The Wonders of Baalbek

● In Greek and Roman times Baalbek was also known

as Ilioupoli. In 1998, Baalbek had a population of
82,608, predominantly Sunni Muslims, followed by
Sunni Muslims and Christians.
• Baalbek was called Ilioupoli during the
Roman Empire, a Latinization of the
Greek Ilioupoli used during the Hellenistic
Period which means "Sunny City" in
relation to the solar cult there. The name
is attested by the Seleucids and the
Ptolemies. The etymology of Baalbek has
been discussed decisively since the 18th
century.

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● Tradition has it that many Christians
left the Baalbek area in the 18th
century for the newer, safer city of
Zahlé due to the oppression and
abduction of the Harfush, but more
critical studies have challenged this
interpretation, pointing out that the
Harfushes were close allies with the
Zahlé's Ma'luf family and showing that
looting from various quarters as well as
Zahlé's growing commercial
attractiveness are responsible for
Baalbek's decline in the eighteenth
century.
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● The top of Tell Baalbek Hill, part of a
valley east of the northern Beqaa
Valley, shows signs of almost
continuous habitation for the last 8-
9000 years. , from numerous rivers
formed by the melting water of the
Anti-Lebanons. Macrobius later
attributed the establishment of the site
to a colony of Egyptian or Assyrian
priests. The religious, commercial and
strategic importance of the settlement
was quite trivial, however, never in any
• In 1516, Baalbek was conquered with
known Assyrian or Egyptian archives, the rest of Syria by the Ottoman Sultan
unless otherwise known. Baalbek was Selim the Grimm. Like the Hamandas, the
captured by the Muslim army in 634 emirs of Harf participated in more than
AD. under Abu baUbaidah after the one case in the selection of Church
Byzantine defeat at Yarmouk in 637. officials and in the administration of local
monasteries.
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● Emperor William II of Germany and his wife
passed through Baalbek on November 1, 1898,
on their way to Jerusalem. He noted both the
grandeur of the Roman remains and the
miserable condition of the modern settlement. It
was expected at the time that natural disasters,
winter frosts and building material raids by city
dwellers would soon destroy the remaining ruins.
The archeological team he sent began work
within a month. Although they found nothing to
date before the Roman occupation of Baalbek,
Pouchstein and his collaborators worked until
1904 to produce a meticulously researched and
extensively illustrated series of volumes. Later
excavations under the Roman slabs in the Great
Court discovered three skeletons and a fragment
of Persian pottery dating to the 6th-4th century
BC.

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● Baalbek was connected to
DHP, the French railway
concession to Ottoman Syria,
on June 19, 1902. It was a
station on the regular range
between Riyaq in the south
and Aleppo in the north.

• Baalbek still has its own railway

station but the service has been
suspended since the 1970s,
initially due to the Lebanese civil
war.
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