Sentence:  Edessa lies just under 300 kilometres north of <WSD>Palmyra</WSD> as the crow flies, and its Aramaic dialect, known today as Syriac, is closely related to that of <WSD>Palmyra</WSD>. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  An ancient oasis city in the Syrian Desert, in present-day central Syria, recorded historically from around 2000 BCE, subsequently subject to various empires and destroyed in 273 CE and again in 1400, when it was reduced to a village.