The colonnade was damaged during the Syrian Civil War, especially when Palmyra was occupied by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant from May 2015 to March 2016.

[1] The eastern section stretched from the Monumental Arch in the center of the town to the entrance of the Temple of Bel.

[6] The eastern sector of the Great Colonnade started at the Monumental Arch and stretched in a northwest-southeast direction towards the propylaea of the Temple of Bel.

Work on the central avenue began from the Monumental Arch, where it met the eastern colonnade, sometime in the early third-century CE.

The central section of the Great Colonnade became the most important with several civic buildings clustered around it, including the caesareum, the theatre, the baths and the Temple of Nebu.

[5] The colonnade's early columns, especially in the western stretch, were built using the classical opus emplectum building technique.

[5] The newer technique, seen in the middle and eastern stretches of the colonnade, utilized three long segments instead of the short drums.