Tetrapylon

Perhaps the most striking construction at Palmyra, the Tetrapylon marks the second pivot in the route of the colonnaded street. It consists of a square platform bearing at each corner a tight grouping of four columns. Each of the four groups of pillars supports 150,000kg of solid cornice. A pedestal at the centre of each quartet originally carried a statue.

Only one of the 16 pillars is of the original pink granite (probably brought from Aswan in Egypt); the rest are a result of some rather hasty reconstruction carried out from the 1960s onwards by the Syrian Antiquities Department.From here the main colonnaded street continues northwest, while smaller pillared transverse streets lead southwest to the agora and northeast to the Temple of Baal Shamin.