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PHOTO BY DARIO BAJURIN/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

DEMOLISHED BY ISIS in 2015, this Palmyrene shrine was dedicated to one of the supreme gods of the city, the Semitic sky deity Baal-Shamin (“Lord of Heavens”). The entrance portico had six columns, topped with Corinthian capitals. The interior consisted of a single hall, later used as a church. Although this temple wasn’t built until the second century C.E., Baal-Shamin was worshiped in Palmyra already in the seventh century B.C.E., when the forebears of the Jewish mercenaries in Persian Egypt supposedly had found refuge in the city.