TEMPLE OF BACCHUS AT BAALBEK

BAALBEK

The Temple of Bacchus is located in the town called Baalbek (modern day Lebanon).

TEMPLE OF BACCHUS – BASICS

Location & background to the area: The temple is next to a sacred sanctuary for Jupiter Heliopolitanus (Helipolis ‘sun city’ was the Greek name for Baalbek).

Dates of construction: Began in 150AD and finished in 250AD.

Material: limestone was used in the construction

Meaning of name: Temple dedicated to the god, Bacchus/Dionysus (Roman and Greek names). This can be seen through the decorations surrounding the entrance which shows scenes of the god’s birth and life. It was for the cult of Bacchus.

TEMPLE OF BACCHUS - BASICS

Dimensions: The temple is of a great size, an eastern feature, 66m long, 35m wide and 31m high. The temple stands on a high podium 5m tall – larger than that of the Maison Caree. The cella door is 6.3m wide and 12.6 m tall, with its interior width equal to its interior height.

Purpose: Temple for Bacchus. The size of the temple and the nearby complex, is designed to give the Semitic (Lebanese & Middle Eastern) citizens of this Roman province of Syria, the feeling of the grandeur of Rome and o the emperor and pride in their own province.

Reconstruction of how the sanctuary may have appeared.

Temple of Bacchus

Temple of Jupiter

TEMPLE FEATURES

Add text boxes and arrows to the plan on the following slide to indicate the following features: Entrance staircase Prostyle porch Cella doors Cella Stairs to adyton Adyton Cult statue Peripteral colonnade

PLAN OF THE TEMPLE OF BACCHUS

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What type of columns?Add text boxes and arrows identifying THREE features of the columns

How many columns along the Front? What is a word we useFor that number?

Side walls of the cella project out to form ‘antae’ in the front and there is a deep ‘prostyle’ porch where the porch columns are in front of the projecting ends of the cella.

Unfluted Corinthian columns are used for the colonnade and the front row of the porch, while the interior columns of the porch are fluted and smaller than the exterior columns.

Interior fluted columns of the porch are shown in this image

It has a colonnade on all 4 sides (peripteral). This is made up of 8 free-standing, columns (octastyle) at the front & back 15 on each long side.

The statue was not in the cella like most temples, but within another structure called an adyton (an eastern feature), a very elaborate canopy in marble.

PORTICO/PERISTYLE - CEILINGThe ceiling of the portico (the roof between the temple walls and the colonnade) is elaborately carved with busts of Mars, Ceres, Vulcan and Ganymede.

CELLA ENTRANCE

The doorway to the cella is elaborately carved with scenes of the birth and life of Bacchus.

On the exterior, surrounding entrance to the cella, is two bands of elaborate patterning – a vine motif (grape or ivy) represents Dionysus. - Acanthus leaves that sprout ears of wheat representing fertility and rebirth

Has a vaulted ceiling and two towers with steps (an Eastern feature) on either side of the doorway.

CELLA DOORWAY DECORATION

INTERIORThe western end opposite the doorway had a stairway of 9 nine steps, the full width of the cella.

The inner raised podium had a central set of steps flanked by piers with two engaged Corinthian columns. This central set of 6 steps lead to another podium where the statue of the god was in its shrine.

INTERIOR Engaged Corinthian columns and their pilasters divide the two interior side walls vertically, and these walls are also divided horizontally with a bottom row of arched niches carried on pilasters and an upper row of pedimented niches, which once held statues.

Image source: http://dacostareidel.blogspot.co.nz/2010/11/baalbek-part-2.html

INTERIOR FEATURES

Interior:The projecting

engaged columns and the

spaces between, on the interior, give a

feeling of movement. The elaborate and deeply carved

decoration produces the effects of light

and shade, reminiscent of

Antonine Baroque

sculpture.

COMPARING TWO TEMPLES, MAISON CARREE AND TEMPLE OF BACCHUS

Similarities between Bacchus & Maison Carree

Differences between Bacchus & Maison Carree

Both have a rectangular shape Both focus on frontal

entrance Both have a podium Both are in a sanctuary

(Maison Carree had a 3-sided portico, Bacchus next to temple of Jupiter) Both have Corinthian

capitals Both have engaged

columns (but in different locations) Both use local limestone

as building material

Height of podium is bigger on Bacchus (5m) 3 flights of steps, not one,

on Bacchus Free-standing exterior

columns, not engaged, 2 interior towers, interior raised podium, & adyton, baroque style & interior decoration on Bacchus Maison Carree is half the

size of Bacchus

INFLUENCES PRESENT IN THE TEMPLE OF BACCHUS

Greek Semitic Roman

Decoration from life of Bacchus (Greek - Dionysus)

Freestanding peripteral colonnade

Corinthian column capitals

Fluted columns (be precise about where exactly)

Busts of Ganymede /Mars/Ceres on ceiling of portico

On a monumental scale

Inner shrine inside cella (Adyton) for cult statue

Use of local limestone

The two towers flanking the entrance.

A high podiumA deep entrance

porch – (prostyle)Frontal emphasis

IMAGES AND ACTIVITIES

Image 1: Describe specific features of the area highlighted inside the yellow box.

Describe the way in which the section inside the yellow box may have appeared in the second century AD.

Compare and contrast the ground plan of the Temple of Bacchus (left) with that of the Maison Carree in Nimes (right).

ASPECTS FOR EXAMINATIONA QUESTION ON THE TEMPLE OF BACCHUS AT BAALBEK MAY FOCUS ON ANY OF THE FOLLOWING FEATURES:

The combination of various cultural and/or architectural influences in its design and decoration.

Aspects that have may impressed a viewer. Propagandistic aspects of the design and/or

decoration (this may use similar material to the first point above).

Compare and contrast between with another temple (Maison Carree and/or Pantheon).

Contrast between exterior and interior, effect on viewer of such (may work in comparison with Pantheon also).

INTERIOR RECONSTRUCTION

Use the image on the following slide to consider ways in which the interior of the Temple of Bacchus may have IMPRESSED a viewer.

Make at least FOUR main points about features that are IMPRESSIVE.

It may be useful to base you description on an imaginary walk-through of the temple, starting from the entrance door and finishing at the cult statue.