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THE STONE TRAVELER
After thousands of years, the stonework in Baalbek, Lebanon, remains a mystery, as locals debate whether it was achieved through Roman genius or by the work of the gods
Imagine an architect's specification that called for the foundation of a massive platform to be built of limestone blocks in sizes between 63 and 65 feet long, 14 feet 6 inches high and 12 feet deep and weighing in the neighborhood of 1,000 tons each.
The stereobate or platform that once held the Temple of Jupiter in Baalbek, Lebanon called for such a specification, but the architects and engineers who built it in the first century BC left no indication of how they accomplished such a massive construction challenge. The limestone blocks were quarried about a quarter of a mile away from the construction site and made up the lower course of the foundation. How they were transported and positioned so precisely remains a mystery. There are no records of whether the Romans were capable of such an engineering masterpiece and debates go on as to whether the platform was built by the Romans or, according to some local folklore, whether it was built by a pantheon of superhuman giants.
Archaeologists suggest that Baalbek had its beginnings as a stopping place for traders and their caravans between Palmyra and Damascus in Syria and the Levantine coastal cities. Excavations indicate the site was occupied as early as 2300 BC by the Phoenicians, a sea-faring people known in the Bible as the Canaanites who worshipped the god Baal. When Alexander the Great marched through the Beqa'a Valley on the way to Damascus in 334 BC, Baalbek was known as Heliopolis, the "city of the sun," the name given to this important religious center by the Ptolemies of Egypt, the rulers of the time.
When Julius Caesar made Baalbek a Roman colony in 27 BC, its purpose as a religious center continued, but with great Roman exuberance, and the golden age began. Construction on three major and several minor temples began and was to continue for the next 150 years. Jupiter, the most important of the Roman gods, was the principle deity to preside over the monumental city until the Roman Empire converted...