
33 
THE RUINS OF BAALBEK. 
(ILLUSTRATED BY THE LANTERN.) 
By E. NAYLOR, Bradford. March 6th, 1906. 
Mr. Naylor sketched rapidly the events of a tour which he 
recently made to Palestine, in the course of which he visited 
the cities of Damascus and Baalbek. Incidentally, Mr. 
Naylor commented on the effect of Turkish rule as strikingly 
evidenced in a district to the north of Beyrout, which is 
governed by the Powers of Europe, and in Syria itself, where 
the Turks rule. On the one side of the dividing line roads 
were almost as good as in Yorkshire, while on the other side 
within the Turkish domain roads were mere morasses of filth. 
Some interesting views of the Lebanon mountains, which are 
crossed by the railway to Baalbek, at a height of 4878 ft. above 
sea level, were shown. 
The city of Baalbek was the site of a very early city, though 
no scrap of reliable history in regard to it existed prior to the 
Roman invasion. According, however, to the local tradition, 
Adam, Abel, Seth, Noah, and Shem were all buried within a 
short distance of Baalbek. Under the Romans the city was 
known as Heliopolis. The sole attraction of the city to the 
visitor lay in its possession of the ruins of a marvellous series 
of temples, which covered some fifteen acres of land. Of these 
Mr. Naylor showed a fine series of lantern pictures, and with 
a good number of plans he gave a clear idea of the wonderful 
city. The temples, which were built probably during the 
first three centuries of the Christian era, were of enormous size, 
but with such excellence of proportion that it was only when 
one began to measure that the full magnitude was realised. 
he great feature was the so-called cyclopean masonry of one 
_ of the great temples, which included two courses of immense 
stones, 
