Baalbek



Saturday we headed to Baalbek, home to the ruins of the 3 largest Roman temples.   

Yes, we did ride camels at the temples.  Sean (above) got
on his and said, "This is by far the most touristy thing
we've done since we've been here."

The temple of Jupiter, or Baal to the Phoenicians, is the the largest in the world. 

Unfortunately when I got home I discovered that there was a smudge
on my camera lens all day, so all of my pictures from Baalbek
have this hazy area on them. 

This trim work fell from the roof.  The eggs represent fertility,
while the leaves at the bottom and the 'teeth' above represent
 youth and old age respectively.  Something on here somewhere
represents death (bad memory), so that the whole circle of
life is inscribed in the stone.



These pillars are huge!

This sign is original to the Phoenician era of the temple.

    

 We climbed into some of the podiums that used to house the statues and took the liberty of making some poses of our own. 

 

The smallest of the 3 temples is the temple of Bacchus, the best preserved temple in the world. 

The day we were there some men were installing bleachers
for the upcoming festival.  I think Baalbek puts any of our
venues in America to shame. 



This column just tipped over one day.  The next picture shows where
it pushed a stone in the wall out a little bit. 

The stone 2nd from the top in the column was pushed when the
column behind it fell.  This is how archaeologists knew that there
was nothing between the stones holding them together.  They're just
stacked and kept together by precise cuts and mutual weight. 

Down the road from Baalbek is the cite of a quarry where some of the
stone was mined.  This stone is the largest stone in the world!  How they
tell such things I do not know, but it took 40,000 men to move it
when it was cut.  There's a little flag on the top claiming it in
the name of Lebanon.