Baalbek, Lebanon - Temples of Jupiter & Bacchus - RP postcard c.1950s

• Postcard

   

• Picture / Image:  Baalbeck [Baalbek] [Lebanon] - collonades du temple de Jupiter et temple de Bacchus 
• Publisher: Bab Edriss, Beirut
• Postally used: no
• Stamp:  n/a
• Postmark(s): n/a
• Sent to:  n/a
• Notes / condition: 

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Text from the free encyclopedia WIKIPEDIA may appear below to give a little background information (internal links may not  work) :

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Baalbek (/ˈbɑːlbɛk/),[1] properly Baʿalbek[2] (Arabic: بعلبك‎, romanized: Ba’labakk, Syriac-Aramaic: ܒܥܠܒܟ) and also known as Balbec,[3] Baalbec[4] or Baalbeck,[5] is a city located east of the Litani River in Lebanon's Beqaa Valley, about 85 km (53 mi) northeast of Beirut. It is the capital of Baalbek-Hermel Governorate.[6] In Greek and Roman times Baalbek was also known as Heliopolis. In 1998 Baalbek had a population of 82,608, mostly Shia Muslims, followed by Sunni Muslims and Christians.[7]

It is home to the Baalbek temple complex which includes two of the largest and grandest Roman temple ruins: the Temple of Bacchus and the Temple of Jupiter. It was inscribed in 1984 as an UNESCO World Heritage site.

A few miles from the swamp from which the Litani (the classical Leontes) and the Asi (the upper Orontes) flow, Baalbek may be the same as the manbaa al nahrein ("Source of the Two Rivers"), the abode of El in the Ugaritic Baal Cycle[8] discovered in the 1920s and a separate serpent incantation.[9][10]

Baalbek was called Heliopolis during the Roman Empire, a latinisation of the Greek Hēlioúpolis (Ἡλιούπολις) used during the Hellenistic Period, [11] meaning "Sun City"[12] in reference to the solar cult there. The name is attested under the Seleucids and Ptolemies.[13] However, Ammianus Marcellinus notes that earlier "Assyrian" names of Levantine towns continued to be used alongside the official Greek ones imposed by the Diadochi, who were successors of Alexander the Great.[14] In Greek religion, Helios was both the sun in the sky and its personification as a god. The local Semitic god Baʿal Haddu was more often equated with Zeus or Jupiter or simply called the "Great God of Heliopolis",[15][a] but the name may refer to the Egyptians' association of Baʿal with their great god Ra.[13][b] It was sometimes described as Heliopolis in Syria or Coelesyria (Latin: Heliopolis Syriaca or Syriae) to distinguish it from its namesake in Egypt. In Catholicism, its titular see is distinguished as Heliopolis in Phoenicia, from its former Roman province Phoenice. The importance of the solar cult is also attested in the name Biḳāʿ al-ʿAzīz borne by the plateau surrounding Baalbek, as it references an earlier solar deity and not later men, named Aziz. In Greek and Roman antiquity, it was known as Heliopolis. It still possesses some of the best-preserved Roman ruins in Lebanon, including one of the largest temples of the empire. The gods that were worshipped there (Jupiter, Venus, and Bacchus) were equivalents of the Canaanite deities Hadad, Atargatis. Local influences are seen in the planning and layout of the temples, as they vary from the classic Roman design. [18]

The name bʿlbk is first attested in the Mishnah, a second-century rabbinic text, as a geographic epithet for a kind of garlic, shum ba'albeki (שום בעלבכי).[19] Two early 5th-century Syriac manuscripts, a c. 411[17] translation of Eusebius's Theophania[20][21] and a c. 435[22] life of Rabbula, bishop of Edessa.[23][17] It was pronounced as Baʿlabakka[24] or Baʿlabakku (بَعْلَبَكّ) in Classical Arabic.[10] In Modern Standard Arabic, its vowels are marked as Baʿlabak[25] or Baʿlabekk[26] (بَعْلَبَك) or Bʿalbik[25] (بْعَلْبِك), the latter of which is pronounced [ˈbʕalbik] in Lebanese Arabic.[citation needed]

The etymology of Baalbek has been debated indecisively[18] since the 18th century.[10] Cook took it to mean "Baʿal (Lord) of the Beka"[17] and Donne as "City of the Sun".[27] Lendering asserts that it is probably a contraction of Baʿal Nebeq ("Lord of the Source" of the Litani River).[12] Steiner proposes a Semitic adaption of "Lord Bacchus", from the classical temple complex.[10]

On the basis of its similar name, several 19th-century Biblical archaeologists attempted to connect Baalbek to the "Baalgad" mentioned in the Hebrew Scripture's Book of Joshua,[28] the Baalath listed among Solomon's cities in the First Book of Kings,[29][30] the Baal-hamon where he had a vineyard,[31][4] and the "Plain of Aven" in Amos.[32][33]

The Temple of Bacchus is part of the Baalbek temple complex located in the broad Al-biqā (Bekaa Valley), Lebanon.[1] The temple complex is considered an outstanding archaeological and artistic site of Imperial Roman Architecture and was inscribed as an UNESCO World Heritage site in 1984.[1] The Temple of Bacchus is one of the best preserved and grandest Roman temple ruins; its age is unknown, but its fine ornamentation and can be dated to the second century CE.

The temple was probably commissioned by Roman Emperor Antoninus Pius (r. AD 138-161). No information was recorded about the site until a 4th-century Greek conquest, by which point the temple would likely have been closed due to the persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire. When the complex fell into disrepair, the Temple of Bacchus was possibly protected by the rubble of the rest of the site's ruins.

It was not until 1898-1903 that a German Expedition excavated two of the large temples and began reconstructions on the site. In 1920 The State of Greater Lebanon was proclaimed and protections and repairs of the site were mandated by the Lebanese government.

In the mid-1970s the Lebanese civil war broke out and protections of the site ceased as Al-Biqā became a stronghold for Palestinian, Hezbollah and Syrian forces. [2] In 1984 the ruins at Baalbek were inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage site.[1] Preservation of the site began in the 1990s following the end of the war.

The German Archaeological Institute's Orient Department has done a number of archaeological excavations and research on The Temple of Bacchus and the entire temple complex.[3] The site is continually being researched and assessed, such as documentation of reliefs and sculptures, archaeozoological research on fauna in the ruins, urban development and its relationship to Baalbek. All current research on Bacchus and Baalbek from the Orient Department of The German Archaeological Institute can be found on their website.