Although we discussed numerous prehistoric megastructures on our channel, the ancient ruins of Baalbek in modern-day Lebanon might be the most compelling evidence of an advanced ancient civilization missing from our history books. This monumental complex, with its immense megalithic stones, some weighing over a thousand tons, defies any explanation through the lens of conventional archaeology. Baalbek is situated in northeastern Lebanon, approximately 60 miles from Beirut, making it a somewhat challenging destination to reach in present times.
Perched 3,000 feet atop a sacred hill in the fertile Bekaa Valley, long before the Romans conquered the area and erected their monumental Temple of Jupiter, and even before the Phoenicians built a temple to the god Baal, Baalbek was home to the largest stone block construction ever discovered in the world. The mainstream narrative about Baalbek's history is one of Roman ingenuity. The Temple of Jupiter, one of the largest temples in the Roman Empire, still stands as a testament to the power and reach of Roman architecture.
However, beneath the Roman construction lies a series of enormous megalithic stones, known as the trilithons, which form part of the foundation of the temple complex. These trilithons each measure over 19 meters – 62 feet – in length, 4. 2 meters – 14 feet – in height, and 3.
6 meters – 12 feet – in thickness, and weigh approximately 900 metric tons, making them one of the largest stones ever moved, lifted, and stacked in human history. To put this into perspective, each stone is roughly 36 times the weight of the stones used to construct Stonehenge and approximately 10 times the weight of the largest stones used in the construction of the Great Pyramid of Giza. Despite their immense size, these stones were somehow transported from a quarry located over half a mile away and raised to a height of 30 feet, or 9 meters, on top of these smaller 400-ton blocks to form part of the foundation of the Heliopolis complex, upon which the Temple of Jupiter was later built.
The precision with which these stones were cut and aligned is extraordinary, as they fit together almost seamlessly, with gaps so narrow that not even a piece of paper can fit between them. Unlike typical Roman construction, which focused on grandeur and aesthetics in visible structures, the trilithons were not designed to be seen. They were buried within the foundation, hidden from view, and seem to have been laid out primarily for structural purposes.
This raises the question of why a civilization would go to such lengths to move and position these massive stones only to bury them. There isn't any historical documentation from the Romans detailing how they achieved such an architectural feat. The Romans, renowned for their meticulous record-keeping, documented nearly every major construction project they undertook.
Yet there is no Roman account explaining the process of moving these immense stones or how they were incorporated into the foundation of the Temple of Jupiter. Furthermore, the different construction methods evident at Baalbek – ranging from the finely crafted megalithic stones at the base to the more rudimentary stonework of the Roman structures – indicate that the site may have gone through multiple phases of development, with the earlier phases being of a higher technological standard. Moreover, according to historians, the largest Roman cranes could only lift 60 metric tons, making it highly improbable that they moved stones weighing 900 tons or more.
Additionally, the Romans used to drill lewis holes in the stones to be able to lift them with their cranes. However, the Trilithon stones do not seem to contain any lewis holes. But if no known Roman engineering technique explains how these stones were moved or positioned with such precision, who built Baalbek's original foundation?
The Trilithon shows evidence of wind and sand erosion that is not seen in the Roman construction, suggesting they could have predated the Romans for thousands of years, with some researchers like Graham Hancock, believing the Trilithon is around 12,000 years old, predating Roman construction by around 10,000 years. This is not a simple guess work, as there are archaeological signs of continuous habitation at the site as far back as 9000 BCE. This means that whoever the actual builders were, they are entirely unknown to us and our established historical records.
But the Trilithon stones are just the beginning. On this side of the Temple of Jupiter, there's another giant megalithic work, with this enormous block that weighs around 800 tons. Just compare the size of the block to the tourists nearby.
Right next to it is the south megalithic wall, where there are numerous such blocks with flat surfaces. Look at the perfect fitting between them. Some of the fittings are even at an angle, making the megalithic wall even more impressive and sophisticated.
This is clearly the work of a far superior civilization than the Romans, Greeks, or Phoenicians. Even a child can see the clear difference between the superior megalithic construction at the foundation, and the inferior Roman work built on top. If we look closer at the surface of the giant stone blocks, we can see these strange parallel scratches.
