“The expression of power and of sacred practice into the physical and mercurial form of these glorious temples [in Baalbek] … is too big and too heavy to be human,” Vali Mahlouji, curator of the iconoclastic exhibition “Baalbek: Archives of an Eternity,” told Al-Monitor.
“As grand as [Baalbek’s temples] are, they suppress 7,000 years before it … and it evicts the town [currently there] — it pushes it out,” he said, adding that this is why it was interesting as a power and authority symbol.