The Hand of the Cyclopes
'There still remain, however, parts of the city wall, including the gate, upon which stand lions. These, too, are said to be the work of the Cyclopes, who made for Proetus the wall at Tiryns.' (Pausanias - Description of Greece, 2nd Century AD)
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| Lebanon |
Our quest for the largest megaliths moved by man takes us to the ancient land of Lebannon, situated opposite the
Pillars of Hercules on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. Located on the northern Beqaa-Plain between the mountain ranges of Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, conjectured as being named from the semitic root '
lbn' = "
white" possibly referring to the snow topped Mount Lebanon. There is evidence of human habitation here stretching back at least 7,000 years with the earliest known settlements found in Byblos, considered to be one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, dating from before 5000 BC predating recorded history. The coastal strip of Lebanon was the home of the
Phoenicians, a seafaring race of ancient mariners that flourished for nearly 2,500 years (c.3000–530 BC) colonising many sea ports along the Mediterranean coast. Occupying a strategically important geographical location where east meets west, Lebannon has been ruled by many empires throughout history including Persian, Armenian, Assyrian, Hellenistic, Roman, Eastern Roman, Arab, Seljuk, Mamluk, Crusader, and Ottoman.
Baalbek is famous for its magnificent temple ruins, the site of the biggest and most famous sanctuary of Roman times, considered amongst the best preserved in the modern world. In 1984 UNESCO declared Baalbek a
World Heritage Site. Situated approximately 60 miles north east of the capital city Beirut, at an elevation of 3,800ft in the Beqaa valley, nestling between the rivers Litani and Asi, lies the town of Baalbek, named for the "
Lord (Baal) of the Beqaa valley", with its temple complex ruins perhaps the most enigmatic sacred site of ancient times.
Following two centuries of Persian rule, Alexander the Great attacked the Phoenician city of Tyre and conquered the Near East in 334 BC, the existing settlement of Baalbek was consequently re-named
Heliopolis, from the Greek '
Helios' = sun and '
Polis' = city, not to be confused with the Egyptian city of the same name. The city retained its religious function during Greco-Roman times, when the sanctuary of the
Heliopolitan Jupiter-Baal was a pilgrimage site for pilgrims travelling over a thousand miles from remote areas to to make offerings to their gods and receive prophesies from the oracles.
The Romans built magnificent temples for a triad of their gods in this ancient city of Heliopolis,
the City of the Sun. The greatest of the three temples was sacred to
Jupiter, identified with the sun, and claimed to have been constructed by the Romans during the first century AD, at the time it was the largest temple in the Roman Empire. A lesser temple, but the best-preserved Roman temple in the world, was dedicated to the Roman god
Bacchus. Within the temple complex was also a small, round temple, known as
The Temple of Venus, which was converted to a church during Byzantine times. Another small temple within the complex is named the
Temple of the Muses.
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| Plan of Baalbek Temple complex |
Construction of the Roman temples at Baalbek (Heliopolis) commenced in the final quarter of the 1st Century BC, and was nearing completion in the final years of Nero's reign, 37-68 AD. The Great Court Complex of the temple of Jupiter was built in the 2nd Century AD when construction of the Temple of Bacchus was started. Upon the declaration of Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire in 313 AD, the Byzantine Emperor Constantine shut down the pagan temples at Baalbek. Towards the end of the 4th Century AD Emperor Theodosius pulled down the altars of Jupiter's Great Court and built a basilica using existing stones from the temple. The remains of the three apses of this basilica, originally orientated to the west, can still be seen in the upper part of the stairway of the Temple of Jupiter. In 636 AD the Arabs transformed the temple complex into a fortress, or '
qal'a' a term still applied to the Acropolis today.
Jupiter – Baal
It was common practice under the Roman Empire for the local gods to be equated with Roman deities. At the Baalbek temples the Romans worshipped a cult of three deities known as the
Heliopolitan triad, (Jupiter, Venus and Mercury), that had been supplanted onto the indigenous deities of
Hadad (Baal),
Atargatis and the young male fertility god,
Adon.
Hadad equated with
Jupiter Heliopolitanus, Astarte, the great goddess
Venus Heliopolitana and
Adon, the god of spring and fertility, was equated with
Mercury (Hermes).
At Baalbek, the Roman god
Jupiter, lord of sky and thunder, was equated with the indigenous god
Hadad, a god of rain, thunder, fertility and agriculture, and the lord of Heaven. It is generally accepted that Baalbek derived its name as the Phoenician '
City of Baal' indicating that it was very likely that it was the site of a major cult for the storm god Baal, a well known Phoenician and Canaanite deity. However, we also find “
Ba'al” as a Northwest Semitic title and honorific meaning
'master' or
'lord' that was used for various gods, and we find in ancient texts that the name '
Ba‛al' can refer to any god or even to human officials. In some texts it is used as a substitute for
Hadad, the lord of Heaven. Only priests were permitted to utter the divine name
Hadad, commonly referred to simply as
Ba‘al (Lord). Therefore, confusingly, very few Biblical text references to
'Ba‛al' actually refer to
Hadad, but can be any number of local deities worshipped as cult images, each called
ba‛al. Hadad was a northwest Semitic storm god, cognate in name and origin with the Akkadian god
Adad.
Hadad was also equated with the Anatolian storm-god
Teshub, the Egyptian god
Set, the Greek god
Zeus, and the Roman god
Jupiter, which tends to support the connection at Baalbek. In the Canaanite pantheon,
Hadad was the
son of El, who had once been their primary god.
