Draft:History of Baalbek

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The history of Baalbek dates back over 9,000 years, and it has been a site of human habitation and religious significance since ancient times. The city has a rich and complex history influenced by various civilizations and cultures. The earliest known evidence of settlement in the Baalbek area dates back to the Neolithic period, around 7500 BCE. However, it was during the Hellenistic period that Baalbek began to gain prominence. Baalbek was called "Heliopolis" during the Roman Empire, a latinisation of the Greek Hēlioúpolis (Ἡλιούπολις) used during the Hellenistic period,[1] meaning "Sun City"[2] in reference to the solar cult there. The name is attested under the Seleucids and Ptolemies.[3]

In the 19th century, European explorers and archaeologists started to rediscover the ancient city of Baalbek and recognized its historical and architectural importance. Excavations and restoration efforts began in the 20th century and continue to this day, allowing visitors to appreciate the grandeur of the ancient ruins. Today, Baalbek is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a popular tourist destination. Its well-preserved Roman temples and structures, including the Temple of Jupiter and the Temple of Bacchus, continue to attract visitors from around the world, showcasing the city's rich history and architectural heritage.

Prehistory[edit]

The hilltop of Tell Baalbek, part of a valley to the east of the northern Beqaa Valley[4] (Latin: Coelesyria),[5] shows signs of almost continual habitation over the last 8–9000 years.[6] It was well-watered both from a stream running from the Rās-el-ʿAin spring SE of the citadel[7] and, during the spring, from numerous rills formed by meltwater from the Anti-Lebanons.[8] Macrobius later credited the site's foundation to a colony of Egyptian or Assyrian priests.[8] The settlement's religious, commercial, and strategic importance was minor enough, however, that it is never mentioned in any known Assyrian or Egyptian record,[9] unless under another name.[10] Its enviable position in a fertile valley, major watershed, and along the route from Tyre to Palmyra should have made it a wealthy and splendid site from an early age.[10][11] During the Canaanite period, the local temples were largely devoted to the Heliopolitan Triad: a male god (Baʿal), his consort (Astarte), and their son (Adon).[12] The site of the present Temple of Jupiter was probably the focus of earlier worship, as its altar was located at the hill's precise summit and the rest of the sanctuary raised to its level.

In Islamic mythology, the temple complex was said to have been a palace of Solomon's[13] which was put together by djinn[14][15][16] and given as a wedding gift to the Queen of Sheba;[17] its actual Roman origin remained obscured by the citadel's medieval fortifications as late as the 16th-century visit of the Polish prince Radziwiłł.[18][19]

Antiquity[edit]

Reconstruction of Temple of Jupiter/Baalbek
Roman Heliopolis and its surroundings in the 2nd and the 3rd century.

After Alexander the Great's conquest of Persia in the 330s BC, Baalbek (under its Hellenic name Heliopolis) formed part of the Diadochi kingdoms of Egypt & Syria. It was annexed by the Romans during their eastern wars. The settlers of the Roman colony Colonia Julia Augusta Felix Heliopolitana may have arrived as early as the time of Caesar[10][8] but were more probably the veterans of the 5th and 8th Legions under Augustus,[11][20][21] during which time it hosted a Roman garrison.[10] From 15 BC to AD 193, it formed part of the territory of Berytus. It is mentioned in Josephus,[22] Pliny,[23] Strabo,[24] and Ptolemy[25] and on coins of nearly every emperor from Nerva to Gallienus.[10] The 1st-century Pliny did not number it among the Decapolis, the "Ten Cities" of Coelesyria, while the 2nd-century Ptolemy did.[25] The population likely varied seasonally with market fairs and the schedules of the Indian monsoon and caravans to the coast and interior.[26]

