonded in mortar and faced
with soft limestone blocks, in the same


(Photo M. Gawlikowski)

way as the first chapel of Allat, the
foundations of which are preserved inside
the cella. Like this chapel, called hamana
in the cella inscription, it had a low step on
three of its sides, excluding the fagade, in
this case facing south. This structure was
razed to a level corresponding to the late
surface of the street, but what is left of it
now rose above the Diocletianic level of the
Via Principalis.
The laying of the stones strongly
suggests that the foundation had sup-
ported four thick walls around a small
room reserved inside, about 2 m wide from
east to west and slightly less deep behind
an entrance on the southern side. The floor
level of this room would be higher than the
preserved remains and would require some
outside steps to be accessed. For no ap-
parent technical reason the foundation was
laid on clean sand filling a trench cut in
culturally steride soil.
If these observations are correct, we
have here another bamana, similar and
parallel to that of Allat. It is tempting to
associate it with an inscription found in
1974, reused very close to this monument
(Gawlikowski 1976). The stone is of the
same soft quality and could have been
a lintel; it says that a certain Belhazai has
offered “this hamana" to the god Shamsh in
31/30 BC. If the attribution is valid, the
chapel of the Sun god would have stood in
front of the Allat temenos before being
included within the extended temenos.
Found next to the hamana foundation
were fragments of corner merlons in soft
limestone featuring volutes and acanthus
leaves [Fig. 3}· This further emphasizes the
similarity between this monument and the
first chapel of Allat enshrined later within
the 2nd-century cella.
Excavations also brought to light some
installations of the 4th century or later.
Among them, two limekilns dug into the

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