| Visit of / Visite de / Besuch von / Visita de / Chiamata di de Baalbek & Anjar زياره بعلبك / Baalbekの訪問 / Baalbek의 방문 / 访问巴勒贝克 Baalbek (Arabic: بعلبك) is a town in the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon, altitude 3850 ft (1170 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. It is located at 34°00′22″N, 36°12′31″E about 200 km east of Beirut. At present, Baalbek serves as the primary center of the Shia population of the Bekaa Valley and one of the main training camps for the Hizbullah forces. Heliopolis (there was another Heliopolis in Egypt) was made a colonia by the Roman Empire in 15 BC and a legion was stationed there. Work on the religious complex there lasted over a century and a half and was never completed. The dedication of the present temple ruins, the largest religious building in the entire Roman empire, dates from the reign of Septimus Severus, whose coins first show the two temples. The great courts of approach were not finished before the reigns of Caracalla and Philip. In commemoration, no doubt, of the dedication of the new sanctuaries, Severus conferred the rights of the jus italicum on the city. Today, only six Corinthian columns remain standing. Eight more were disassembled and shipped to Constantinople under Justinian's orders, for his basilica of Hagia Sophia. The greatest of ... |
