Ramadan Getaway
Image of what Baalbek orginally looked like
The history of Baalbek dates back around 5000 years[citation needed].
Excavations near the Jupiter
temple have revealed the existence of ancient human habitation dating to the Early Bronze Age (2900-2300 BC). The Phoenicians settled in Baalbek as early as 2000 BC
and built their first temple dedicated to the God Baal, the Sun God, from whom the city gets its name (taken from Wikipedia)
Baalbeck today
Day 2 - Baalbeck, Lebanon
Our day began with 5 (BLONDE) girls piling in a rental car named, Sunny
It was a drizzly morning as we headed North, up the mountains
The car was small but it got us up the mountains
Until....
A man flagged us down to let us know we had a flat tire
We pulled over
Knew we could change our flat ourselves
A man in a very tiny car pulled over and insisted he change the tire for us - in the Middle Eas
t
women just don't do such things
Us, being 5 independent women from the US were a little annoyed but whatever he can get himself dirty
After tire was put on we tried to thank the guy and push him on his way
We finally start driving and it just doesn't feel right
We pull over at a gas station a 1/4 mile down the road
A nice Lebanese man who lived in the states for a number of years starts swearing
Uh oh, no - he wasn't swearing at us - he was swearing at the idiot who put our spare tire on
Apparently the idiot put the lug nuts on backwards - is that even possible???
Then the man looked at our other front tire and said it was completely bald and we should not b
e driving on it
He decided to put the spare tire on in place of the bald tire
And took the flat tire and pounded and pounded until there wasn't pressure on the tire and filled it up again
Then he swore some more and told us the guy that rented this car should burn in hell
or something like that
So off we went
The spare tire on the drivers side
The semi-repaired tire on the passengers side
The nice man wouldn't take money from us
He only wanted to make sure we emailed him the picture we took of him with all of us
A few pictures of the tire incident(s)
The guy in the black shirt is the idiot
The guy in the white shirt is the nice one who helped us out
***Check out the video to see how hard he worked
And finally we arrived in Baalbek
Town of Baalbek
I have been to Rome and seen the Colosseum
I have been to Tikal and seen the Mayan Ruins
And now I have seen the largest Roman Ruins that exist
Scooter, Abby, and Amy on the top floor of a restaurant that overlooks the ruins
Refugee camp on the way to baalbek
Megan getting wrapped
Graffiti on the ruins from the late 1800s
This picture shows how during the crusades the crusaders took the pillars and used them to build their castles
History about Baalbek
Situated atop a high point in the fertile Bekaa valley, the ruins are one of the most extraordinary and enigmatic holy places of ancient times. Long before the Romans conquered the site and built their enormous temple of Jupiter, long even before the Phoenicians constructed a temple to the god Baal, there stood at Baalbek the largest stone block construction found in the entire world.
the history of Baalbek reaches back approximately 5000 years. Excavations beneath the Great Court of the Temple of Jupiter have uncovered traces of settlements dating to the Middle Bronze Age (1900-1600 BC) built on top of an older level of human habitation dating to the Early Bronze Age (2900-2300 BC). Biblical passages (I Kings, IX: 17-19) mention the name of King Solomon in connection with a place that may be ancient Baalbek (“And Solomon built Gezer and Beth-Horon, the lower, and Baalath and Tadmor in the wilderness”), but most scholars are hesitant to equate this Baalath with Baalbek and therefore deny any connection between Solomon and the ruins. Because the great stones of Baalbek are similar, though far larger, than the stones of the temple of Solomon in Jerusalem, archaic myths had arisen that Solomon erected both structures. If Solomon had really erected the site of Baalbek, however, it is astonishing that the Old Testament has mentioned nothing of the matter.
More from Wikipedia
When Alexander the Great conquered the Near East in 334 BC, Baalbek was renamed Heliopolis, Helios Greek for sun and Polis Greek for city. The city retained its religious function during Greco-Roman times, when the sanctuary of the Heliopolitan Jupiter-Baal was a pilgrimage site. Trajan's biographer records that the Emperor consulted the oracle there. Trajan inquired of the Heliopolitan Jupiter whether he would return alive from his wars against the Parthians. In reply, the god presented him with a vine shoot cut into pieces. Theodosius Macrobius, a Latin grammarian of the 5th century AD, mentioned Zeus Heliopolitanus and the temple, a place of oracular divination. Starting in the last quarter of the 1st century BC and over a period of two centuries, the Romans had built a temple complex in Baalbek consisting of three temples: Jupiter, Bacchus and Venus. On a nearby hill, they built a fourth temple dedicated to Mercury.
No comments:
Post a Comment