wice as much time?
In the details below, we can see that whoever had added the smaller blocks
(presumably also limestone, and coming from the same quarry, the nearest one
to the temple), had made adjustments for erosion in the old ruin, which are
visible as steps, or notches in the elsewhere straight line of the newer
blocks. The eroded blocks seem to have been hewn flat on top to facilitate
the laying of additional blocks.
Of the four blocks atop the eroded blocks, each is at a different horizontal
Time to Draw the Line
A horizontal line was cut into the older block. It seems to continue the
bottom line of the neighboring newer block quite exactly. The red line you
see is there to show this fact.
I believe that the cut
line had marked the top portion of the older block, which was to be
cut away, so that the newer blocks could be set level. Thankfully,
the plan was not carried out for some reason.
have a clear clue to what had happened here.
Because the line in the eroded block survives about as well as the newer
blocks, the two materials must be similarly durable.
It then follows that by the apparent rate of aging, the heavily eroded
blocks should be at least several millenia older than the newer blocks.
Ergo, the older part of the wall cannot be Roman.
Hadjar el Gouble (the Stone of the South) 1,170 metric tons
In a quarry about half a mile away from the Trilithon is an even bigger
block It measures 69 x 16 x 13 feet, ten inches, and weighs about 1,170
There is a belief, the block was slated for the retaining wall,
but was later found to be too big. Thus, it was abandoned in the quarry
while still joined to the bedrock at one end.
The important question is, was it younger, or was it older than the three
Trilithon blocks? It seems that it had to be made later than the
If it was made first, and then deemed to be too big, it would have still
been utilized, rather than quarrying a new block, the Romans would have
simply whittled the big block down to a more manageable size. We would not
see it in the quarry today.
On the other hand, despite their brilliant ability to move about burdens as
unprecedented as the Trilithon, the unknown architects lost their nerve at
the very end, the big block looming almost ready. There was no attempt to
move the practically finished block. This just does not behoove the solid
Roman engineers, especially the creme de la creme entrusted with the task by
the Emperor himself. Why did they leave behind a monument to their
engineering limits and human weaknesses, and by extrapolation - Roman
emperor's limitations? Again, this would be very un-Roman of them, and even
more so in view of what the same engineers saw at Aswan. It is a fact that
the big block still in a Baalbek quarry seems to weigh about the same as the
famous abandoned obelisk at Aswan, Egypt. Here, the question begs itself if
this really is by chance.
How could the two biggest ever blocks of quarried stone coincide in weight,
despite being made in different eras, by different techniques, and abandoned
for different reasons? Not likely, is it?
This thread gets funnier, when we learn that the fifty-four enormous columns
for the Jupiter's temple actually came from Aswan! There the Roman engineers
could not have missed witnessing the abandoned 1,170 ton obelisk, which the
Egyptians had obviously intended to move, prior to discovering that it was
cracked, a fatal flaw.
Did the obelisk somehow inspire Romans to quarry a block of the same weight
(albeit not proportion) at Baalbek, and then abandon it, when almost
complete, mimicking the Egyptians ad absurdum, every inch of the way? Monkey
see, monkey do? Is this not insane?
Another theory holds that work on the block stopped, when Rome suddenly
became Christian, and stopped all construction on the site. That is of
course impossible, because the retaining wall with the big blocks was long
complete by then, and where else would the big block go, other then the
retaining wall? So, none of the explanations makes sense
Then there is that utter lack of documentation for these stunning exploits,
w