Baalbek Temple: Ancient Technology & The Egyptian Connection (part 3 of series)

Here we will talk about the megaliths. There was 27 blocks they used in this area but those megaliths is not existing anymore because in the medieval period they will transform it in a fortress and they would take out they will use all those megaliths there was nine blocks here for 1000 tons each one they will use it for the fortification and to build some towers in the corner that was all here was yes one two they had third and four so this is the venus temple and the temple of the muses and it's a slightly later temple about the first and third century a.d and was kind of added on really to the main part of balbeck so this was a much later site not really showing any major megalithic construction here just behind me here in some of the walls on either side on the west north and south walls were blocks the size of the ones in the western wall and similar to the ones we see in the quarry so this is not really well known but we've been talking with an expert who's given us this information so we have to question you know what was going on here we know it even says on the sign that this was a neolithic period site originally so the megalithic blocks the western wall leave probably the blocks in the quarry were probably from the neolithic period so we're just on the side of the temple of jupiter here and you can see some mega blocks just making up the lower wall here so these are the megaliths that are remaining these aren't the big ones even though these are very impressive probably between 50 and 80 tons and you can see they're very well put together the joining is immensely immensely sharp even though there's massive amounts of weathering so this just shows more evidence of the megalithic foundations here at ancient Baalbek then we enter inside the court of venus sixth side then the court of sacrifice we climb jupiter temple here you will see the megalite is still the origin from the period then we turn around jupiter temple to enter inside the bacchus temple and we will go out from one of those tunnels where in 1998 there is a tunnel 1998 they prepared a museum it most of the statue was outside so they clean it and it's beautiful a small museum but it's worth to see and the exit would be like from here that you saw it from the door so we're just here in the hexagonal area the temple at the temple of jupiter it's like the head of the temple but what's interesting about this is that at least 2000 bc this whole platform here although the temple itself was built in the second and third century so we're seeing the lower level here as much more megalithic foundation we'll see more as we continue through the site so before rome in the first century bc we are in 2000 bc for the finishing of course they will build a sanctuary here for a god made they call it the baal hadad the baal hadad was the god of fertility represented with the whip and the lighting and near to the baal hadad there was two bulls the bull is a symbol of also fertility and strengthness of the phoenician that the roman they will use it later to represent it with jupiter so we're just inside actually underground slightly in the phoenician temple which is just past the hexagonal temple heading into the main construction so behind us are the huge stones that were most certainly 2000 bc so 4 000 years old but it's been known that this has been occupied for 7 000 years and potentially a pre-phoenician culture were here possibly the canonites who were the early phoenicians or even an earlier culture and there are direct connections between here the ziggurat of ur and gobekli tepe with the work the geometric the astrogeometry that's done by howard crowhurst who's realized that these sites almost communicate with each other over vast distances using the same measurements systems and squares and angles and stuff like this so the fact we're finding earlier and early construction here does suggest it's all pre-roman and the roman is just built upon what was here so you can really see the size here uh we're just being uh told by our local expert here pierre that these are possibly pre-phoenician actually not phoenician actually earlier than 2000 bc and it goes even further down i mean we're not even at the lowest level here this is just one level and you can see the megalithic style of the blocks so potentially these are at the time of the first dynasty in egypt before even stonehenge was being built and so on and so forth obviously they've made a retaining wall here but these are just massive they're not obviously as big as the western wall the stones there or in the quarry but these are worth noting here just to get a sense of size that's why it's worth being down here this is all the area the pre-phoenician or phoenician temple bit of both but look how far this goes down right in the center of it all the blocks here making up the foundations there's a massive megalithic platform so this is like 10 courses deep brian hayes has just pointed out and you can see how deep it goes down there and over this side as well this is obviously obviously partly full of rubble so you can just see how much of a platform we're dealing with here i think how big this is stretching across the whole site with the western wall stones combined with this is just and the missing 1000 ton stones that surrounded the front of the temple this is really quite a remarkable achievement so this is the center of the phoenician temple even though there was an earlier temple here and obviously the foundations even earlier and this is fascinating this is one a huge bowl like a potentially a libation bowl or a sacred bowl where different things and different liquids were put in here ceremony so everything here seems to be megalithic everything's supersized so they would give the name to the city they would call the god back the plane or the city he was not alone after it will be a goddess and they were called called artemis or at our goddess or astarte or ishtar it depends in the cities the fruit of the baal hadad and astarte or ishtar it will be sometime adonis and it will be in the roman period apollo so you can just see on this stone here it's just been pointed out to me by yusef awian who's with us on the megalithomania chemist school tour you can see some really good examples of egyptian style tool marks here almost like saws with diamond tip saws i've kind of carved these out or high speed saws with water and sand but you can