Two thousand years ago, it was a flourishing city in the middle of what is now a Syrian desert. At the crossroads of trade routes, Palmyra attracted caravanners from Mesopotamia, India and China. In what remains of its ruins, rediscovered by Europeans in the 17th century, its numerous necropolises bear witness to a prosperous past. Carved in limestone in the first centuries of our era, the faces of the representatives - men, women and children - of its greatest families adorn the walls of its to...