Corinthian capitals ornamenting the columns of the Temple of Bacchus

During Classical Antiquity, the city's temple to Baʿal Haddu was conflated first with the worship of the Greek sun god Helios[21] and then with the Greek and Roman sky god under the name "Heliopolitan Zeus" or "Jupiter". The present Temple of Jupiter presumably replaced an earlier one using the same foundation; it was constructed during the mid-1st century and probably completed around AD 60.[27] His idol was a beardless golden god in the pose of a charioteer, with a whip raised in his right hand and a thunderbolt and stalks of grain in his left;[30] its image appeared on local coinage and it was borne through the streets during several festivals throughout the year. Macrobius compared the rituals to those for Diva Fortuna at Antium and says the bearers were the principal citizens of the town, who prepared for their role with abstinence, chastity, and shaved heads. In bronze statuary attested from Byblos in Phoenicia and Tortosa in Spain, he was encased in a pillarlike term and surrounded (like the Greco-Persian Mithras) by busts representing the sun, moon, and five known planets.[31] In these statues, the bust of Mercury is made particularly prominent; a marble stela at Massilia in Transalpine Gaul shows a similar arrangement but enlarges Mercury into a full figure.[31] Local cults also revered the Baetylia, black conical stones considered sacred to Baʿal.[26] One of these was taken to Rome by the emperor Elagabalus, a former priest "of the sun" at nearby Emesa,[32] who erected a temple for it on the Palatine Hill.[26] Heliopolis was a noted oracle and pilgrimage site, whence the cult spread far afield, with inscriptions to the Heliopolitan god discovered in Athens, Rome, Pannonia, Venetia, Gaul, and near the Wall in Britain.[29] The Roman temple complex grew up from the early part of the reign of Augustus in the late 1st century BC until the rise of Christianity in the 4th century. (The 6th-century chronicles of John Malalas of Antioch, which claimed Baalbek as a "wonder of the world",[32] credited most of the complex to the 2nd-century Antoninus Pius, but it is uncertain how reliable his account is on the point.)[18] By that time, the complex housed three temples on Tell Baalbek: one to Jupiter Heliopolitanus (Baʿal), one to Venus Heliopolitana (Ashtart), and a third to Bacchus. On a nearby hill, a fourth temple was dedicated to the third figure of the Heliopolitan Triad, Mercury (Adon or Seimios[33]). Ultimately, the site vied with Praeneste in Italy as the two largest sanctuaries in the Western world.

The emperor Trajan consulted the site's oracle twice. The first time, he requested a written reply to his sealed and unopened question; he was favorably impressed by the god's blank reply as his own paper had been empty.[34] He then inquired whether he would return alive from his wars against Parthia and received in reply a centurion's vine staff, broken to pieces.[35] In AD 193, Septimius Severus granted the city ius Italicum rights.[36] His wife Julia Domna and son Caracalla toured Egypt and Syria in AD 215; inscriptions in their honour at the site may date from that occasion; Julia was a Syrian native whose father had been an Emesan priest "of the sun" like Elagabalus.[32]

The town became a battleground upon the rise of Christianity.[33] Early Christian writers such as Eusebius (from nearby Caesarea) repeatedly execrated the practices of the local pagans in their worship of the Heliopolitan Venus. In AD 297, the actor Gelasinus converted in the middle of a scene mocking baptism; his public profession of faith provoked the audience to drag him from the theater and stone him to death.[33][10] In the early 4th century, the deacon Cyril defaced many of the idols in Heliopolis; he was killed and (allegedly) cannibalised.[33] Around the same time, Constantine, though not yet a Christian, demolished the goddess' temple, raised a basilica in its place, and outlawed the locals' ancient custom of prostituting women before marriage.[33] Bar Hebraeus also credited him with ending the locals' continued practice of polygamy.[37] The enraged locals responded by raping and torturing Christian virgins.[33] They reacted violently again under the freedom permitted to them by Julian the Apostate.[10] The city was so noted for its hostility to the Christians that Alexandrians were banished to it as a special punishment.[10] The Temple of Jupiter, already greatly damaged by earthquakes,[38] was demolished under Theodosius in 379 and replaced by another basilica (now lost), using stones scavenged from the pagan complex.[39] The Easter Chronicle states he was also responsible for destroying all the lesser temples and shrines of the city.[40] Around the year 400, Rabbula, the future bishop of Edessa, attempted to have himself martyred by disrupting the pagans of Baalbek but was only thrown down the temple stairs along with his companion.[39] It became the seat of its own bishop as well.[10] Under the reign of Justinian, eight of the complex's Corinthian columns were disassembled and shipped to Constantinople for incorporation in the rebuilt Hagia Sophia sometime between 532 and 537.[citation needed] Michael the Syrian claimed the golden idol of Heliopolitan Jupiter was still to be seen during the reign of Justin II (560s & 570s),[39] and, up to the time of its conquest by the Muslims, it was renowned for its palaces, monuments, and gardens.[41]

