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Construction
Construction of Roman temple of Bziza
cultural heritage building in Bziza, Lebanon
- 1st century – 1st century CE
- Middle East
Construction
cultural heritage building in Bziza, Lebanon
Fetching the article from Wikipedia…
The Roman temple of Bziza is a well-preserved first century AD building dedicated to Azizos, a personification of the morning star in ancient Arab polytheism. This Roman temple lends the modern Lebanese town of Bziza its current name, as Bziza is a corruption of Beth Azizo meaning the house or temple of Azizos. Azizos was identified as Ares by Emperor Julian.
The tetrastyle prostyle building has two doors that connect the pronaos to a square cella. To the back of the temple lie the remains of the adyton where images of the deity once stood. The ancient temple functioned as an aedes, the dwelling place of the deity. The temple of Bziza was converted into a church and underwent architectural modification during two phases of Christianization; in the Early Byzantine period and later in the Middle Ages. The church, colloquially known until modern times as the Lady of the Pillars, fell into disrepair. Despite the church's condition, Christian devotion was still maintained in the nineteenth century in one of the temple's niches. The temple of Bziza is featured on multiple stamps issued by the Lebanese state.
In 64 BC, the Roman general Pompey annexed Phoenicia to the Roman province of Syria after years of disorderly power vacuum caused by the Seleucid dynastic wars. In his treatise on Phoenician history, Byblian writer Philo maintained that the gods and goddesses venerated in Phoenicia were Hellenized Phoenician deities. The wave of cultural Hellenization created pan-Phoenician patriotism and a deeper attachment to pre-Hellenic religious traditions. Phoenician devotion to ancient gods continued under Roman rule as described in the De dea Syria [On the Syrian Goddess] treatise by second century AD rhetor Lucian of Samosata. Lucian visited sacred cities of Syria, Phoenicia and the Libanus where numerous mountain sanctuaries were spreading all over the countryside. Temple building, urbanization and monumentalization of cities was financed by generous endowments of client kings and wealthy citizens seeking to increase their power and sphere of influence. The prosperity of Roman Phoenicia was in turn fueled by maritime export and the elevation of numerous Phoenician cities to the status of Roman colony,[a] giving the inhabitants Roman citizenship.
The temple of Bziza was built during the Julio-Claudian dynasty in the first century AD, at a time when Roman hegemony over the region was still being consolidated. The Phoenicians perpetuated the ancient tradition of building high-altitude sanctuaries and sacred precincts. Temples were situated on or overlooking mountain summits that were believed to be sacred dwellings of the gods and giants, guarded by archaic men and wild beasts. Under the influence of suzerain powers, Phoenician temples were Hellenized then Romanized while maintaining balance between foreign elements and Semitic architectural archetypes, among which are tower altars, temenoi and cellas with elevated adytons. The temple of Bziza adheres to this model, which characterized Romanized Phoenician temples.
A policy of repression and persecution of paganism was initiated during the reign of Constantine I when he ordered the pillaging and destruction of Roman temples. Constantine's son Constantius II issued a series of decrees that enforced the formal persecution of pagans; he ordered the closing of all pagan temples and forbade pagan sacrifices under pain of death. Under his reign ordinary Christians began to vandalise pagan temples, tombs and monuments.
The temple of Bziza was converted into a church during the early Byzantine period between the fifth and sixth century and underwent further structural modifications during the Middle Ages between the twelfth and the thirteenth century. It is colloquially known as the Church of Our Lady of the Pillars (Arabic: كنيسة سيدة العواميد).
In 1838, French orientalist painters Antoine-Alphonse Montfort and François Lehoux visited and painted the temple ruins. In 1860, French Semitic languages and civilizations expert Ernest Renan visited the temple; he explained that the Toponymy of Bziza as a corruption of the Phoenician Beth (or Beit) Azizo and attributed the town's temple to Azizos.[b] Flemish Jesuit orientalist Henri Lammens, who taught at Beirut's Saint Joseph University at the time, also visited the site in 1894 and took a photograph of the temple ruins. Nineteenth-century paintings and early twentieth-century photographs show the removed chapel remains and the oak tree that took root inside of the temple.
In the early twentieth century, the German architectural historian Daniel Krencker conducted a survey of the site, later publishing his findings with the assistance of archaeologist Willy Zschietzschmann in the book Römische Tempel in Syrien ("Roman Temples in Syria"). According to Krencker the chapel had been in ruins for a long time and a Christian devotion was still maintained in the nineteenth century in the "niche near the door".
In 1965, the site was further excavated by Lebanese-Armenian archaeologist Haroutune Kalayan, uncovering the podium and an architectural plan of half of the front pediment etched on one of the temple walls. In the 1990s, the Lebanese Directorate General of Antiquities cleared away parts of the chapel during restoration works to highlight the remains of the ancient temple; only the apses and a rectangular masonry pillar from the Christian chapel remain.
The temple ruins of Bziza were featured on the 35 Lebanese piasters postage stamp in 1971, and on the 200 Lebanese piasters postage stamp in 1985. It appeared again on a 2002 Lebanese postage stamp.
