Palmyra’s funerary portraits allow us to gaze upon a desert city’s elite and explore how they used sculpture to negotiate identity, power, and change across centuries of trade and empire.

This is the twenty-fourth episode of Urban Opinion, a podcast where we dive into the fascinating world of past cities.

This podcast is funded by the Carlsberg Foundation. It is based on columns written by Rubina Raja and Søren Sindbæk, originally published in Current World Archaeology magazine. Find out more at the-past.com.

The research is based on work conducted at the DNRF-funded Center for Urban Network Evolutions, based at Aarhus University. Thanks to Matthew Symonds of CWA. Idea development by Rubina Raja, Sine Saxkjær, and Julia Steding. Logo design by Sine Saxkjær. Produced by Videnslyd and hosted by Eleanor Quasebarth Neil.