Middle Ages[edit]

The ruins of a Baalbek mosque c. 1900
The probable remains of a medieval mosque in front of some of the Mamluk fortifications

Baalbek was occupied by the Muslim army in AD 634 (AH 13),[39] in 636,[42] or under Abu ʿUbaidah following the Byzantine defeat at Yarmouk in 637 (AH 16),[citation needed] either peacefully and by agreement[17] or following a heroic defense and yielding 2,000 oz (57 kg) of gold, 4,000 oz (110 kg) of silver, 2000 silk vests, and 1000 swords.[41] The ruined temple complex was fortified under the name al-Qala' (lit. "The Fortress")[39] but was sacked with great violence by the Damascene caliph Marwan II in 748, at which time it was dismantled and largely depopulated.[41] It formed part of the district of Damascus under the Umayyads and Abbasids before being conquered by Fatimid Egypt in 942.[17]

Umayyads[edit]

Abbasids[edit]

Fatimids[edit]

Mamluk[edit]

In the mid-10th century, it was said to have "gates of palaces sculptured in marble and lofty columns also of marble" and that it was the most "stupendous" and "considerable" location in the whole of Syria.[42] It was sacked and razed by the Byzantines under John I in 974,[17] raided by Basil II in 1000,[43] and occupied by Salih ibn Mirdas, emir of Aleppo, in 1025.[17]

In 1075, it was finally lost to the Fatimids on its conquest by Tutush I, Seljuk emir of Damascus.[17] It was briefly held by Muslim ibn Quraysh, emir of Aleppo, in 1083; after its recovery, it was ruled in the Seljuks' name by the eunuch Gümüshtegin until he was deposed for conspiring against the usurper Toghtekin in 1110.[17] Toghtekin then gave the town to his son Buri. Upon Buri's succession to Damascus on his father's death in 1128, he granted the area to his son Muhammad.[17] After Buri's murder, Muhammad successfully defended himself against the attacks of his brothers Ismaʿil and Mahmud and gave Baalbek to his vizier Unur.[17]

Siege of Baalbek[edit]

In July 1139, Zengi, atabeg of Aleppo and stepfather of Mahmud, besieged Baalbek with 14 catapults. The outer city held until 10 October and the citadel until the 21st,[44] when Unur surrendered upon a promise of safe passage.[45] In December, Zengi negotiated with Muhammad, offering to trade Baalbek or Homs for Damascus, but Unur convinced the atabeg to refuse.[44] Zengi strengthened its fortifications and bestowed the territory on his lieutenant Ayyub, father of Saladin. Upon Zengi's assassination in 1146, Ayyub surrendered the territory to Unur, who was acting as regent for Muhammad's son Abaq. It was granted to the eunuch Ata al-Khadim,[17] who also served as viceroy of Damascus.

