Temple of Eshmun

Listen first. Somewhere close by, water is moving. The Awali River runs past this hillside on its way to the sea, and the air carries the smell of citrus groves and warm stone. Underfoot, the ground is uneven. It is a mix of packed earth, loose gravel and huge pale blocks that once fitted together perfectly. You are standing in one of the oldest healing sanctuaries on the eastern Mediterranean coast, a short distance northeast of the old port city of Sidon.

This was the home of Eshmun. He was a Phoenician god of healing. The Phoenicians were the seafaring people of this coast, famous for their trade, their purple dye and their alphabet. Sidon was one of their great cities. Its people believed that Eshmun could cure the sick and restore life. Later, when Greek ideas spread through the region, Eshmun came to be linked with Asclepius, the Greek god of medicine.

Why build a temple here, outside the city walls? The answer is the water. A spring and the river fed this hillside, and in the ancient world, clean running water and healing went together. Pilgrims came to wash, to pray and to make offerings. Channels and basins carried water through the sanctuary for ritual bathing. As you walk, keep an eye out for grooves and narrow stone channels. They are the plumbing of a sacred place.

The sanctuary grew over many centuries. Worship here seems to have begun around the seventh century before Christ. It reached its greatest scale under the kings of Sidon in the sixth and fifth centuries before Christ, when the city lived under the Persian Empire. Royal inscriptions name rulers such as Eshmunazar and Bodashtart, who built and rebuilt the temple. Here is a detail many visitors miss — some of these royal inscriptions were carved on stones that ended up hidden inside the walls, where no worshipper would ever read them.

Look now at the great podium, the raised platform at the heart of the site. It was built from massive limestone blocks, and you can still see how carefully some of them were cut and stacked. A temple once stood on top, high above the valley. Its scale was meant to impress. A pilgrim climbing up from the river would have seen it above the trees, a clear statement of the power of Sidon and its god.

One of the most striking features is the throne of Astarte. Astarte was a great goddess of the Phoenicians, often linked with love, fertility and protection. Her stone throne is flanked by carved sphinxes, creatures with the body of a lion and the head of a human. The throne stands beside a basin that once held water. It is empty — a throne for an invisible goddess. Many Phoenician sanctuaries used empty thrones in this way.

Now for the part of this place that touches people most. Excavators found many small marble statues of children here. Some babies, some toddlers, some holding birds or small animals. Many scholars believe parents offered them to Eshmun in thanks for a child who had recovered from illness, or in hope of a cure. Imagine a family walking up this path, carrying a small stone figure of their son or daughter. It is a very human moment, preserved in stone.

Sadly, many of these statues were found broken. In later centuries, marble from old sanctuaries was often smashed and burned to make lime for mortar. That happened across the ancient world. It means that what survives is only a fraction of what once stood here. Some of the finest pieces from this site are now kept in the National Museum of Beirut. If you visit the capital, you can see the children of Eshmun there, face to face.

Another treasure from this site is a carved stone platform known as the Tribune of Eshmun. It dates from the fourth century before Christ, and its reliefs show figures in a Greek style — gods, dancers and musicians. It shows how Sidon looked west as well as east. Phoenician, Persian and Greek tastes all met here. The original tribune is also in Beirut, but standing here helps you picture where such fine work was meant to be seen.

The sanctuary did not die with the Phoenician kings. In the Roman period, people still came. The Romans added a colonnaded street, a processional way lined with columns, and a fountain building called a nymphaeum. You can still see column bases and fragments along the route. In time, Christianity arrived, and the remains of a later church have been identified on the site. Layer upon layer, each age left its mark on the same hillside.

For a long time, all of this lay buried and half forgotten. Treasure hunters found the area in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Serious excavation came later, led by the French archaeologist Maurice Dunand from the 1960s. His work was cut short by the Lebanese civil war, which began in 1975. During the war, the site suffered, and some objects were taken. A few have since been traced and returned, but the story of this place is still being pieced together.

As you move around, notice how quiet it is compared with the city. Traffic hums in the distance. Birds call from the orange and banana groves. The light changes quickly here. In the morning it is soft and gold on the limestone. By midday it turns white and harsh. Late in the afternoon, the blocks warm to a honey colour, and the shadows show every chisel mark and every joint between the stones.

Take a moment to think about the snake. Eshmun, like Asclepius, was linked with serpents, because snakes shed their skin and seem to be reborn. That idea of renewal still survives today. The staff with a snake wrapped around it remains a symbol of medicine in many countries. The pharmacy sign you passed in Sidon today may carry a distant echo of the god who was worshipped on this very hillside.

Before you leave, stand still for a moment near the water channels. Listen again for the river. Look at the great blocks of the podium, and at the empty throne beside its dry basin. For more than two thousand years, people came here carrying their fears for the ones they loved. They came carrying their hopes too. As you walk back toward Sidon, you are following their path down the valley.