N athanael J. A ndrade . Zenobia

The narrative of Zenobia: Shooting Star of Palmyra by Nathanael J. Andrade is an interesting addition to the Women in Antiquity series. It deals with the well-known personality of Zenobia, from the oasis city of Palmyra in Syria, ephemeral queen and would-be usurper in the name of her son Wahballat in the third quarter of the third century. The bibliography about Zenobia is more than abundant, inversely proportional to the amount of documentation, and Andrade rightly acknowledges the scarcity of evidence on almost every subject pertaining to her life. The first half of the book uses a narrative device to go into every aspect of Zenobia’s life before her marriage. Relying on recent research on the history and archaeology of Palmyra, it enumerates the urban landscape, families and clans, religious and everyday life, houses, clothes, and jewelry as they could have been seen by the queen on her way along...

Ancient history · Art · Clan · Dozen · Ephemeral key · Literature · Narrative · Queen (butterfly) · Sociology · Star (game theory) · Subject (documents) · Anthropology · Archaeology and Historical Studies · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History