see the sharpness of it you can see the smoothness of this here even in ptolemaic times when this was supposed to have come from egypt it still still shows a remarkable amount of symmetry perfection and high technology so whether this was evident here in the earliest stages as well which is highly likely it seems that from the very earliest times in ancient egypt high technology was just part of their routine when it came to masonry and it continued all the way up to the ptolemaic times and beyond i believe with the connections with baalbek and styles and even these as well even the earliest phase like the phoenician temple the western wall and so forth there's probably a connection with egypt when it comes to all the masonry here whether they were sharing knowledge whether it came from the bible lands whether it came from the megalith building giants originally we just don't know but we're finding different eras of different high levels of technology here at baalbek we also have here in one of the stones what looks like a core drill going all the way through there you can see the striations going around the circular impression there then we have these as well which clearly show very fine cutting of the stone again showing signs of very advanced tool making almost like modern style something that chris dunn has been pointing out all over egypt and peru and other places so we can see here just on these rocks evidence of keystone cuts so we saw these in egypt obviously but we know the romans were using these as well so this looks like it was probably part of the roman construction but you can see there's even metal still in this one so probably a later later part of the construction but still worth noting here so we now see them at baalbek not just i've never seen these ones before so it's quite quite intriguing just to sort of get these on camera two more of the granite columns here now these are the slightly smaller ones there are larger ones but 54 of these came from as one a cosmic number part of the ancient canon about the processional numbers also working with some numbers of the cosmos here at baalbek so we're just with so yousef just showing us some very special couple of pieces of stone here at the quarry sorry at the main site of the same kind of stone that we actually find or a version of it that we find a stonehenge that is oh wow that is amazing look at the color of that purple with white imperial profiling because it was widely used during the roman empire of the of the archaic age according to the writings of course i mean the vessels the very advanced machining vessels that we find in the sites like the ones that was found under the pyramid and they were made from the same material and this exists only in the area of the eastern desert called the jabal ad-dukhan which means the mountain of smoke so it's the only place that they have that they find the imperial profiling in it so of course there used to be more here it was probably that is amazing so that is the same kind of stone as we find a stonehenge almost slightly different coloring and we have another piece here so we're just heading towards the western end of baalbek you can just see down here these huge huge stones making up the facing wall of this side of the temple here so we're just walking into the museum part of the site now and you can actually see this is still megalithic walls even as you head into the museum so that's uh quite impressive so the name of baalbek is a kind of canaanite origin and probably means baal of the spring we know baal was uh one of the ancient gods and it just suggests pre-roman origin of this cult but the baalbek name was only really used in the fifth century a.d and the fact the several sites of the northern becca are mentioned in the egyptian texts from the second millennium bc probably from the second dynasty does suggest that this area was known about most certainly we know that because um king kaz emuy from uh hyrum compolis was evident here he was a giant remember so the giant connections are here even from egypt but there's more really from the bronze age from 2000 to 1500 bc all over the place with even burials from that that but it's been used right up until recent times so here we are the classic fallen pillar just on the south side of the temple here the bacchus temple which is immense and it has some of the most impressive relatively modern roman stonework that we'll see inside in a moment as well you can see up on the roof there absolutely stunning but even it seems like even in roman times they knew exactly what they were doing so like traditions that get passed on from one cultural culture to another we have like with the keystone cuts the working of the granite and just a high quality high technology stonework and so it's just interesting to see all different phases represented here at balbek obviously what we're here for are the extremely large stones the 400 ton to 800 ton stones and the 1000 ton 1240 ton and 1650 ton stones in the quarry are more important in a way because we're here from a megalithic perspective looking for evidence of megalithomania in the ancient world in the ancient levant here in lebanon at balbek this is like the famous doorway here at the bacchus temple balbek absolutely stunning now even though this is probably roman early roman probably from the ptolemaic times so we're here in the temple of bacchus and the most amazing thing about this is not only the stonework but this huge doorway you can see behind me here which is incredibly well done even though it's done by the romans there's something you know some of the things they did were remarkable probably based upon earlier cultures technologies and ideas because they used to assimilate other cultures into their construction they think it's dedicated to bacchus who was like the divinity dedicated to wine because they produce a lot of wine in this part of the world but it's just an immense site and probably built you know underneath this is the mega platform or at least part of it that made up the earlier temple here at balbek now we're going to be coming back here though so if you want to join us to explore some of the largest stones on the planet as well as one of the most anciently occupied centers at byblos and many other sites and museums and get a taste of the culture this is the tour to come on here with megalithomania we'll point out everything you need to see high technology incredible megalithic stonework and much much more