Many scientists (for example, physicist M. Agrest) believe that the remains of ancient structures have survived on Earth, which amaze with their scale, design features and other "mysterious" details. These include the Stonehenge cromlechs, the mysterious trilithons of the Baalbek Terrace, which are gigantic, roughly cut boulders. Baalbek's stone platforms are up to 20 meters long and weigh about 1000 tons. These blocks were brought from the quarry and raised to a height of 7 meters - a task that is difficult to solve even with the help of powerful means of modern technology.
In the quarry itself, a huge monolith, hewn, but not yet separated from the rock, remained. Its length is 21 meters, width is almost 5 meters, height is 4.2 meters. It would take a combined effort of 40,000 people to move such a block. Until now, such questions remain unresolved as: by whom, when and for what purposes were these huge slabs laid in the foundation of Baalbek carved?
… But first there was Heliopolis - a small but rich Semitic city, so named by the Seleucids in honor of the sun god. And earlier the city was called Baal Bek - the City of Baal, which was the center of the Phoenician religion. Men in this city were famous for their eloquence, and women for their beauty, the best flutists in the world lived here and there were beautiful temples dedicated to the Sun.
A wide valley is visible from the mountain pass, on the other side of which there are red and purple slopes of the Anti-Lebanon ridge, on the tops of which there is snow for six months. The southern part of the valley is a lake overgrown with reeds; to the north, the area rises, and there, among the rivers flowing down to the lake, stands Baalbek.
The main temple of the city, built in time immemorial, was dedicated to the Aramaic god of lightning and thunder Hadad, who had the power to send rain to the fields to ripen the harvest … And he had the power to send a downpour to destroy this harvest … The head of the god was crowned with rays. During the Seleucid times, Hadad was identified with the sun god, and therefore the temple of Hadad became the temple of Jupiter Heliopolitanus. It was rebuilt and expanded, the number of pilgrims grew, and the famous temple gave a new name to the city - Heliopolis.
Under the emperor Caracalla, the construction of the temple began in full force, which Antony Pius decided to build on the site of the old temple of Jupiter. The Temple of the Sun (and, in general, the entire acropolis, rebuilt by the emperor) delighted travelers and pilgrims. Nothing could compare with this acropolis in the capital itself, and in the entire Roman Empire. Many years later, when the Arabs took possession of Baalbek and turned the acropolis into a fortress, they were sure that the great king Solomon had built it. After all, no one except him possessed power over the jinn, and except for the jinn, no one could have built such a temple.
An enormous staircase, which could house an entire legion, led to the colonnade of the main entrance to the acropolis. The entrance arch, decorated with sculptures, was 15 meters high and 10 meters wide. Passing under it, the visitor entered a hexagonal courtyard, also surrounded by a colonnade. Behind it was the main courtyard of the acropolis, which occupied an area of more than a hectare. In the middle of this courtyard was a huge altar.
The columns that surrounded the square were valued almost their weight in gold. These porphyry columns were hewn in the quarries of Egypt, near the Red Sea. They were processed and polished in Egypt, then dragged to the Nile, loaded onto ships and taken to Beirut. And from there, they were dragged through the mountains to Heliopolis. The same columns are found in Rome and even in Palmyra. Compared to the columns of the Temple of Jupiter itself, they may seem small, but still their weight reaches several tons.
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The temple stood on a huge platform, which in turn was located on slabs. Each slab is 20 meters long, almost 5 meters high, and more than 4 meters wide. It was not easy to cut down and deliver such a slab to the place, but the builders did not do it for the sake of legends about the jinn of King Solomon or unearthly aliens. There were vast basements under the temple, and the slabs served as ceilings for them, and most importantly, the Heliopolis area is prone to frequent earthquakes, so it was decided to build the foundation of the temple as large as possible.
But the work was beyond the power of even the best builders of the Roman Empire. Only three slabs were completely made and placed at the base of the temple. They later received the name "trilithons". Each of them weighs almost a thousand tons, each has enough stone to build a building 20 meters long, 15 meters high, with walls half a meter thick.
A fourth slab was supposed to lie at the base of the temple, but its place is taken by several smaller slabs. And she herself remained in the quarry not far from Baalbek. The slab is so big that a person who climbed on it looks like an ant on a suitcase. Having studied the fourth slab, scientists were able to restore not only the process of their manufacture, but also the method of their transportation to the temple, which required the long labor of thousands of slaves.
On a platform formed by the giant plates and their smaller sisters, stands the Temple of Jupiter. A three-span staircase leads to it, and each span is carved in the form of giant triangular prisms with 11-13 steps in each part. And the weight of each such part is about 400 tons!
The temple is surrounded by columns, the diameter of which is about 3 meters. They are higher in height than a 6-storey building. Each of the columns consists of three parts and weighs not much less than the slabs, and each is crowned with a magnificent capital holding a multi-ton frieze and cornice. The columns are so beautiful that one French writer said of them: "If they were not there, there would be less beauty in the world and less poetry under the Lebanese sky."
Inside the temple stood a golden statue of a god. Ancient authors wrote that he was beardless, young, dressed in a chariot's tunic, holding a thunderbolt in his right hand, and lightning and a sheaf of wheat in his left. On the days of annual festivities, the statue was carried in the hands of the most noble inhabitants of Heliopolis, who had been preparing for this day for a long time - they shaved their heads, kept fasting and abstinence.
The sacred black stones were hidden in the treasury of the temple, the cellars of the temple were filled with gold and jewels.
To the left of the Temple of Jupiter and a little lower than it stood another famous temple of the Acropolis - the Temple of Venus, which for some reason bears the name of Bacchus to this day. So it is called in the historical writings and notes of travelers.
Compared to the temple of Jupiter, it seemed small, but this does not mean at all that it was actually small. The preserved door 15 meters high already speaks of its size. The frieze of the temple was lined with stone panels decorated with bas-reliefs depicting Mars, Bacchus wearing a crown of vine leaves, Mercury, Pluto and Venus, clutching a spoiled Cupid to his chest.
In Christian times, Emperor Theodosius I in the 4th century ordered the construction of a cathedral on the site of the altar, just in the middle of the central square of the acropolis. But the cathedral was built in a hurry, cheaper and simpler, and therefore collapsed after a few ten years, leaving almost no trace. The hostile forces of nature also seemed to be waiting for the moment of weakening of Heliopolis. Several earthquakes hit the city one after another, and each brought numerous destruction. But the temple of Jupiter held on.
When the Arabs came after the Byzantines, they began to rebuild the acropolis with renewed vigor. By that time, the buildings that had stood for more than 500 years had lost their former strength: several magnificent columns of the Temple of Jupiter fell, their capitals rolled far across the courtyard of the acropolis. The earthquake destroyed most of the wall of the acropolis and the entrance to it.
The Arabs turned the acropolis into a fortress, and from the fallen slabs and columns they built new walls and bastions, and a mosque was built among the ruins. But the columns of Jupiter once again had a chance to see the change of gods. The crusaders captured the fortress and for some time defended themselves in it from the Damascus army. They managed to destroy the mosque and hastily restore the power of the Christian god. After a few weeks they retreated and the mullahs returned to the mosque.
In the first years of our century, the Kaiser of Germany himself became interested in Heliopolis. German archaeologists began to carry out systematic excavations of the city, cleared out a small round temple of Fortune, which almost did not suffer from time.
But no stormy vicissitudes could completely wipe out Baalbek and the Acropolis from the face of the earth. Roman and Lebanese architects built so thoroughly and seriously that in Baalbek most of all has been preserved from the Roman era.