Syria and the Holy Land : their scenery and their people : incidents of travel, &cfrom the best and most recent authorities . red and sixty. Therewere nine of them standing in 1751 ; three have since fallen; but in theopposite Saracenic wall several bases and some of them still surmounted withwrecks of their enormous shafts are enclosed in the masonry. Thus it mayeasily be perceived that each side of this edifice consisted of seventeen ofthese gigantic columns (not counting those at the corners), and the east andwest forms each of ten, making in all fifty-four. Many of these have fallenin vari
Syria and the Holy Land : their scenery and their people : incidents of travel, &cfrom the best and most recent authorities . red and sixty. Therewere nine of them standing in 1751 ; three have since fallen; but in theopposite Saracenic wall several bases and some of them still surmounted withwrecks of their enormous shafts are enclosed in the masonry. Thus it mayeasily be perceived that each side of this edifice consisted of seventeen ofthese gigantic columns (not counting those at the corners), and the east andwest forms each of ten, making in all fifty-four. Many of these have fallenin various directions, and mingled with the masses of the frieze and archi-trave they supported, filling up the whole space, vast as it is, with ponderousfragments. The ground on which the great temple stood was an oblong quadrangleon a level with the main court, but narrower than it, so that there w7as onlya terrace of twenty-seven feet wide round the colonnade. * Lord Lindsay. BAALBEC. 261 The Temple of the Sun stands directly south of the Great Temple, andthe best view of commanding its northern and western fafades, is from. Temple of the Sun, south side. underneath the six pillars. The platform on which it stands adjoins thegreat one, but is considerably lower; and indeed appears to be a later con-struction built up against it. It is only by comparison, however, that eitherplatform or temple can be spoken of as small. The Temple of the Sun isthe most perfect monument in Baalbec, and more than one traveller hasdeclared that there exists none more magnificent in the whole world.* Set upagain on their pedestals a few columns lying on the side of the platform;replace some of the huge panels that have fallen from the soffit of theperistyle; raise up one or two sculptured blocks on the sunken lintel ofthe interior portal; and let the altar, re-constructed out of the fragmentsthat strew the whole area, resume its form and its place ; do this and youmight then recall the god to his shrine
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