Baalbek part 2

I can't seem to work out how to arrange my text with my pictures, so please bear with me. Although I only had a short time at Baalbek, and mainly shot technical pictures, I think my last post didn't really do justice to the joint, so here are more photos, hopefully with captions in the right place:








This is Carrie Swan, taller than me, measuring a column drum on its side, as mentioned before. I of course didn't have the wit to ask anyone to photograph me, or the lack of inhibitions that Carrie clearly has to do things like this!









One of the German work places - this is the only section of open ground near the sanctuary that wasn't cleared in the 60s by the Department of Antiquities. It has important mediaeval material.








Under the main sanctuary are these tunnels - I'm not at all sure what they were used for in the Roman period, but now they make a nice setting for the small museum







In the sacred area, next to the massive temple of Jupiter, is the "little guy" called the Temple of Bacchus, although we have no idea which deity was worshipped there. For the really keen, in the background is a hill with an army camp on it, and to the left of the army camp, on the ridge of the hill is where there was another temple, probably to Mercury, now almost entirely obliterated.






That doorway to Bacchus which was in the last post, this is what it looks like if you are incredibly brave, like me, and stand directly under it for about 3.5 nanoseconds to get a shot of Mercury on the right, and Jupiter as an eagle in the middle, on the bottom of the key stone which is only held in by Mr Kalayan's concrete.







You have to imagine this interior with gilt, marble veneer, painted statues, more gold, lavish textiles, and in the dark because there was a roof. The phrase "over the top" did not exist in Latin I think. This is one of the most elaborate interiors of any Roman period temple. The white plaques in the middle up the top were expressions of mutual admiration exchanged by the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamad II and Kaiser Wilhelm II. After WWI, the British controllers took them down (but didn't smash them, just put them in the bottom drawer) and they were refound recently and put back up by the German Ambassador to Lebanon.



This detail is of part of Dionysiac/Bacchic procession - serious partying back then, maenads drunk on specially fermented mead, Pans and satyrs jumping about ravishing anyone who stood still, the god off his face on a panther, where would we be, I wonder, if the worship of Dionysos had won the battle against Christianity - it was a close thing there in the 2nd century AD, let me tell you. Anyway, back at Baalbek, because this decorates the holy of holies, that's why people think it is a temple to Bacchus (who is Dionysos in Latin)





The urge to graffite knows no limits ....















Left overs:













OK - last temple I promise. The roundish thing with columns is called the Temple to Venus (but again we've no idea who was worshipped there) and later converted to a little chapel to St Barbara - I could tell you the story but the length of this post is getting ridiculous.














I did get about half an hour to walk around the town, so spent most of that heading north to find the remnents of the city wall built into houses, and ran into more Germans measuring the north gate of the city. On the way back, I peeped over the wall of this delightful garden, with fantastic looking fruit trees, amazing trellises, little plots of herbs and small vegetables around the place, a lively family chatting away while gardening, a resigned donkey, and the best view of any kitchen garden in the world: