The City of Baalbek

The Heliopolis

Baalbeck, Lebanon's greatest Roman treasure, can be counted among the wonders of the ancient world. The largest and most noble Roman temples ever built, they are also among the best preserved.

    Towering high above the Beqaa plain, their monumental proportions proclaimed the power and wealth of Imperial Rome. The gods worshipped here, the Triad of Jupiter, Venus and Mercury, were grafted onto the indigenous deities of Hadad, Atargatis and a young male god of fertility. Local influences are also seen in the planning and layout of the temples, which vary from the classic Roman design.

Over the centuries Baalbeck's monuments suffered from theft, war and earthquakes, as well as from numerous medieval additions. Fortunately, the modern visitor can see the site in something close to its original form thanks to work in the past hundred years by German, French and Lebanese archaeologists. Baalbeck is located on two main historic trade routes, one between the Mediterranean coast and the Syrian interior and the other between northern Syria and northern Palestine. Today the city, 85 kilometers from Beirut, is an important administrative and economic center in the northern Beqaa valley.

The Temple of Bachuus

The Temples In History

    For centuries the temples of Baalbeck lay under meters of rubble, obscured by medieval fortifications. But even in ruin the site attracted the admiration of visitors and its historical importance was recognized. The first survey and restoration work at Baalbeck was begun by the German Archaeological Mission in 1898. In 1922 French scholars undertook extensive research and restoration of the temples, work which was continued by the Lebanese Directorate General of Antiquities.

    Baalbeck's temples were built on an ancient tell that goes back at least to the end of the third millennium B.C. Little is known about the site during this period, but there is evidence that in the course of the 1rst millennium B.C. an enclosed court was built on the ancient tell. An altar was set in the center of this court in the tradition of the biblical Semitic high places.

    During the Hellenistic period (333-64 B.C.) the Greeks identified the god of Baalbeck with the sun god and the city was called Heliopolis or City of the Sun. At this time the ancient enclosed court was enlarged and a podium was erected on its western side to support a temple of classical form. Although the temple was never built, some huge construction from the Hellenistic project can still be seen. And it was over the ancient court that the Romans placed the present Great Court of the Temple of Jupiter.

The temple was begun in the last quarter of the 1rst century B.C., and was nearing completion in the final years of Nero's reign (37-68 A.D.). the Great Court Complex of the temple of Jupiter, with its porticoes, exedrae, altars and basins, was built in the 2nd century A.D. Construction of the so-called temple of Bacchus was also started about this time. The Propylaea and the Hexagonal Court of the Jupiter temple were added in the 3rd century under the Severan Dynasty (193-235 A.D.) and work was presumably completed in the mid-3rd century. The small circular structure known as the Temple of Venus, was probably finished at this time as well.

 

When Christianity was declared an official religion of the Roman Empire in 313 A.D., Byzantine Emperor Constantine officially closed the Baalbeck temples. At the end of the 4th century, the Emperor Theodosius tore down the altars of Jupiter's Great Court and built a basilica using the temple's stones and architectural elements. The remnants of the three apses of this basilica, originally oriented to the west, can still be seen in the upper part of the stairway of the Temple of Jupiter.

    After the Arab conquest in 636 the temples were transformed into a fortress, or qal'a, a term still applied to the Acropolis today.  During the next centuries Baalbeck fell successively to the Omayyad, Abbasid, Toulounid, Fatimid and Ayyoubid dynasties. Sacked by the Mongols about 1260, Baalbeck later enjoyed a period of calm and prosperity under Mamluke rule.

Baalbek City Gate

The City of Sidon

The City by the Sea


Sidon, on the coast 48 kilometers south of Beirut, is one of the Famous names in ancient history. But of all of Lebanon's cities this is the most mysterious, for its past has been tragically scattered and plundered.
In the 19th century, treasure hunters and amateur archaeologists made off with many of its most beautiful and important objects, some of which can now be seen in foreign museums.

    In this century too, ancient objects from Sidon (Saidoon is the Phoenician name, Saida in Arabic), have turned up on the world's antiquities markets.

Other traces of its history lie beneath the concrete of modern constructions, perhaps buried forever.
The challenge for today's visitor to Sidon then is to recapture a sense of this city's ancient glory from the intriguing elements that still survive.

The largest city in south Lebanon, Sidon is a busy commercial center with the pleasant, conservative atmosphere of a small town. Since Persian times this was known as the city of gardens and even today it is surrounded by citrus and banana plantations.  

