Cultural Spot (2012JUNE18)

 

Cultural Spot ... 

L e b a n o n  (II)

Anjar

Anjar, means "water from the rock". It is located at the entrance of the Bekka Valley, 56km from Beirut. Six of us who signed up for the tour together with our tour guide, we left Beirut early in the morning and drove along Damascus Road direction - Bekka Valley. 

The city of Anjar was founded by Caliph Walid Ibn Abd Al-Malak(705-715) during the Umayyad (was the second Islamic caliphates established after the death of of the Prophet. After overthrown by the Abbasid Caliphate, they fled across North Africa to Spain where they established Cordoba Caliphate and lasted until 1031 due to the Fitna of al-Andalus.) period in the 8th century. 

Owing to its unique geographic location at the crossroads of two important commercial routes: one leading from Beirut to Damascus and the other crossing the Bekaa Valley from Homs to Tiberide, Anjar was historically an inland commercial centre. 

After our guide settled entrance tickets, we entered ancient Anjar. Everybody immediately was attracted by the elegant and impressive vestiges tidily lining in front of us. The ruins of Anjar showing the city is surrounded by walls and flanked by forty towers. The North-South axis and the East-West axis divide the city perfectly into four equal quadrants. Public and private buildings are strictly planned. Caliph's great palace and the Mosque occupy the highest part of the site in the South-east quarter; small palaces and the baths are in the North-east quarter. Residential areas and secondary functions are located in the North-west and South-west quarters. At its peak period, Anjar had more than 600 shops, Roman style baths, two palaces and a mosque. 

Amazingly, this Umayyad city was never completed. It had only a brief existence in 744. After Walid's son Caliph Ibrahim was defeated by Marwan Ben Mohammed, the last Umayyad caliph, Anjar was abandoned, destroyed and forgotten by the world until the archaeologists discovered this ancient city at the end of 1940s. 

As our guide correctly said, the unique character of Anjar was, its elegant and monumental design of a Roman or Christian city, but constructed and utilized by the Umayyad civilization for a relatively short period of time. 

Anjar is listed as UNESCO World Heritage site since 1984.

Baalbeck

After Anjar, we continued our journey to visit Baalbeck, (85km from Beirut) an ancient Roman city located at the foot of the south-west slope of Mountain Anti-Lebanon at the other side of the Bekka Valley. We eventually crossed the Bekka Valley from its west spot, Anjar to east spot, Baalbeck. Baalbeck is of course also located on two historical trading routes: one is between the Mediterranean cost and Syria; another between northern Syria and northern Palestine. 

The remaining vestiges in Baalbeck are true impressive and monumental. The complex of Baalbeck comprises several temples. The most prominent temples are Jupiter, Venus and Bacchus. Mercury as the fourth temple is located on a hill nearby.  

Baalbeck was built by the Romans on the basis of a Phoenician agricultural village. "Baal" in Phoenician term means "God" or Lord". Therefore, Baalbeck means "God of the Bekka Valley". The Romans arrived in Phoenicia in 64BC. The first building work of Jupiter Temple started from late 1BC during the period of Emperor Augustus and completed 60AD.   

After climbing the staircase, we first entered the Grand Court, the construction began at around 100AD. The Court was originally surrounded by 128 rose granite columns from Aswan, Egypt. Due to earthquakes and removal for other usages(i.e. building Hagia Sophia in Istanbul), there are only 6 columns remain standing in the Court nowadays. The Court contained several religious buildings and altars. 

Then the remaining of Temple Jupiter, its impressive eastern facade appeared in front of our eyes. The original columns of Temple Jupiter was 54. Each of them raised 20 metres high above the ground and weighted 60 tons each. Our guide took us to the western side-gate leading to a small terrace where we could see the walls built by 24 monoliths. The unique of the western wall is the second course of monoliths - so called the famous trilithon, a row of three gigantic limestones, each 20 metres long, 4.3 metres high and 3.6 metres wide, weighted approximately 800 tones each! How did they manage to move them at all?!

Temple Bacchus

                            Inside the Temple Bacchus


The best reserved part of Baalbeck is the Temple of Bacchus which is adjacent to the Temple Jupiter. Bacchus was constructed around 125 to 25 AD. This temple was dedicated to Bacchus (known as Dionysus), the Roman's wine god. The whole temple is 66m long, 35m wide and 31m high. Along the walls, there are 42 Corinthian columns (20m high each) decorating the whole temple. Luckily, 19 of the columns remain still standing. 



Inside the temple, it is also decorated by the smaller Corinthian columns which flanking two levels of niches on each side, symbolizing the birth and life of Bacchus. The adyton (the unaccessible inner-shrine) is above the steps. I was very much amazed by the carved arch, ceiling and also the fine reliefs. 

Unfortunately, we were not able to approach the Temple of Venus due to UNESCO's on-going project of connecting the area of Temple Venus together with the other two temple areas. Our guide told us that the project would be completed in 5 years. This means, we should come back to visit Baalbeck again in 5 years. 

Text and some photos by Meng Zhang
Reference: UNESCO and wikipedia