In December 1151, it was raided by the garrison of Banyas as a reprisal for its role in a Turcoman raid on Banyas.[46] Following Ata's murder, his nephew Dahhak, emir of the Wadi al-Taym, ruled Baalbek. He was forced to relinquish it to Nur ad-Din in 1154[17] after Ayyub had successfully intrigued against Abaq from his estates near Baalbek. Ayyub then administered the area from Damascus on Nur ad-Din's behalf.[47] In the mid-12th century, Idrisi mentioned Baalbek's two temples and the legend of their origin under Solomon;[48] it was visited by the Jewish traveler Benjamin of Tudela in 1170.[18]

Baalbek's citadel served as a jail for Crusaders taken by the Zengids as prisoners of war.[49] In 1171, these captives successfully overpowered their guards and took possession of the castle from its garrison. Muslims from the surrounding area gathered, however, and entered the castle through a secret passageway shown to them by a local. The Crusaders were then massacred.[49]

Three major earthquakes occurred in the 12th century, in 1139, 1157, and 1170.[41] The one in 1170 ruined Baalbek's walls and, though Nur ad-Din repaired them, his young heir Ismaʿil was made to yield it to Saladin by a 4-month siege in 1174.[17] Having taken control of Damascus on the invitation of its governor Ibn al-Muqaddam, Saladin rewarded him with the emirate of Baalbek following the Ayyubid victory at the Horns of Hama in 1175.[50] Baldwin, the young leper king of Jerusalem, came of age the next year, ending the Crusaders' treaty with Saladin.[51] His former regent, Raymond of Tripoli, raided the Beqaa Valley from the west in the summer, suffering a slight defeat at Ibn al-Muqaddam's hands.[52] He was then joined by the main army, riding north under Baldwin and Humphrey of Toron;[52] they defeated Saladin's elder brother Turan Shah in August at Ayn al-Jarr and plundered Baalbek.[49] Upon the deposition of Turan Shah for neglecting his duties in Damascus, however, he demanded his childhood home[53] of Baalbek as compensation. Ibn al-Muqaddam did not consent and Saladin opted to invest the city in late 1178 to maintain peace within his own family.[54] An attempt to pledge fealty to the Christians at Jerusalem was ignored on behalf of an existing treaty with Saladin.[55] The siege was maintained peacefully through the snows of winter, with Saladin waiting for the "foolish" commander and his garrison of "ignorant scum" to come to terms.[56] Sometime in spring, Ibn al-Muqaddam yielded and Saladin accepted his terms, granting him Baʿrin, Kafr Tab, and al-Maʿarra.[56][57] The generosity quieted unrest among Saladin's vassals through the rest of his reign[54] but led his enemies to attempt to take advantage of his presumed weakness.[56] He did not permit Turan Shah to retain Baalbek very long, though, instructing him to lead the Egyptian troops returning home in 1179 and appointing him to a sinecure in Alexandria.[50] Baalbek was then granted to his nephew Farrukh Shah, whose family ruled it for the next half-century.[50] When Farrukh Shah died three years later, his son Bahram Shah was only a child but he was permitted his inheritance and ruled til 1230.[17] He was followed by al-Ashraf Musa, who was succeeded by his brother as-Salih Ismail,[17] who received it in 1237 as compensation for being deprived of Damascus by their brother al-Kamil.[58] It was seized in 1246 after a year of assaults by as-Salih Ayyub, who bestowed it upon Saʿd al-Din al-Humaidi.[17] When as-Salih Ayyub's successor Turan Shah was murdered in 1250, al-Nasir Yusuf, the sultan of Aleppo, seized Damascus and demanded Baalbek's surrender. Instead, its emir did homage and agreed to regular payments of tribute.[17]

The Mongolian general Kitbuqa took Baalbek in 1260 and dismantled its fortifications. Later in the same year, however, Qutuz, the sultan of Egypt, defeated the Mongols and placed Baalbek under the rule of their emir in Damascus.[17] Most of the city's still-extant fine mosque and fortress architecture dates to the reign of the sultan Qalawun in the 1280s.[citation needed] By the early 14th century, Abulfeda the Hamathite was describing the city's "large and strong fortress".[59] The revived settlement was again destroyed by a flood on 10 May 1318, when water from the east and northeast made holes 30 m (98 ft) wide in walls 4 m (13 ft) thick.[60] 194 people were killed and 1500 houses, 131 shops, 44 orchards, 17 ovens, 11 mills, and 4 aqueducts were ruined, along with the town's mosque and 13 other religious and educational buildings.[60] In 1400, Timur pillaged the town,[61] and there was further destruction from a 1459 earthquake.[62]

