Currency - Syria- 500 Pounds - Year 1998

Item code: 61/SY-3

Year	1998
Obverse	Ruins of Palmyra. Female bust, architectural detail. Theatre of Palmyra. Queen Zenobia (Julia Aurelia Zenobia Cleopatra). Ancient portico support columns
Reverse	Agricultural produce: fruits, vegetables, corn, sunflowers. Irrigation tractor. Euphrates Hydroelectric Power Plant and Dam (Tabaqah, Tabqa Dam, al-Thawra Dam)
Watermark	Head of an Arabian horse
Governor	Dr. Mohammad Bashar Kabbara (1995-2004)

Obverse description:

Palmyra

Palmyra was an ancient Arabian city in central Syria. The city was founded some time during the 2nd millennium BC. The Semitic name of the city is Tadmur. In Aramaic, it means "a city that cannot be defeated".The people of Palmyra worshipped many gods and goddesses from Mesopotamia, Syria, Arabia and Greece. They built a series of temples and large monuments containing funerary art, or art representing the dead. Palmyrans originally spoke Aramaic, but later began speaking Greek. The area was later made a part of the Roman Empire. Between the years 260 and 273, Odaenathus and his wife Zenobia used Palmyra as the capital of the Palmyrene Empire. This period of history is called the Crisis of the Third Century.

The city lost its importance after the 16th century. It was fully abandoned by 1929, during the Ottoman Empire. The site was made a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1980.

Roman Theatre at Palmyra

The Roman Theatre at Palmyra is a Roman theatre in ancient Palmyra in the Syrian Desert. The unfinished theatre dates back to the second-century CE Severan period. The theatre's remains have since been restored. It was occupied by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in May 2015 and recaptured by the government forces in March 2016 with the support of Russian airstrikes.

Queen Zenobia

Zenobia (240 – c. 275) was a queen who ruled in the 3rd century over the Palmyrene Empire in what is today Syria. She led a famous revolt against the Roman Empire. She was the second wife of King Septimius Odaenathus. Zenobia became queen of the Palmyrene Empire after Odaenathus' death in 267. By 269, Zenobia had expanded the empire, taking over Egypt from the Romans. Tenagino Probus, a Roman soldier, had his head cut off after he led an attempt to recapture the territory. She ruled over Egypt until 274, when she was defeated and taken as a hostage to Rome by Emperor Aurelian.

 Reverse description

Taqba Dam

The Tabqa Dam (Arabic: سد الطبقة‎‎), or Al-Thawra Dam as it is also named is an earth-fill dam on the Euphrates, located 40 kilometers (25 mi) upstream from the city of Ar-Raqqah in Ar-Raqqah Governorate, Syria. The dam is 60 meters (200 ft) high and 4.5 kilometers (2.8 mi) long and is the largest dam in Syria. Its construction led to the creation of Lake Assad, Syria's largest water reservoir. The dam was constructed between 1968 and 1973 with help from the Soviet Union. At the same time, an international effort was made to excavate and document as many archaeological remains as possible in the area of the future lake before they would be flooded by the rising water. When the flow of the Euphrates was reduced in 1974 to fill the lake behind the dam, a dispute broke out between Syria and Iraq that was settled by intervention from Saudi Arabia and the Soviet Union. The dam was originally built to generate hydroelectric power, as well as irrigate lands on both sides of the Euphrates. The dam has not reached its full potential in either of these objectives.

Return to Syrian Bank Note Page