They can be seen in different parts of the complex on various megalithic stone blocks. We can also see them on the Trilithon stones themselves. These scratch marks have lengths of around 3 meters or 10 feet and are perfectly parallel.
This means they could not have been made with primitive tools. Moreover, the marks look more like some kind of machine marks. If you've watched our documentaries before, you'll probably notice that these marks are similar, if not identical, to the marks left on other prehistoric megalithic sites, such as the Yangshan quarry in China, which consists of this gargantuan megalithic block estimated to weigh 16,000 tons.
As you can see, the Yangshan quarry in China has the exact same tool marks that are seen on the massive stones at Baalbek. Similarly, in the ancient city of Petra in Jordan, tool marks that closely resemble those on the Yangshan blocks have also been identified. The marks can be seen in the prehistoric parts of Petra, which were created thousands of years before the Nabatean Kingdom settled the city in the 4th century BC.
Shockingly, comparisons with modern machinery reveal striking similarities in the striations produced by contemporary mining equipment, which suggests a level of sophistication in ancient tooling methods that parallels modern technology. Does this mean that the prehistoric civilization that built all of these gigantic megalithic sites had some kind of advanced technology similar to our modern machinery and heavy equipment? An independent alternative Russian scientific research center called LAH, meaning Laboratory of Alternative History, studied the Baalbek megalithic complex in detail, and discovered numerous tiny machine marks on various parts of the structure.
You can visit their website to see for yourself. And if you don't know Russian, you can auto-translate the site. They show the remarkable precision of the south megalithic wall of Baalbek and photograph the perfect fitting of the blocks where we can see that the marks near the edges are even more unusual those we discussed.
They look so precise and miniature that they would be nearly impossible to make with rough tools. Even more astonishing are the edges themselves. If we zoom closer to the edges, we can see there's a miniature line going all along the boundary between the surface where the blocks meet and the bevel.
This thickness of this line is less than a third of a millimeter thin. It's unknown what kind of tool or machine made this line, but creating such a precise and thin line is impossible with primitive tools. At the edges of the blocks, there is a chamfer composed of multiple phases, and the shape of the chamfer is identical on both blocks.
The facets have been crafted with near-jewelry precision, with some areas even polished. The quality and accuracy of the work are evident in this notch, which is precise down to a fraction of a millimeter. And take a look at this giant megalithic wall made of massive 800 ton blocks.
Judging by the darkening on the surfaces of these blocks, it's clear that they are far more ancient than the Roman construction. Once again, we see remarkable precision in the fittings between the blocks. In fact, in some places, the joints are so closely fitted that you can barely see where the fitting is located.
It's unknown how deeper underground this wall continues as thousands of years ago, the ground level was much lower. This makes you wonder how the builders were able to transport, lift, and precisely stack these giant 800-ton blocks so perfectly at such a height. And in the entirety of the Baalbek complex, there are at least 40 such stones, all weighing around 800 to 1,000 tons.
Many others may exist, but archaeological excavations have thus far not dug beneath all the sections of the complex. Right next to the Temple of Jupiter is the Temple of Bacchus. Once again, we can see gigantic stone blocks at the foundation.
Stones weighing 800 tons fitted together with absolute perfection, where not even a razor blade can fit between the gaps, both vertical and horizontal. If you're not right in front of the structure, you probably won't even spot the fittings. But the gigantic stone blocks aren't the only prehistoric remains in Baalbek.
If you visit the temples of Baalbek, the first thing that will catch your eye will probably be the large columns, especially those that adorned the Temple of Jupiter, which are the largest stone columns ever constructed in classical history. However, these columns are not prehistoric but the work of the Romans. These massive columns, standing at 65 feet or 20 meters in height, were constructed using limestone, which was quarried from nearby sources.
But they weren't built as a whole but were instead built in sections called drums, with each drum carefully carved and fitted together to form a seamless column. While the exact weight of each drum can vary depending on the specific dimensions, it's estimated that an individual drum weighs approximately 60 metric tons, which is around the maximum capacity of weight the Romans were able to lift with their cranes. One of the key techniques the Romans used to lift and connect the drums into the columns was the so-called empolion holes, which are the cavities drilled into the center of each drum segment.