Sidon view of Old City

A long and glorious history

    Sidon's Phoenician period began in the 12th - 10th century B.C. and reached its height during the Persian Empire (550 - 330 B.C.). The city provided Persia, a great land power, with the ships and seamen  to fight the Egyptians and the Greek, a role that gave it a highly favored position. The Persians maintained a royal park in Sidon and it was during this time that the temple of Eshmoun was built.

    Glass manufacture, Sidon's most important enterprise in the Phoenician era, was conducted on a vast scale and the production of purple dye was almost as important. The small shell of the Murex trunculus was broken in order to extract the pigment that was so rare it became the mark of royalty.

Like other Phoenician city states, Sidon suffered from a succession of conquerors. At the end of the Persian era in 351 B.C., unable to resist the superior forces of Artaxerxes III, the desperate Sidonians locked their gates and set fire to their city rather than to submit to the invader. More than 40,000 died in the conflagration. After the disaster the city was too weak to oppose the triumphal march of Alexander the Great in 333 B.C. It sued for peace and the Hellenistic age of Sidon began.There is evidence that Sidon was inhabited as long ago as 4000 B.C., and perhaps as early as Neolithic times (6000 - 4000 B.C.). The ancient city was built on a promontory facing an island, which sheltered its fleet from storms and served as a refuge during military incursions from the interior. In its wealth, commercial initiative, and religious significance, Sidon is said to have surpassed all other Phoenician city states.

Under the successors of Alexander, Sidon, the "holy city" of Phoenicia, enjoyed relative freedom and organized games and competitions in which the greatest athletes of the region participated. When Sidon, like the other cities of Phoenicia, fell under Roman domination, it continued to mint its own silver coins. The Romans also built a theater and other major monuments in the city. During the Byzantine period when the great earthquake of 551 A.D. destroyed most of the cities of Phoenicia, Beirut's school of Law took refuge in Sidon. The town continued quietly for the next century, until it was conquered by the Moslems in 636.

    In 1111 Sidon was besieged and stormed by the Crusader Baldwin, who was soon to become King of Jerusalem. Under Frankish rule, the city became the chief town of the Seigniory of Sagette and the second and the four baronies of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

    Jerusalem surrendered to Saladin in 1187, but it was re-occupied for a hundred years when the Crusader Templars recaptured it briefly. They abandoned it for good in 1291, after the fall of Acre to the Mamluke forces. In the 15th century, Sidon was one of the ports of Damascus and it flourished once more during the 17th century when it was rebuilt by Fakhreddine II, then ruler of Lebanon. Under his protection and encouragement, French merchants set up profitable business enterprises in Sidon for trade between France and Syria. By the beginning of the 19th century, however , Sidon was relatively obscure and remained so until the mid-20th century when it developed into an important commercial and agricultural center. 

Alley way inside the Old City of Sidon

The City of Beirut

Modern Capital, Venerable Past


Beirut, with its million-plus inhabitants, conveys a sense of life and energy that is immediately apparent. This dynamism is echoed by Capital’s geographical position: a great promontory jutting into the blue sea with dramatic mountains rising behind it. A city with a venerable past, 5,000 years ago Beirut was a prosperous town on the Canaanite and Phoenician coast.

A Church and a Mosque in Downtown Beirut

The City That Would Not Die

    Beirut survived a decade and a half of conflict and so has earned the right to call itself "the City that would not die." As if to demonstrate this resiliency, the Lebanese have launched a great rush of building activity, including the public service infrastructure.

In the ruined City Center, a huge reconstruction project is underway to create a new commercial and residential district for the 21st century. Commerce is second nature to Beirutis, who long ago discovered that their port city on the East-West cross-roads was ideally placed for trading and business all kinds. A banking center with free currency ex-change, the chief employment here is in trade, banking, construction, import-export and service industries.

The Lebanese capital enjoys a vigorous press that publishes in Arabic, English, French and Armenian. Five Universities help keep ideas and innovations flowing. The flourishing art scene, including theater, film making, music and plastic arts adds to the sense that is indeed a city on the move. Its many advantages also make Beirut a natural venue for international, regional or local conferences and conventions. Beirut’s Port, the largest in the eastern Mediterranean, is equipped to handle tens of freight and passenger vessels.

Further updating of its busy facilities will be made as part of Lebanon’s general reconstruction plan.
Beirut International Airport, which serves the national carrier Middle East Airlines and numerous foreign airlines, will have an annual capacity of six million passengers by the start of the 21st century.

 

Cafes in Downtown Beirut