Ottoman rule and Harfuch dynasty[edit]

Baalbek & environs, c. 1856

The late Mamluk historian Ibn Tawq identifies an Ibn Harfush as a muqaddam of the Anti-Lebanon mountain villages al-Jebbeh and Assal al-Ward as early as 1483. Later, Ibn al-Himsi and Ibn Tulun mention one as deputy (na'ib) of Baalbek in 1498. The unnamed Ibn Harfush appears in an Ottoman archival source as early as 1516, when he and several other local notables signed a letter offering their submission to Sultan Selim I, but was executed in 1518 by Janbirdi al-Ghazali as a rebel.[63]

In 1516, Baalbek was conquered with the rest of Syria by the Ottoman sultan Selim the Grim.[62] In recognition of their prominence among the Shiites of the Beqaa Valley, the Ottomans awarded the sanjak of Homs and local iltizam concessions to Baalbek's Harfush family. Like the Hamadas, the Harfush emirs were involved on more than one occasion in the selection of Church officials and the running of local monasteries.

Sixteenth century[edit]

There is no further word on Musa Harfush's eventual participation in the Yemen campaign (which was in fact directed against the forces of the Zaydi Shiite imam), and in later years the Harfushes would be appointed sancak-beğs of Homs and Tadmur rather than of Sidon. If nothing else, his being selected to lead a tribal auxiliary division in return for an official governorship in 1568, more than twenty years before the Ma‘n family received their emiral title, points towards both the possibilities and the limits of Shiite enfranchisement under Ottoman rule: the progressive monetarization of provincial government and the privatization of military power in the later sixteenth century created a context in which non- Sunni tribal leaders constituted viable, even ideal, candidates for local tax and police concessions, accredited by the state and integrated into the imperial military administrative hierarchy. Yet their success would also depend on their ability to hold sway locally, to transcend their narrow parochial bases, raise revenues and capitalize on western Syria's changing economic situation. The Harfush emirs were among the first in the region to be co-opted by the Ottoman state, but would in the long run not stand up to the competition of other local forces.[64]

Turning Sidon-Beirut into a beğlerbeğlik[edit]

As elsewhere in the empire, administrative units such as sancaks, eyalets and tax farms were not precisely delimited but could be reorganized according to the government's needs or the assignee's personal importance. The Ottomans briefly contemplated turning Sidon-Beirut into a beğlerbeğlik under ‘Ali Harfush in 1585; starting in 1590 Fakhr al-Din Ma‘n and his sons held Safad and then Sidon-Beirut for many years as sancak-beğs.[65]

Seventeenth century[edit]

Battle of ‘Anjar[edit]

The Harfush leader Emir Yunus al-Harfush was in a conflict with the Lebanese Druze lord Fakhr al-Din in the early 1600s because of that conflict Fakhr al-Din decided to pull into the Bekaa valley. The Harfush dynasty wanted to take over the Ma'an family realm during Fakhr al-Din's exile. Yunus had an ally, Mustafa Pasha who was the governor of Damascus. Yunus and Pasha wanted to take the sanjak of Safad from Fakhr al-Din. Fakhr al-din returned from Italy, marched across the Bekaa. He captured Mustafa Pasha and defeated the Harfush's Emir.

