In Roman times, Baalbek was (apparently) just a small city on a trading route to Damascus. It
held no special religious or cultural significance for Rome, other than being in the centre of a
coveted burial region that was favored by local tribes. It also seems completely out of character
for the undeniably selfish Rome to have gone to all the trouble of creating such lavish and
extravagant architecture in Lebanon - and at a place like Baalbek that is located so far from
Rome. The Romans were, after all, an enormously and undeniably greedy empire and were in the
very process of stealing historic treasures from other countries, such as the obelisks from Egypt,
at the very same time the Temple of Jupiter was under construction.
It makes much more sense to surmise that Baalbek may have had something else the Romans
wanted from the site. Possibly something no other place, not even Rome, could offer them. It
could even be the reason why so many people wished to be buried there. But we are told by
Academics that no, the temple is definitely and indisputably of Roman origin.
Fig.30 (man in back corner)There are however, serious problems with this claim. Investigation into the blocks in the
retaining wall of the Baalbek temple site very clearly shows them to be far more eroded than the
bona fide Roman ruins of the Temple of Jupiter and the two other Roman temples that can also
found on the site. Now since the stone of the retaining wall is of the same type as the Temple, it is
reasonable and logical to assume that the heavily eroded blocks are naturally, much older.
It is then also logical to surmise that the Roman temple was in fact, an augmentation to a much
older pre-existing platform and this of course would also help to explain why on earth such a
remote site was chosen for the temple – because it offered Augustus a ready made, pre-existing
platform on which to construct it.
The issue really is quite simple and straight forward and it’s difficult to understand why the
idea that construction of the platform and retaining wall could have taken place earlier than the
Temple is scoffed at by the mainstream Archeological Community. The substantial amount of
erosion visible on the large blocks of the retaining wall quite adequately qualifies as material
proof of their far greater age than the actual ruins of the Temple of Jupiter. It’s reasonably
apparent that if quite substantial geological evidence significantly apposes the theory then the
theory is obviously incorrect!