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Reconstruction of the Roman Temple complex at Baalbek
The triad of Jupiter, Venus and Mercury was extraordinarily popular in the Roman world: altars dedicated to the Heliopolitan triad are found, not only in the eastern provinces, but throughout the Empire, from the Balkans to Gaul. At Baalbek the best preserved temple is identified with Bacchus because of his popularity in Roman times in the region and the the carvings of grapes and opium poppies on the main door jamb and some carved Bacchic scenes. During the Byzantine period the temple of Venus was converted into a church dedicated to Saint Barbara who remains the patron saint of Baalbek to this day. Near the Temple of Venus are the remains of "The Temple of the Muses", dating from the beginning of the 1st Century AD. |
The Temple of Bacchus
The Temple of Bacchus is considered the best-preserved Roman temple of its size in the world. This has been attributed to the later Arab fortifications which prevented earthquakes from destroying it. Thirty-three steps lead to a monumental doorway, inside there are 46 columns linked by two rows of niches, which once housed statues. Historians believe that this temple witnessed some mysterious rituals and were not accessible to the un-initiated. The temple doubtless witnessed the culmination of the Roman year with the celebrations on 16th and 17th March, the feast days of
Bacchus.
Bacchus was the Roman adaptation of Dionysus the Greek '
God of Wine' the inspirer of ritual madness and ecstasy, he induced the frenzy known as
bakkheia. His own rites, the
Dionysian Mysteries, were the most secretive of all with a relationship to the '
cult of the souls' in his ability to preside over communication between the living and the dead. He is one of the twelve Olympians and a major figure of Greek mythology. He was also known as the
Liberator (Eleutherios), freeing one from one's normal self, by madness, ecstasy, or wine. Dionysus is a god of mystery religious rites, such as those practised in honour of Demeter and Persephone at Eleusis near Athens.
In the
Thracian mysteries, Dionysus wears the '
bassaris' or fox-skin, symbolizing new life. His female followers were the
maenads, the most significant members of the Thiasus, the retinue of Dionysus. Their name literally translates as '
raving ones'. Often the maenads were portrayed as being inspired by Dionysus into a state of ecstatic frenzy, through a combination of dance and intoxication, loosing all self-control, shouting excitedly, and engaging in uncontrolled sexual behaviour, and then ritualistically hunting down and tearing their victim, usually animals but occasionally even men and children, to pieces and devouring the raw flesh. During these rites, the maenads would dress in fawn skins. A group of maenads killed Orpheus in such a manner. The frolicking of maenads and Dionysus is often a theme depicted in the paintings of Greek kraters, a vessel used to mix water and wine. These scenes show the maenads in their frenzy running in the forests, often tearing to pieces any animal they happen to come across. In Roman mythology the female worshippers of Dionysus, the maenads, were known as
Bassarids (or Bacchae or Bacchantes) and celebrations in his honour were called the
Bacchanalia, after the penchant of the equivalent Roman god, Bacchus, to wear the fox-skin, the bassaris.
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The Temple of Bacchus
The Bacchic cult had been established in Greece for centuries and was established in Etruria and southern Italy and for also a period in Rome. In 186 BC the Roman Senate, alarmed at reports of deterioration in the ceremonies considered the cult a threat to the state and attempted to regulate the practice throughout the country. The Roman Senate attempted to ban the cult with the so-called Senatus consultum de Bacchanalibus, found inscribed on a bronze tablet in Calabria, now at Vienna, in which it decreed that the Bacchanalia were prohibited throughout all Italy except in certain special cases which must be approved specifically by the Senate. |
Titus Livius (59 BC – AD 17), known as Livy, in his monumental
History of Rome (Book 39.8-19) described the ban on Dionysan worship:
'The Senate decreed that the priests of these rites, male and female, were to be sought out..........This Dionysiac mystery-cult, according to the consul is a growing evil; its adherents grow more numerous every day it weakens loyalty to the state; it is a conspiracy; it is the sole cause of all the evils of recent years; and unless we are vigilant, it will take over the state (for that is their aim)......The next task entrusted to the consuls was the destruction of all shrines of Bacchic worship, first at Rome and then throughout Italy...for the future it was provided by decree of the Senate that there should be no Bacchanalia in Rome or Italy.'
The Temple of Jupiter
Unlike Bacchus’s temple, not much remains of the
Temple of Jupiter but the most notable sight, even from some distance, is the six gigantic Corinthian columns still-standing, the largest in the ancient world. Originally, there were 54 of these columns, each about 72 feet high, dwarfing the 24 foot-high columns of Rome’s Acropolis. The Jupiter temple complex has four sections: the monumental staircase entrance, or
Propylaea, leading into the Hexagonal Court, then into the Great Court and finally a further staircase to the Temple itself, where the six remaining columns were built on a podium 22 feet above the Court and possibly un-roofed and open to the elements. These massive six columns and the entablature provide a glimpse of the vast scale of the original structure, measuring 157.5 feet in width and 288.7 feet in length, the complex of the Temple of Jupiter completely dwarfs the Temple of Bacchus and the other structures. It has been suggested that the great columns, constructed of Aswan granite, appear to have been reworked from an earlier possibly Hellenistic style.
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| The Six surviving columns of the Jupiter Temple |
The Temple Podium was built of some of the most gigantic stones ever crafted by man. At the side of the podium, incorporated into the west wall, is the
'Trilithon', consisting of three enormous stones weighing an estimated 800 – 1000 tons each, mounted on another course of blocks weighing around 350 - 400 tons each.
Legend records the first temple at Baalbek as the construction of Cain before the Deluge and rebuilt by a race of giants under the command of Nimrod after the flood; the work of the Cyclopes.
Hand of the Cyclopes Part II:
The Ancient Mystery of Baalbek
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