Bekaa Valley before and after the battle of ‘Anjar can be obtained from a recently published register of iltizam appointments for the province of Damascus. Covering the years 1616 to 1635, the register among other things provides documentary evidence of the Harfushes’ growing marginalization as well as of the rise of the Shihabis of Wadi Taym as new contenders for government tax farms in the region. Beginning in 1618, for example, around the time of Fakhr al-Din's return from Tuscany, Yunus Harfush came under pressure to renounce the income normally due to the emin of Baalbek from the village of ‘Aytha, after the mufti of Damascus (a native of ‘Aytha) had petitioned for it to be set aside for himself in the supposed interest of reviving and repopulating the area. Even in later years, after the Harfushes had retaken control of the Bekaa from the Ma‘ns and the mufti was long dead, the village remained formally excluded from their holdings. The register also sheds light on the administrative context of the fitna (strife) between the Harfushes and Ma‘ns in 1623–24. It corroborates local chroniclers’ claims that Fakhr al-Din offered to send the sultan 100,000 gold coins for the Baalbek tax concession, but casts doubt on the notion that the governor of Damascus simply ‘paid no heed’ to the offer or ignored the Sublime Porte's orders to instate him. Fakhr al-Din's offer was matched by Yunus, and the iltizam was reconfirmed to his son ‘Ali Harfush by the kadıs of Damascus and Baalbek immediately after the battle of ‘Anjar.[66]

There was at least one Imami scholar from the Bekaa by the name of Harfush in the Ottoman period: Muhammad ibn ‘Ali al-Harfushi (died 1649), a cloth-maker, grammarian and poet from Karak Nuh, was apparently persecuted for rafd in Damascus and then moved to Iran, where he received an official state post.[63]

Eighteenth century[edit]

The battle of Ayn Dara[edit]

The Harfushes appear to have been back in control of Baalbek by 1702, when local accounts indicate that a Christian shaykh of ‘Aqura in Mt Lebanon entered emir Husayn’s (Harfush) service as yazıcı, or secretary, on account of his Turkish skills. In 1711, French consular reports suggest, Husayn Harfush gave shelter to Haydar Shihabi and then supplied 2,500 troops to help him wipe out his Druze rivals in the Battle of Ain Dara, and establish himself as sole emir of the Shuf. curiously not addressed in H. A. al-Shihabi or any other chronicles of the period.[67]

Support to the Shiites of Mount Lebanon[edit]

The Ottoman court historian Raşid (d. 1735) telescopes several important events into his official account (but omits the atrocities committed against the Shiite villagers). The Hamadas, who were supported by the ʿAwjan as well as the Harfush, were caught in heavy snows while fleeing toward Baalbek. An estimated 150 men perished. Only the Khazins now prevented the wholesale slaughter of the survivors, by disingenuously claiming they had no permission from Maan to leave the province of Tripoli, and directed the imperial forces elsewhere. Still, Ali Paşa was not to be satisfied. A manhunt began for the Hamadas and their confederates, Shiite or otherwise. Untold villages were torched, women enslaved, and severed heads brought back to Tripoli. In late August, he sent another army into the Ftuh just to pillage the farmsteads. In the course of an attempt to retrieve some of their animals, Husayn ibn Sirhan, his cousin Hasan Dib and several companions were caught and killed.[68] In late October, when Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulusi visited Tripoli, Ali Paşa was still out "battling the pertinacious heretics, the Hamada faction".[69][70]

Close alliance to the Orthodox[edit]

Like the Hamadas, the Harfush emirs were involved on more than one occasion in the selection of church officials and the running of local monasteries. Tradition holds that many Christians quit the Baalbek region in the eighteenth century for the newer, more secure town of Zahle on account of the Harfushes’ oppression and rapacity, but more critical studies have questioned this interpretation, pointing out that the Harfushes were closely allied to the Orthodox Ma‘luf family of Zahle (where Mustafa Harfush took refuge some years later) and showing that depredations from various quarters as well as Zahle's growing commercial attractiveness accounted for Baalbek's decline in the eighteenth century. What repression there was did not always target the Christian community per se. The Shiite ‘Usayran family, for example, is also said to have left Baalbek in this period to avoid expropriation by the Harfushes, establishing itself as one of the premier commercial households of Sidon and later even serving as consuls of Iran.[71]

Siege of Zahle[edit]

Says a contemporary Christian historian of the siege of Zahle' in 1841: "The harfushes did not credit Zahle' only, but also all Christians in Lebanon. The Christians would have been humiliated if they had lost their battle (Zahle’) against the Duruze, who had (the Duruze) earlier won the battle in Deir Al Qamar" (The Harfushes stood behind the Christians and defeated the Duruze in the battle field of Zahle').[72]

