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What is even more surprising is that this monolith is not unique in the area. Nearby is what is called the “Temple of Jupiter.” The upper part of the temple is clearly Roman, no doubt about that. But the Roman temple rests on a “foundation” built with gigantic stones. The base consists of 27 enormous limestone blocks. Three of them, each weighing 1,000 tons, are known as the “Trilithon” and form a sort of “belt” surrounding all the blocks. This construction shows us that for the builders, carving and moving blocks of over 1,000 tons was not at all prohibitive. They clearly knew how to do it without major difficulties.
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The legends of Baalbek, allegorically speaking, tell us that even peoples of a distant past knew that “uncommon” things happened there. There are many legends about Baalbek: according to some ancient Arabic manuscripts, it belonged to Nimrod, the legendary Babylonian king mentioned in the Bible, who supposedly ordered its reconstruction after the flood, and it was entrusted to giants. Other ancient texts trace it back to Cain, who founded it 133 years after the creation of man, and here too giants are said to have populated the area. Cain built Baalbek to escape the wrath of Yahweh.
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It is likely that the ancient inhabitants of this region used allegorical figures such as Cain, the Giants, or Yahweh to describe things they could not understand. Even today, we struggle to comprehend how ordinary humans could have used 1,650-ton “monsters” as building “bricks” (and not as obelisks, as the Romans did, for example). Why did they need such massive stones? How did they move them so easily? How did they carve them with such precision?
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Many today believe that ancient civilizations existed in various parts of the Earth, including the Mediterranean basin, and were probably wiped out by climate change. The city of Nan Madol, the Great Pyramid, Gunung Padang are likely part of this list—and they leave us astounded. Do the colossal monoliths of Baalbek also belong to this list?