Баальбек: кому принадлежит древнее чудо архитектурной мысли?

Баальбек: кому принадлежит древнее чудо... по MihaiDohot

Misterul blocurilor uriase de piatra din Baalbek

Anticul oras Baalbek ascunde unul dintre cele mai mari mistere ale arheologiei, amplasat la est de răul Litani in valea Bekaa din estul Libanului de azi, este celebru pentru impresionantele ruine ale templelor construite de către romani. 

Oraşul era cunoscut pe vremea romanilor sub numele de Heliopolis, aici romanii au ridicat un complex alcatuit din trei temple dedicate lui Jupiter Bacchus si Venus, acestea fiind printre cele mai mari si mai grandioase temple de acest fel. 

Postcard From...Baalbek

The mighty Roman ruins of Baalbek jut dramatically out of the fertile plains of Lebanon's Bekaa valley. They have drawn visitors for centuries, as chronicled in the graffiti of ancient travellers scrawled into the vast limestone walls and columns.

But with the spiralling civil war in neighbouring Syria and numerous countries warning against travel to Lebanon, this tourist season has been a tough one. On a recent trip the touts selling Hezbollah T-shirts and guidebooks outnumbered the smattering of visitors.

Baalbek (Heliopolis)

Baalbek or Heliopolis (Ἡλιούπολις, "sun city"): town in the northern Bekaa valley, site of the largest sanctuary in the Roman world.

Origins

As a site of human occupation, Baalbek is extremely old. An archaeological sounding in the Great Court of the temple of Jupiter revealed ceramics from a settlement from the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age (i.e., the fourth and third millenniums BCE), as well as architectural remains from the Middle Bronze Age (about 1950-1600). 

Mysterious megalith movers

Megalithic structures appear all over the planet. What over 50,000 structures all have in common are their weight, size and antiquity, exhibiting precise stonemasonry, fitting rocks together with perfect precision: something that is even difficult by today’s standards. The Great Pyramids, Stonehenge, Tiahuanaco in South America, the lost pyramids of Peru, the monuments of Eater Island are just some examples of monolithic structures. 

There may have been and, may still be, more than 50,000 structures, but some were destroyed by the environment and by human stupidity, not to mention some that may still remain hidden underneath the earth and ocean waiting to be discovered. The age of these monolithic monuments is hard to determine since there is no process to date stones, only the objects found around them, which does not really date the stones themselves, but the civilization around them.