Temple of Jupiter
— — six columns the empire left standing.
Not only on a wall.
“On a stone platform on the floor of the Beqaa Valley, between the Mount Lebanon range and the Anti-Lebanon, the Romans built the largest temple they ever attempted. They raised it to Jupiter, on a podium of cut limestone blocks so vast that three of them — the Trilithon — weigh roughly 800 tonnes each. Of the original 54 outer columns, six still stand, more than 20 metres high, their granite shafts brought from Aswan. The rest came down in earthquakes across the centuries. What is left looks more like a colonnade in the sky than a ruin on the ground. from the studio
Temple of Jupiter, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
The Temple of Jupiter sits within the Roman sanctuary at Baalbek, on the floor of the Beqaa Valley in eastern Lebanon, in Baalbek-Hermel Governorate. The valley lies at roughly 1,170 metres elevation, between the Mount Lebanon range to the west and the Anti-Lebanon range to the east, on the route the Romans called the road from Heliopolis. Baalbek was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1984. Construction of the temple began under Augustus and continued under successive emperors for more than two centuries, making it the largest Roman temple ever attempted, on a podium of cyclopean limestone whose engineering still has no full explanation.
The temple originally stood on 54 outer columns, each roughly 20 metres tall and 2.2 metres in diameter, with shafts of pink Aswan granite shipped overland from Egypt. Six columns survive on the south side, joined by an entablature carved with lion's-head spouts. The temple's podium is built of cut limestone blocks; three blocks set into the western face — the Trilithon — weigh on the order of 800 tonnes each. An even larger unfinished block, the Stone of the Pregnant Woman, lies in the local quarry at an estimated 1,000 tonnes, among the largest worked monoliths in human history.
The site sits in the modern town of Baalbek, about 85 kilometres northeast of Beirut and roughly two hours by road across the Mount Lebanon range. The archaeological zone is open daily for a ticketed visit and includes the Temple of Jupiter podium, the better-preserved Temple of Bacchus immediately to the south, the circular Temple of Venus, and the great hexagonal forecourt. The annual Baalbeck International Festival, founded in 1956, stages classical and world-music performances against the colonnade. Foreign-government travel advisories for the Beqaa region change frequently; visitors typically check current guidance before booking.