Temple of Jupiter Heliopolitanus

The Temple of Jupiter Heliopolitanus at Baalbek, in Lebanon's Beqaa Valley, was the greatest sanctuary of Roman Syria and the empire's largest temple dedicated to Jupiter. Baalbek had long been a cult centre of Baal Haddu, whom Romans equated with Jupiter.

After Augustus planted a colony there around 16 BC, work began on the temple and its Great Court, largely complete by AD 60. Its fifty-four Corinthian columns were nearly twenty metres tall, and the podium stood on the Trilithon, three blocks of about eight hundred tonnes each. Emperors consulted its oracle.

Earthquakes and Christian spoliation damaged the temple, and Justinian carried eight columns to Constantinople for Hagia Sophia. After the Arab conquest the ruins became fortifications, rebuilt by the Mamluk sultan Qalawun in the thirteenth century after a Mongol raid. Three columns collapsed in the earthquakes of 1759.