It was one Friday, 19th March, feast of my patron
saint, a day with a fair blue sky following the storm
of the previous evening. We were taking the direction
of the district of Dennieh in North Lebanon, following
the highroad as far as Bakhour, where we turned into
a local road that was rather narrow but at least good
enough for a car. The view there was one of outstanding
beauty, with terraces planted with peach trees, apricot
trees, apple trees, pear trees, and the rest, all
in full flower. In contrast the houses and various
buildings were in bad taste, sometimes with as many
as fourteen stories backing on to cliffs of fairy-tale
beauty.
Soon we had left the main village of Sir behind us
and were climbing up towards El-Sfireh. This ancient
hamlet, now become a considerable built-up area, starts
at an altitude of 900 meters and then reaches up to
1,200. On this occasion there was snow left from the
previous evening, capping the white summits topping
1,800 meters and reminding me of certain scenes in
the Alps. This short stretch of road with its more
than twenty S bends and N bends demands some acrobatic
driving, after which one enters narrow tracks where
only one vehicle can pass at a time. One finally draws
up in front of an elegant Greco-Roman temple, now
a partial ruin, built in the time of the emperor Severius
early in the third century; this explains the name,
a corruption of Severius through Saferius and now
Sfireh. The emperor remained four years in the region
and here on a hilltop planted with clusters of oak
trees this temple had been put up no doubt to commemorate
his name. The temple is almost whole, lacking only
the pediment and the cornice. It is rectangular, thirty
meters by fifteen, made of huge blocks of stone hewn
with great precision that form the walls. The façade
is pierced by three doors, the largest of which, in
the middle, is surrounded by molding, while the other
two are smaller and narrower and without ornamentation.
The one on the left leads to an inner flight of stairs
hewn in the thickness of the wall and leading to the
temple terrace, much like a labyrinth and a real feat
of construction.
On the right side a small door gives access to a crypt
which is as long as the temple is wide. To the right
there are two rooms of the same dimensions as the
temple but now in a state of complete ruin. Two columns
still stand but their capitals lie on the ground,
while among these ruins one also notices seats carved
out of stone.
In the middle of the lateral wall one can easily decipher
inscriptions in Greek, something which gives reason
to believe that this temple one now sees was built
on top of remains of a more ancient one. To arrive
at the temple itself one goes up a long stairway four
or five meters wide and quite long.
In the neighborhood one may see two other small monuments
left from ancient times; a high hill overlooks the
temple of Sfireh and the remains of ancient constructions
such as altars and blocks with inscriptions are clearly
visible.
Sfireh is 115 kilometers from Beirut. Its air is pure
and cold, a polar cold that bespeaks snow. As well
as the temple there is an old church, ancient cellars,
a mosque and some very old houses, not to mention
countless springs, hollows, strangely shaped rocks,
stupendous cliffs, deep valleys and copses of pine
and oak trees which happily are unconnected with any
road, for the destructive hands of hunters and holiday-makers
would have damaged them.
Sfireh is a place to see and to visit and recently
there have been added a secondary school, a town hall,
a small hotel and some dispensaries. On our way back
home about midday the road was empty, except for a
number of cars assembled every two hundred meters.
The faithful, the believers, were gathered for the
noon prayer of Friday, at the mosques of which there
are many.
Joseph Matar
- El Sfire Village - The Temple: >> View
Movie << (2010-03-01)
