Banias

I loved this site - It was in a leafy green park with lots of water and there were remnants of Hellenic culture here.

At the foot of Mount Hermon is aspring that was dedicated to the nature god Pan. Hellenic culture had many shrines to the gods here and the Romans seeing a natural source of water turned the place into a water adventure park.

 

Original temples were located near this cave that they call the cave of Pan. All along the rock wall there were temples.  There is an inscription to Pan (a god of nature but also of war because it was thought he sowed "pan"ic in the spirits of the enemies) and also to Echo who pined away out of love for the vain and unapproachable Narcissus.

This, by the way. is where I finally got to see my Hyraxes. Each of the niches represents a mini-shrine or place where there was a statue to a divinity.

 

Here is an artist's depiction of the site in Hellenic times.

 

Here you can see some of the niches of the earlier temples to Zeus, and various other deities (as well as to the sacred goats).

The river used to flow out of the mouth of the cave, evidently, but then the plates shifted (another earthquake) and the river became a trickle that came out somewhere else.





  

The park itself is also beautiful wiht all of its water and greenery.

 

The Romans routed the water throughout the  city and as we walked from the Cave of pan there was always a constructed water path for us to follow.

Here is a water fgall and someone has rolled a pillar up as a kind of seating area.

 

Agrippa II built a big palace here.

As you can see there are remnants of lots of dwellings and other chambers here.

 

 

The crusaders also held Banias at least two differnet times and left behind buildings from their stays.

 

This was probably one of my favorite sites because of hte Hellenic caves at the beginning of the route.