An hour and a half drive from the Lebanese capital, Beirut, there are the ruins of a unique Roman temple in the world.
In the city of Baalbek you will find the Temple of Jupiter, which dates back nearly 2,000 years and is made of the largest stones ever used in an ancient building.
The temple remained a mystery for a long time, because despite its enormous size, it was rarely mentioned in ancient sources. The people who later visited the ruins of Baalbek could not believe their eyes.
The Arab Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi wrote in 1689: “It is clear with all senses that men did not build this gigantic structure themselves.”
Therefore, Al-Nabulsi believes that the temple was built by spirits called jinn.
When Scot David Urquhart saw the temple in 1860, he was equally astonished. Even Stonehenge seemed like a toy compared to the temple of Baalbek, he wrote:
“There's nothing even remotely like it!”
Today we know that the Temple of Jupiter at Baalbek was not built by supernatural beings, but by the Romans.
However, it is still unclear how they managed to place the huge temple stones in the right place. But perhaps they had help from one of the Bible's greatest villains.
