From Bruce Condé "See Lebanon", Beirut 1955. Hosn Niha-Mountain Temple To make a day of it, after visiting Noah's tomb and, possibly, Furzol's al-Habis, along with the lower Niha temples some Sunday, a hike to the secluded Hosn Niha temple affords a most enjoyable trip, without being too difficult a climb. Keeping left at the road fork at Ablah, 14 kilometers up to the main Bekaa highway after leaving Shtaura and continuing 2 kilometers to the paved turn-off to the left to Niha village (1 1/2 km. up the side road), cars can be left at Niha and the 1,000-foot ascent to Hosn Niha begun. In leaving the village, after passing the last church, with the lower Niha temples on your left, take the uppermost road leading back into the mountain, to the west. It is a chalky, white roadway at the beginning and a very gentle slope. After rounding the first hill there come into view high on the next hillside the ancient quarries of Niha, where a small rockcut section of Roman aqueduct is also to be found. Roman Road But of more interest is the immediate roadway itself. Passing below the area of the quarries it climbs to the west toward a rocky point or outcropping. It is during the ascent up to the point that one suddenly realizes that this is no ordinary roadway. At first there appears a rough cobblestone pavement, with the stones embedded on end, and finally, on reaching the point, a cut through the latter, leaving, in many places, the bedrock as paving. It must have been an important temple and settlement to have commanded this laborious cut through solid rock to improve the road. Off to the left, around the face of the cliff, is still to be seen the narrow path, with occasional steps cut in the rock, which rounded the point at an earlier date. Spectacular View A short distance after passing through the cut it is worth while to turn and look back at Niha. The sweeping panorama formed by the cut, the little white village in the valley below, with the Bekaa and Anti-Lebanon range in the background, is an unforgettable view, whose beauty cannot be reproduced satisfactorily in the illustration (lower left) accompanying this article. The ruins of Hosn Niha loom in the distance, up the pleasant mountain valley, in the opposite direction, less than a 15 minute walk from this point. The whole hike, including five or ten minutes for photography, should not take over 45 minutes from Niha village to Hosn Niha, with 30 minutes adequate for the descent. The "Guide Bleu" says an hour and a quarter, one way, but this is excessive unless a half-hour of additional photography and rest are taken, or a side trip made up to the quarries and section of aqueduct. Fortress of Niha "Hosn Niha" means the "fortress of Niha", for the ruins were converted into a castle during the Middle Ages and used as such down to comparatively modern times. One is struck by the difference between the color effect of Hosn Niha and the lower temples. The latter, with their white and grey and yellow stonework, stand out against the earth and vegetation of the hillside, amid waving trees. Hem Niha blends with its background in a way that almost defies photography. It is absolutely and totally of the blue-grey limestone of the vicinity, as are the rocky hillsides in back of it and the ruin heaps which surround it. A great deal of the outlying parts of the large establishment give evidence of having been rebuilt or built of reused temple stones in order to construct a strong castle, and one has the impression of climbing up to a castle when approaching the temple acropolis. Corinthian Order The main building is an imposing one, with its cella intact up to the fifth course of masonry all around and to the eaves (8 courses) in some places. The temple proper rests on massive retaining walls ten feet high and measures 84 feet in length by 63 in width. It is of the Corinthian order, with enormous capitals of the portico's fallen pillars measuring nearly five feet in height. Within, the arrangement is similar to Baalbek's Astarte or "Bacchus" Temple, but the engaged columns are not fluted and there is little evidence of the elaborate decorative stone carving found in the latter. Here all is massive and plain. A terrible earthquake must have toppled this handsome structure, which appears to date from the First or Second Christian Centuries, for portico and interior alike are a jumble of fallen columns and blocks. Restoration Feasible The castle builders were apparently unequal to the task of removing such huge stones elsewhere, so that the Department of Anquities will have even more success here than at the lower Niha temples in piecing the jigsaw puzzle together again. But an isolated site like Hosn Niha's, reachable only by the narrow antique road, and not readily accessible to the average tourist, will have to wait until the other sites have received prior attention. This is some of the charm of the place, however. It makes a good spot for picnicking and allows an hour or two of exploring and poking about minor buildings and ruins in the vicinity of the main temple. There is a necropolis, with rock-cut tombs and stone sarcophagi, a little to the east of the temple and at a lower level, in back of a vineyard, but the stonework is crude and badly weathered. Ruined Village Ruins of a village perhaps contemporary with the temple are found to the west and also at a lower level. Potsherds are not as numerous and readily accessible as one would expect for a site occupied both in ancient and medieval times, for there is such a jumble of limestone blocks from fallen buildings all over the site that it is difficult to get at the ground in the in the formerly inhabited areas. On all sides rise rounded hillsides climbing to distant peaks, with the top of Sannin only 6 or 8 kilometers to the northwest. Except for a few isolated farmhouses in the present Lebanese style of architecture, the scene is no doubt the same as that visible to the temple priests nearly 2,000 years ago the hills, vineyards, and terraces, with their fine new road to Niha wandering off toward the newly-opened cut through the point, faintly visible in the distance. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Børre Ludvigsen - http://www.hiof.no/~borrel/ - +47 908 24 608 N59.07130 E11.42655 20M -------------------------------------------------------------------------