[5] Probably Queen Zenobia extended the original canals, in order to bring water to the nearly 200,000 inhabitants of the city and surroundings when she ruled her kingdom.
There are also remains of a Byzantine bastion and a Roman dam suggested to date to the reign of Queen Zenobia.
Legend suggests that channels were carved through the rock to send water to her lands in Palmyra, Syria.
[9] Archaeologist Diana Kirkbride wrote:[10] Among the remains to be found around Hermel one may see the canalizations of Zenobia, queen of Palmyra.
They were dug at a depth of twenty meters and were connected with wells dug at every hundred meters, channeling the water off to Palmyra, the short-lived capital of Queen Zenobia.The traditional suggestion that the canals were originally constructed during the brief reign of Zenobia has been treated as probable -but not sure- by Michael Alouf, who notes the existence of canals traces in the desert.