ABSTRACT
The archaeological campaign series before the Syrian civil war, jointly organized by the Syrian Directorate of Antiquities with the German Archaeological Institute and the University of Vienna, brought to light the outlines of the so-called Hellenistic city, revealing the beginnings of Palmyra's urban development in classical antiquity. In the case of the Empire of Akkad, the normative power of the centre is more strongly felt in Babylonia than in upper Mesopotamia and Syria. The history of the rise and fall of the Empire of Akkad contains all the elements that played a role in the creation of the subsequent empires as well. Metropolises such as Alexandria in Egypt, Antioch in Syria or Seleukeia in Babylonia had a spending capacity that even big poleis like Athens or Corinth had never possessed. Shattered by the catastrophic defeat against Rome in the so-called Antiochos War and by internal dynastic rivalries, the Seleucid rule lost its power of integration in the West as well.
