Temples of Mount Hermon

The Temples of Mount Hermon are around thirtyshrines and Roman temples that are dispersed around the slopes of Mount Hermon in Lebanon, Israel and Syria.

Discovery of the Hermonian temples in rural villages began in the 19th century, with surveys by Edward Robinson and Sir Charles Warren. Ten sacred sites were also documented by Daniel Krencker and Willy Schietzschmann in 1938.Maurice Tallon published an itinerary of the sanctuaries in 1967 with details of the paths to reach them. George F. Taylor provided a pictorial guide in the late 1960s with more recent information coming from Shim'on Dar in 1993 and epigraphic surveys in 2002 and 2003. Some of the sites have been connected with the high places used for the worship of Baal in the Books of Kings.

The Seleucids occupied the area after 200 BCE, shortly after which the Ituraeans developed a principality in the area until the fall of Chalcis when the territory passed to the Herodian kings Agrippa I and Agrippa II. After the end of the first century CE the territory became jointly controlled by the cities of Damascus, Sidon and Paneas. It is thought that the area was inhabited continuously until the third century CE. Precise dating of the structures is currently not possible. Krencker and Zscheitzschmann suggested they were mostly constructed between 150 and 300 CE and epigraphic evidence has been found to support this for several temples. Construction techniques have been seen to differ from those used in shrines of the Phoenician and Achaemenid and Hellenistic periods such as Tyre, Tell Anafa and Kharayeb. Recent studies have highlighted differences in construction style of the Hermonian temples from Hellenistic architecture at Khirbet Massakeb,Khirbet Zemel and other sites in the Hauran and Jawlan. Although the sites may have been built on previous layers of architecture, the current temples are predominantly considered to be of Roman construction and were largely abandoned after the fourth century CE during the Byzantine era.

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