An oasis in the Syrian desert, north-east of Damascus, Palmyra contains the monumental ruins of a great city that was one of the most important cultural centres of the ancient world. From the 1st to the 2nd century, the art and architecture of Palmyra, standing at the crossroads of several civilizations, married Greco-Roman techniques with local traditions and Persian influences.

Our fantastic guide made sure that we had an early start (0830) for the first stop of the day, the Tomb of the Elhabel family.We arrived so early in fact that the doors had not yet been opened so we were first in line.Thank god that we were as 5-minutes later coach loads of Japanese and Italians arrived, all trying to push to the front to see what lay in wait inside the double padlocked steel doors.Ali, the guide, explained that the tomb dated from 103 AD and that it originally contained the bodies of the 300 family members, placed in order of importance on one of the 4 floors.The 'basement' floor was for the priests, next floor was for the wealthy with the upper floors reserved for the poorer kin.The atmosphere outside the still closed doors was tense, with the 'athletes' from all nations jockeying for position in the tourism Olympics, waiting for the starting gun that was the removal of the two solid padlocks.Three, Two....one, and they're off.Barely had the caretaker removed the second lock when, whoosh, as the Japanese scrambled in faster that Gordon Ramsay can make an omelette.Ali, the Italian and the sole Brit held their ground and made it to the front without being trampled underfoot...how we'd get out again was another question as we were packed in tighter than sardines riding a rush hour tube during severe line closures.Anyway, we were told how the family members were entombed 6-bodies high, with feet facing the wall and that reliefs on the walls/ ceilings explained the composition of the family and nature of the afterlife.Floor 2 was much less elaborate and floor 3 was well...I'll ever know.Every time I went to climb the stairs to see what was up there down came another Jap.I swear they must have been hiding in a TARDIS up there as the line was longer than one of those 'cut' by Mary Winehouse, Kate Moss and Pete Docherty combined!Getting down took more time that it took for the 300 family members to die.

Next off to the 3 Brothers' Tomb (Naamai, Male and Saadai), where we were again the first to arrive but the marauding masses were hot on our trail.Unfortunately, we were not permitted to take photos...but that didn't seem to stop everyone else from merrily clicking away...no photo, no photo went the guides...click, click, click went the Japanese.The tomb was decorated with most elaborate painted artwork still clearly visible even though the tomb was constructed in 120 AD.It was absolutely breathtaking and a true sight to behold - we loved it.This tomb, however, was not the final resting place for family members, oh no.It was, instead, a business.The 3 canny brothers were selling 'storage space' for one year after which the bodies were removed, crushed and placed in vases.Even more cannily, the bodies were dried for 40 days before being placed in the tomb as the shrinkage that occurred meant that more bodies could be stored in the available space, thus making more profit.365 days was deemed long enough for the dead to enter the 2nd life as it correlated with 360°, one full revolution of the circle so one full revolution between the 1stand 2nd lives.