{"id":10490,"date":"2020-05-12T10:48:42","date_gmt":"2020-05-12T10:48:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.kaleelah.com\/blog\/anjar-lebanon-tourism-its-all-about-the-umayyads-baby\/"},"modified":"2020-05-12T10:48:42","modified_gmt":"2020-05-12T10:48:42","slug":"anjar-lebanon-tourism-its-all-about-the-umayyads-baby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.kaleelah.com\/en\/blog\/anjar-lebanon-tourism-its-all-about-the-umayyads-baby\/","title":{"rendered":"Anjar Lebanon Tourism: It\u2019s All About The Umayyads, Baby!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Located about an hour-and-a-half\u2019s drive east of Beirut<\/a>, it\u2019s not difficult to see why people find Anjar, Lebanon, safe and peaceful. The name comes after the Anjar Spring just a little over a half mile east (in Arabic – running river). The village\u2019s inhabitants are mostly Armenian refugees. Some fled the Ottoman genocide in 1915 Turkey. Others gathered here after the Lebanese took back their country from the French in 1939. After seeing only war and occupation, it\u2019s easy to understand why they would want to settle here. This tranquil and picturesque village is nestled in the Bekka Valley and set against the backdrop of the beautiful and majestic Anti-Lebanon Mountains.<\/p>\n

A brief history<\/h2>\n

The village is thought to go back much farther than its Armenian occupants. Many attributing its founding as a palace-city by the Umayyad caliph al-Walid I at the beginning of the 8th century. Still others, like the Byzantine Greek chronicler Theophanes the Confessor, claim it was actually not al-Walid I, but his son, al-Abbas, who founded Anjar around 714 A.D. Whatever the case, the Umayyads left behind a number of well-preserved ruins years later. Anjar was pretty much abandoned until the Armenians came to inhabit it several centuries later in 1915 A.D.<\/p>\n

What can you see there<\/h2>\n

Besides the quaintness of the village, Anjar\u2019s biggest tourist draw is the impressive\u00a0Umayyad ruins.\u00a0UNESCO declared this a World Heritage Site in 1984. The ruins cover 114,700 square meters encompassed by large, fortified stone walls over two meters thick and seven meters high. Based on Roman city planning and architecture, the rectangular city design is 370 m by 310 m.<\/p>\n

Two large boulevards – Cardo Maximum and Decumanus Maximus intersect at the center of the city diving it into four parts. These two main boulevards, lined with colonnades and what were about 600 shops, meet under a large, very ornate tetrapylon. Smaller streets on the city\u2019s western side divide the city that was into even smaller quarters.<\/p>\n

The main monuments that can be found among these unique ruins are:<\/h2>\n