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Baalbek is a town in the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon, altitude 1,170 m, situated east of the Litani River. It is famous for its exquisitely detailed but monumentally scaled Temple ruins of the Roman period, when Baalbek, known as Heliopolis was one of the largest sanctuaries in the Empire. Ruins of ancient temples in Baalbek, Lebanon, include the Temple of Jupiter, shown here, which once measured about 89 by 50 m. The temple, in the Corinthian style, was surrounded by a peristyle of 42 columns. The Romans built Baalbek when they took control of the territory that included what is now Lebanon in 64 BC.

In 27 BC, the Roman Emperor Augustus supposedly took the unfathomable decision to build in the middle of nowhere the grandest and mightiest temple of antiquity, the Temple of Jupiter, whose platform, and big courtyard are retained by three walls containing twenty-seven limestone blocks, unequaled in size anywhere in the world, as they all weigh in excess of 300 metric tons. Three of the blocks, however, weigh more than 800 tons each. This block trio is world-renowned as the “Trilithon”. Lion head is the Symbol of power and strength. It was a great decoration on the Roman temple. Earthquake destroyed a part of it but fortunately the head was in a good case.

The second temple, now called the Temple of Bacchus because of Bacchic motives carved at certain points, is in fact the temple of the female counterpart of Baal, namely Baalat, Ishtar or Artagatis. It is in a very good state of preservation and is greatly admired both by connoisseurs and by tourists. It is 70 metres long and is surrounded by a peristyle of 48 columns 20 metres high, bearing an entablature with a frieze of lions, bulls and acanthus leaves, all richly carved. Its entrance is truly monumental, 13 metres high by 7.5 metres wide, finely worked. The nave has fluted columns in relief on the walls. There is a cella or choir 27 metres by 22. The altar of the divinity, placed high, makes the building a religious monument of the highest order. The third temple, a smaller one, placed further to the east and now named after Venus, is a work of wonderful good taste and delicacy.

But as fighting escalated after a Hezbollah raid into Israel on July 12, many people feared for Baalbek and Lebanon’s other archaeological and cultural treasures. Now that a tentative cease-fire has been declared, experts returning to the country say that the sites—which have successfully survived decades of violence in the war-torn region—appear to have once again emerged unscathed.