Azizos (Palmyrene: 𐡰𐡦𐡩𐡦 ʿzyz) was the Arab god of the morning star; German biblical scholar Paul de Lagarde showed that Lucifer was one of the god's appellations. In a Dacian inscription, Azizos is given the title Deus bonus puer Phosphorus [the good young god Phosphorus]. He is portrayed in the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra as a horseman, accompanied by his cameleer twin brother Arsu (also called Monimos in later writings). Arsu is believed by Teixidor to be a personification of the evening star. Both gods were regarded as the protectors of traders. In Emperor Julian's work "Hymn to King Helios", Azizos is depicted as the counterpart of the Greek god of war Ares, and Monimos was equated with Hermes, the god of trade and travelers. According to the Julian, the cult of Azizos and Monimos was associated with that of Helios in the ancient city of Emesus; he also recounts that Azizos precedes Helios in sacred processions.
Evidence that Aziz, and more frequently Azizu, was used as a common and royal given name is abundant in Palmyrene and Emesan inscriptions. Another Latinized form, Azizus, was found in Roman military parchments and papyri. In the Semitic language, the root ʿzyz means "mighty" or "powerful". The female counterpart of ʿAziz is the goddess ʿOzzā, who was worshiped by Semites and was one of the three chief goddesses of the pre-Islamic Arabian religion.
The town of Bziza[c] falls in the Koura district within the administrative division of Lebanon's North Governorate, 83 kilometres (52 mi) north of Beirut. The towns sits at an average altitude of 410 metres (1,350 ft), at the southern tip of the Koura (Amioun) plain. The temple is located 350 metres (1,150 ft) to the south of the town center,[d] at an elevation of 450 metres (1,480 ft) above sea level. The temple occupies a central position within a region scattered with Roman-era sanctuaries, several of which survive in varying degrees of preservation in neighboring villages. Among them are the temple remains of Amioun to the north of Bziza, the large Roman temple complex of Qasr Naous in Ain Aakrine, 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) to the northeast of Bziza, and the Temple of Mercury at Hardine, which stands on a mountaintop at an elevation of 1,500 metres (4,900 ft). Further south, beyond the Nahr el-Jaouz river, the chain of temples surrounding Bziza continues with those of Bcheale, situated at approximately 1,500 metres (4,900 ft) above sea level, and of Assia, at about 900 metres (3,000 ft).
The Bziza temple is a well-preserved tetrastyle prostyle with Ionic order detailing. The ashlar rectangular temple measures 8.5 metres (28 ft) by 14 metres (46 ft). The pronaos is oriented to the northwest and measures 6.55 metres (21.5 ft) by 2.9 metres (9.5 ft); it is fronted by unfluted columns standing on bases carved in the Attic style. The columns measure 5.93 metres (19.5 ft) tall and 0.67 metres (2.2 ft) in diameter. Three of the temple's monolithic pronaos columns still stand, the fourth, found on the temple's northern corner was broken in two parts and was re-erected during restoration works. The columns are crowned with Ionic capitals supporting a frieze that extends over three of the four columns. The space between the central columns is wider than that between the distal columns. The colonnade was added at a later stage of the temple's construction as indicated by the style of the ionic capitals that adheres to the model found in Syria and Anatolia as of the second century AD. The pronaos is well preserved, it is framed by short antae ending with angular pilasters that are repeated at the rear of the building. The temple was accessible from a stairway that was dismantled.
The pronaos is connected to the cella by two entrances: a massive, richly decorated central door and a smaller side door located to the left of the main entrance. The jambs of the main door are adorned with fasciae. The decoration of the lintel and the entablature is finely realized with three fasciae adorned with a rich vegetal decoration. The cornice features modillions bearing images of two diagonally aligned small Victories on either angle of the cornice. The large door's dripstones are in the Corinthian order. The temple's smaller door has only two fasciae. The lintel is decorated with a frieze and a Corinthian dripstone.
The cella consists of two chambers, the first of which is roughly square followed by an adyton to the back of the building. On either side of the temple's cella walls are niches once used to house statues. The two niches of the right cella wall remain. The first niche is surmounted by the form of a scallop; the other one is plain and rectangular. Small columns stood in front of the niches; these supported a simple architrave and an archivolt with three fasciae. Traces of the adyton's platform are visible at the back of the temple. The adyton is recognizable by the remains of two pilasters with Attic style bases in the southwestern wall. The bases of the pilasters are situated 1.66 metres (5.4 ft) above the cella's ground level suggesting that they were part of the temple's edicule, once housing a statue of the temple's deity.
Kalayan noted that the exterior of the southwest cella wall bears marks of an architectural sketch for the assembly of the temple's pronaos half-pediment. Another engraved sketch shows the plan of the temple's entablature. The now lost pediment measured 8.5 metres (28 ft) by 3 metres (9.8 ft). Excavations undertaken by Kalayan revealed an elevated podium that was not noted in Krencker's survey. The uncompleted podium spans the southwestern side of the temple and is structurally independent from the temple's foundation. This addition indicates an unfinished plan to transform the prostyle temple into a peripteros.
In Byzantine times a church was built within the temple walls. The building's orientation was changed from the northwest to the east; the main door of the temple was walled, and a new doorway was opened in the southwest wall of the cella. The adyton's platform and back wall were dismantled and the northeast wall was replaced by a double apse. The apses have a four-sided polygonal chevet and are horseshoe-shaped with an aperture of 3.2 metres (10 ft) for the north apse and 3.57 metres (11.7 ft) for the south apse. A whole section of the latter is preserved up to the apse transom, located at 3.3 metres (11 ft) from the current floor of the cella. A molding separates the apse wall from the semi-dome above. The quality of the stereotomy of the apses is comparable to that of the ancient reused temple blocks; the apses date, according to Krencker and Zschietzschmann, to the early Byzantine period.
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