THE DOORWAY, BAALBEC. 
On a subject of this order, no description can be so valuable as that of the individual 
who lias surveyed it at once with the intelligent curiosity of a traveller, and the accurate 
eye of an Artist. 
“ This is, perhaps, the most elaborate work, as well as the most exquisite in its 
detail, of anything of its kind in the world. The pencil can convey but a faint idea 
of its beauty. One scroll alone, of acanthus leaves, with groups of children and panthers 
intertwined, might form a work of itself. Even independently of the beauty of the 
sculpture, and its excellent preservation, we are lost in wonder at the size of the stones, 
and at the nature of the machinery by which such masses were raised. Earthquakes have 
shaken this extraordinary remnant; but from the magnitude of the blocks which form the 
lintel, the central one, being wedge-shaped, has slipped only so far as to break away a 
portion of the blocks on either side, and thus remain suspended. 
“ But its effect is injured by a wall which crosses the Eastern Portico, and within 
a few feet of the doorway, so that the spectator is forced to look at it almost directly 
upwards. An eagle, with expanded wings, hovers in the centre of the lintel, bearing 
festoons of fruit and flowers. The fair proportions of this extraordinary work are injured 
below still more than above, by being buried ten or twelve feet in the ground, so that it 
necessarily looks stunted.” Yet the whole performance, shattered, shortened, and hidden as 
it is, excites the highest admiration that can be given to a work of genius and beauty . 1 2 
The Artist proposes the question, whether the Eagle may not be rather the Egyptian 
emblem of sanctity than the Roman of empire, from the similitude of its position to that 
of the “ Sacred Vulture,” invariably placed on the lintels of the Egyptian temples. In 
this idea he nearly coincides with M. Volnev, who remarks that the tuft upon its head 
proves that it is not the Roman Eagle. The same bird, too, is found on the Temple of 
Palmyra, and is, therefore, an Oriental Eagle, consecrated to the Sun, which was the 
divinity of both temples. 
On the northern side of the portal is sculptured a winged form, hovering over head, 
and extending its wings two-thirds of the breadth of the gate; and on each side of the 
central Eagle is also sculptui'ed a youth, or Genius, on the wing. The Eagle carries in its 
pounces a caduceus, and in its beak the strings coming from the end of the two festoons, 
whose other ends are supported by the two youths, or Genii.- 
The breadth of this incomparable entrance is twenty-two feet; the height can be 
ascertained only when its bases shall be cleared from the accumulation of ruins and 
earth. The measure of the Temple within is forty yards long by twenty broad. Round 
the interior are two rows of pilasters. Between the pilasters are niches, which seem to have 
1 Roberts's Journal. 
2 Pococke conceives them to be Zephyrs, or emblems of the Atmosphere, as the Eagle was of the Sun. 