End[edit]

In 1865 the Ottoman government ordered to send the last Harfush emirs to Edirne in Turkey for exile;[63] later most of them returned to Baalbeck, but others could not and stayed in Istanbul; subsequently Emir Ahmad bin Mohamad bin Soultan El -Harfouche was transferred to Cairo.[73]

The abrupt disappearance of the Harfush emirate left the Shiite community of Baalbek bereft of any anciently rooted, indigenous social leadership, making it that much more of a likely venue for the rise of foreign-inspired, ideological mass movements such as Communism, Nasirism and the Hizb Allah in Lebanon's tumultuous 20th century.[74]

1759 earthquakes[edit]

During the 18th century, the western approaches were covered with attractive groves of walnut trees,[14] but the town itself suffered badly during the 1759 earthquakes, after which it was held by the Metawali, who again feuded with other Lebanese tribes.[citation needed] Their power was broken by Jezzar Pasha, the rebel governor of Acre, in the last half of the 18th century.[citation needed] All the same, Baalbek remained no destination for a traveller unaccompanied by an armed guard.[citation needed] Upon the pasha's death in 1804, chaos ensued until Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt occupied the area in 1831, after which it again passed into the hands of the Harfushes.[62] In 1835, the town's population was barely 200 people.[75] In 1850, the Ottomans finally began direct administration of the area, making Baalbek a kaza under the Damascus Eyalet and its governor a kaymakam.[62]

Excavations[edit]

The largest stone at Baalbek, uncovered in 2014

Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany and his wife passed through Baalbek on 1 November 1898,[38] on their way to Jerusalem. He noted both the magnificence of the Roman remains and the drab condition of the modern settlement.[38] It was expected at the time that natural disasters, winter frosts, and the raiding of building materials by the city's residents would shortly ruin the remaining ruins.[59] The archaeological team he dispatched began work within a month. Despite finding nothing they could date prior to Baalbek's Roman occupation,[76] Otto Puchstein and his associates worked until 1904[38] and produced a meticulously researched and thoroughly illustrated series of volumes.[76] Later excavations under the Roman flagstones in the Great Court unearthed three skeletons and a fragment of Persian pottery dated to the 6th–4th centuries BC. The sherd featured cuneiform letters.[77]

In 1977, Jean-Pierre Adam made a brief study suggesting most of the large blocks could have been moved on rollers with machines using capstans and pulley blocks, a process which he theorised could use 512 workers to move a 557 tonnes (614 tons) block.[78][79] "Baalbek, with its colossal structures, is one of the finest examples of Imperial Roman architecture at its apogee", UNESCO reported in making Baalbek a World Heritage Site in 1984.[80] When the committee inscribed the site, it expressed the wish that the protected area include the entire town within the Arab walls, as well as the southwestern extramural quarter between Bastan-al-Khan, the Roman site and the Mameluk mosque of Ras-al-Ain. Lebanon's representative gave assurances that the committee's wish would be honoured. Recent cleaning operations at the Temple of Jupiter discovered the deep trench at its edge, whose study pushed back the date of Tell Baalbek's settlement to the PPNB Neolithic. Finds included pottery sherds including a spout dating to the early Bronze Age.[81] In the summer of 2014, a team from the German Archaeological Institute led by Jeanine Abdul Massih of the Lebanese University discovered a sixth, much larger stone suggested to be the world's largest ancient block. The stone was found underneath and next to the Stone of the Pregnant Woman ("Hajjar al-Hibla") and measures around 19.6 m × 6 m × 5.5 m (64 ft × 20 ft × 18 ft). It is estimated to weigh 1,650 tonnes (1,820 tons).[82]

Lebanese Independence[edit]

A detail from a 1911 map of Turkey in Asia, showing Baalbek's former rail connections