These holes were used not only to align the drums but also to provide a key point of attachment for lifting devices. The Romans often used lewis irons, which were special metal clamps designed to fit into holes or grooves in the stone. In the case of the drums, the empolion holes acted as convenient insertion points for these lifting clamps, which were connected to the crane, allowing the workers to carefully raise the stone into the air.
The entire process of the column construction represents some of the most impressive examples of Roman engineering. But the Roman columns aren't the only columns at Baalbek. Archaeologists were shocked when they found a large portion of columns that were far more ancient, and the majority of them were mostly destroyed.
The reason these columns shocked archaeologists was that unlike the Roman columns, they were not made of the limestone found nearby but of rose granite – a much harder material. Moreover, they were not made by different drums connected with each other but were one single structure. These 200 rose granite columns were quarried from Aswan, Egypt, over 700 miles away.
This is the same quarry that supplied the famous rose granite blocks used in the King's Chamber of the Great Pyramid of Giza. Moving such heavy stones – each weighing up to 80 tons – from Aswan to Giza over 500 miles is an astonishing task, but transporting similar multi-ton granite columns to Baalbek posed an even greater challenge. These granite columns didn't just travel down the Nile River and across relatively flat lands; they had to be transported over the Lebanon Mountains, which average around 2,500 meters or 8,200 feet in elevation.
The sheer difficulty of transporting these colossal stone columns across such a mountainous landscape is staggering. This raises significant questions about how and why ancient builders went to such extreme lengths to bring these columns to Baalbek. The transportation over this challenging terrain would have required technology or methods far beyond what we typically attribute to ancient civilizations.
But that's not the most impressive part. We know that granite is one of the hardest materials on Earth, and the only way to shape granite is with the use of tools with diamond tips. However, such tools were not in use until the late 19th century.
Moreover, the columns are polished to an incredibly smooth and perfectly round finish, with the transition between the curved and flat surfaces being remarkably precise. It's highly improbable that this level of precision could have been achieved using hand tools alone. Even the most skilled sculptor would likely make minor errors, resulting in dips or bumps, yet after thousands of years, there are no visible imperfections.
The remaining edge is still sharp, providing compelling evidence that suggests the possible use of ancient machining technology. Like we mentioned, the majority of the pink granite columns are shattered to pieces along with numerous other stone pieces. In fact, large parts of the complex are filled with scattered pieces.
It's as if some kind of ferocious cataclysmic event occurred at the site. What kind of power could shatter large granite like that? If we examine the stone ruins scattered around the site, we find that many of them have strange patterns and what look like modern machine marks.
Was this made by primitive tools? Author and researcher Brien Foerster, who visited the site dozens of times to examine its prehistoric ruins, wrote an entire book dedicated to the advanced megalithic work on the site titled "Baalbek Lebanon: Megaliths of the Gods". In it, he talked about the dozens of strange marks and cuts on the pink granite pieces.
Most shockingly, he noted that there are numerous traces of iron oxidization on the stones, meaning they were most likely cut with some kind of machine. Brien Foerster has numerous videos from his trips to Baalbek, together with lectures on the megalithic work there, so make sure to visit his channel for more in-depth research. Our documentary on the prehistoric megastructures at Baalbek would not be complete without talking about the site with the most shocking and paradigm-shifting discoveries – the Baalbek quarry.
This limestone quarry, located about a mile from the main temple complex, is the place from which the majority of the giant stone blocks at Baalbek were extracted, including the massive Trilithon stones. However, the quarry also houses unfinished monoliths, which are even more fascinating as they are bigger than the Trilithon stones. One of the earliest and most famous discoveries in the Baalbek quarry is the Stone of the Pregnant Woman.
This monolith, named after a local legend, is approximately 68 feet long, 14 feet high, and 14 feet wide, weighing over 1,200 tons. This stone lays at a raised angle with the lowest part of its base still attached to the quarry rock as though it were almost ready to be cut free and transported to its presumed location. Its immense size raises questions about how the ancients intended to transport and use it.
