The town Anjaar takes its name from the Arabic term "Ayn Al-Jaar," or "water from the rock," and is known for the streams that flow from the nearby mountains. It is a unique city in several ways. Anjaar is the only set of Omayaad ruins in Lebanon, and there were no artifacts at Anjaar of the many other societies that inhabited the Bekka Valley before them. The city was built  by the Caliph Malik as a trading city, at the intersection of the north-south and east-west trade routes. It is the only non-coastal trading city in the country, and it flourished for only 20-30 years before the Abbasids overran the city and it fell into disuse. While built from scratch by the Omayaads, it used classic Roman design, a square walled city with four towers and gates. Anjaar is bisected horizontally and vertically by two main streets, the Cardo Maximus and the Documanus Maximus. At its peak, it housed more than 600 shops, Roman-style baths, two palaces and a mosque. Below is a VR panorama of Anjaar that contains links to the architecturally significant aspects of the ruins. A more detailed explanation of the ruins can be found beneath the panorama.
 

Our virtual tour of Anjaar begins at the north gate, the entrance to the ruins. Walking down the Cardo Maximus, the arcade that served as the entrance to the baths is to your right, while on the left are the ruins of building and storehouses that served the palace. Continuing down the Cardo Maximus about 200 meters, you reach the center of the city, the crossroads where the Cardo Maximus intersects the Documanus Maximus. To the left is the "little palace," essentially a harem where the Caliph's wives lived.  The Documanus Maximus (which runs left and right from this center point) was the commercial heart of the city, containing more than 600 individual shops.  If you continue north on the Cardo Maximus, to the left are the famous arcades of the Omayyad Palace, the best preserved of the Anjaar ruins, and a signature image of this spot. To the left of the Cardo Maximus are the city's residential quarters. The panorama then sweeps northward. Just to the left of the cross-roads is a Roman-style tetrapylon (one of the pillars is missing) which (along with the palace arcade) has come to symbolize Anjaar in the same manner as the columns of Jupiter symbolize Baalbeck. In the far end of this north west quadrant (bringing you back to the north gate entrance) are the baths.
 

Clickable Links: -Links Marked "VR" -"Click Once" Links-Click Once Only -"Click Here" Links-you may double click on these [Other text windows are commentary--don't click!] Mac Users Running IE: you must select links from the highlighted text rather than the panorama. When you have finished viewing, close the popup window by clicking on the box in the left hand corner

Navigation: -panorama rotates until you select a link -to  restart, hold down mouse button and drag inside the -panorama window or hold down mouse and press on the    yellow arrows -hold mouse button down and drag to look up or down -slider button contols zoom [doesn't work on Macs :( ]

Trouble With the Panorama? You  might want to try here before giving up....