Baalbek was connected to the DHP, the French-owned railway concession in Ottoman Syria, on 19 June 1902.[83] It formed a station on the standard-gauge line between Riyaq to its south and Aleppo (now in Syria) to its north.[84] This Aleppo Railway connected to the Beirut–Damascus Railway but—because that line was built to a 1.05-meter gauge—all traffic had to be unloaded and reloaded at Riyaq.[84] Just before the First World War, the population was still around 5000, about 2000 each of Sunnis and Shia Mutawalis[62] and 1000 Orthodox and Maronites.[20] The French general Georges Catroux proclaimed the independence of Lebanon in 1941 but colonial rule continued until 1943. Baalbek still has its railway station[84] but service has been discontinued since the 1970s, originally owing to the Lebanese Civil War.

The Roman ruins have been the setting for the long running Baalbek International Festival.

Lebanese Civil War[edit]

In March 1974, Musa al-Sadr announced the launching of the "Movement of the Deprived" in front of a large rally in Baalbek. Its objective was to stand up for Lebanon's neglected Shia community. He also announced the setting up of military training camps to train villagers in southern Lebanon to protect their homes from Israeli attacks. These camps led to the creation of the Amal Militia.[85] In 1982, at the height of the Israeli invasion, Amal split into two factions over Nabih Berri's acceptance of the American plan to evacuate Palestinians from West Beirut. A large number of dissidents, led by Amal's military commander Hussein Musawi moved to Baalbek.[86] Once established in the town the group, which was to evolve into Hizbollah, began to work with Iranian Revolutionary Guards, veterans of the Iran Iraq War. The following year the Iranians established their headquarters in the Sheikh Abdullah barracks in Baalbek.[87] Ultimately there were between 1,500 and 2,000 Revolutionary Guards in Lebanon,[88] with outposts further south in the Shia villages, such as Jebchit.[89]

Post-Civil War[edit]

On 24/25 June 1999, following elections in Israel and the new administration undecided, the IAF launched two massive air raids across Lebanon. One of the targets was the al Manar radio station’s offices in a four storey building in Baalbek which was completely demolished. The attacks also hit Beirut’s power stations and bridges on the roads to the south. An estimated $52 million damage was caused. Eleven Lebanese were killed as well as two Israelis in Kiryat Shmona. [90]

A map of Israeli bombing during the Second Lebanon War. Baalbek was a major target, with more than 70 bombs dropped.

2006 Lebanon War[edit]

On the evening of 1 August 2006,[91] hundreds of Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers raided Baalbek and the Dar al-Hikma[92] or Hikmeh Hospital[93] in Jamaliyeh[91] to its north ("Operation Sharp and Smooth"). Their mission was to rescue two captured soldiers, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, who were abducted by Hezbollah on 12 July 2006. They were transported by helicopter[91] and supported by Apache helicopters and unmanned drones,[92][91] The IDF was acting on information that Goldwasser and Regev were at the hospital. al-Jazeera and other sources claimed the IDF was attempting to capture senior Hezbollah officials, particularly Sheikh Mohammad Yazbek.[93] The hospital had been empty for four days, the most unwell patients having been transferred and the rest sent home.[92] No Israelis were killed;[91] Five civilians were abducted and interrogated by the Israelis, presumably because one shared his name with Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary general of Hezbollah;[94] they were released on August 21.[95] Another 9 civilians were killed on 7 August by a strike in the middle of Brital, just south of Baalbek, and by the subsequent attack on the car leaving the scene for the hospital.[96] On 14 August just before the ceasefire took effect, two Lebanese police and five Lebanese soldiers were killed by a drone strike while driving their van around the still-damaged road through Jamaliyeh.[97]

Conservation work at Lebanon's historic sites began in October.[98] The ruins at Baalbek were not directly hit but the effects of blasts during the conflict toppled a block of stones at the Roman ruins and existing cracks in the temples of Jupiter and Bacchus were feared to have widened.[98] Frederique Husseini, director-general of Lebanon's Department of Antiquities, requested $550,000 from Europeans to restore Baalbek's souk and another $900,000 for repairs to other damaged structures.[98]

Syrian civil war spillover[edit]

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