Right below the stone block, we once again see the strange striation marks seen in the other megalithic stones, marks which many believe are machine marks. At Jungfrau Park in Interlaken, Switzerland, there's an intriguing model that demonstrates the number of modern cranes needed to lift the Stone of the Pregnant Woman. Even if we assume this prehistoric civilization had the same crane technology as we have today, there's still not enough space for all the required cranes to be placed there.
And even if they lift the block, how will they transport it to the temple? Initially, a large part of the monolith was buried underground, but after a long process of excavation, in 2014, a team from the German Archaeological Institute led by Jeanine Abdul Massih of the Lebanese University made an ever more shocking discovery. It was revealed that next to the Stone of the Pregnant Woman, underneath, there's an even more enormous monolith, which weighs 1,650 tons.
This stone became known as the Forgotten Stone, and as of today, this is the largest stone block ever quarried in the world. In this aerial photo, you can compare the Forgotten Stone to the Stone of the Pregnant Woman. The size difference is considerable.
Considering the stone block was discovered just ten years ago, who knows how deep the quarry goes and what else will be discovered in the future. Imagine what other giant prehistoric megaliths are out there, buried beneath the ground. The reason these stones remain an enduring mystery to modern scientists, including engineers and archaeologists, is that the techniques used for quarrying, transporting, and precisely positioning them are beyond the capabilities of any known ancient or contemporary builders.
The path to Baalbek is uphill, traversing rough and winding terrain, and there is no evidence that a flat surface for hauling was ever constructed in ancient times. Furthermore, once the massive blocks reached the site, the challenge of how they were lifted and placed with such precision arises. Even if we assume the ancients could have used large pulley systems, the arrangement and positioning of the stones offer no feasible location where such an apparatus could have been installed.
The very fact that the earth swelled the entire quarry proves that the site could be tens of thousands of years ago, placing it in the pre-diluvian era. This could also explain the sudden and abrupt abandonment of the quarry. A cataclysmic event – whether an earthquake, flood, or some other natural disaster – could have forced the builders to halt their work unexpectedly, leaving these colossal stones unfinished and in place.
The Baalbek quarry is not just home to massive monoliths; it also contains caves, smaller quarried stones, and a series of enigmatic structures referred to as the Witnesses, which all add to the complexity of the site. These standing stones are different from the horizontally cut blocks in that they stand vertically, almost like sentinels guarding the quarry. The name "Witnesses" implies that they served as markers or indicators, perhaps denoting the significance of the quarry or the completion of specific quarrying stages.
The purpose of these monoliths is still debated, with some suggesting they could have been part of an ancient megalithic marker system, similar to other standing stones around the world, like those found at Stonehenge or Karnak in France. Some researchers propose that the Witnesses may have had ritual significance or marked important celestial alignments, as ancient builders often incorporated astronomical features into their monuments. A lesser-known site is a smaller quarry nearby, just across the street which is barely excavated.
There, we find another gigantic stone monolith known as the Stone of the South. The Stone of the South surpasses the Stone of the Pregnant Woman in size, with an estimated weight of 1,300 tons. Its upper part was most likely still visible during the time of the Romans, and for this reason, we see numerous small extractions on its surface.
Since the Romans were unable to move and use this giant monolith, they simply cut pieces from it for their constructions. Many believe this quarry is even bigger than the previous one we discussed. Yet, as of today, it remains unexcavated with constant rubbish and construction garbage being thrown over it.
Who knows what other gigantic monoliths could be found buried beneath it. In conclusion, the prehistoric megalithic work at Baalbek remains one of the most awe-inspiring evidence of an advanced pre-historic civilization that possessed technology far superior to any known ancient civilization. There are many theories, myths, and legends surrounding the site.
Ancient legends say that Baalbek is the most ancient building in the world and was built by Cain, the son of Adam, 133 years after the Creation, with the help of Nephilim giants, who were punished for their iniquities by the great flood. The Baalbek stones and quarry continue to fascinate and mystify people around the world. Whether viewed through the lens of myth, speculative history, or scholarly research, the legends surrounding Baalbek reflect humanity's enduring curiosity about its ancient past and the seemingly inexplicable achievements of pre-historic civilizations.
Thank you for watching. If you want to learn more about advanced pre-historic megastructures, you can watch our 2-hour documentary on the Pre-Egyptian megaliths and technologies discovered. The link is in the top pinned comment.
