Ancient visitors to the great family tombs outside the desert city of Palmyra would have come face to face with the dead. Within these edifices, the slots on shelves where the bodies lay were often sealed with sculptures depicting the deceased. Today, thousands of such likenesses are known, creating an extraordinary corpus of ancient art. Studying this is revealing fascinating insights into both life and death in a major trading hub. As well as showing that fashions come and go, the sculptures convey the enduring power wielded by wealthy families. The significance of kinship has also been under the microscope… [...]