Anjar, UNESCO Heritage ruins in Bekaa Valley, Lebanon

Anjar is an archaeological site in the Bekaa Valley displaying the remains of an ancient city enclosed by fortified stone walls and crossed by two main roads at right angles. Excavations have uncovered multiple structures, including a large palace with preserved arcades and a spacious central courtyard.

Anjar was built as a palace-city by the Umayyad caliph al-Walid I in the early 8th century. Syriac graffiti in the quarry that supplied its stone give the year 714, while the Byzantine chronicler Theophanes the Confessor dates the start of construction to 709–10 under Walid's son al-Abbas. In 744 the caliph Marwan II destroyed the town after defeating his rival Ibrahim ibn al-Walid in a battle nearby. It lay in ruins until 1943, when the Lebanese Directorate General of Antiquities began excavations.

Anjar's six neighbourhoods are named after villages of Musa Dagh: Haji Habibli, Kebusiyeh, Vakif, Kheder Bek, Yoghunoluk and Bitias. Most residents belong to the Armenian Apostolic Church, whose Saint Paul Church is the second largest Armenian church in Lebanon. The town also has Armenian Catholic and Armenian Evangelical churches, each with its own school.

Plan visits during cooler parts of the day, as the site sits at mountain elevation and the ground becomes very dry in summer months. The paths across the grounds are open and mostly unpaved, so sturdy footwear and plenty of water are essential.

The two main avenues, flanked by about 600 shops, met under a tetrapylon whose plinths, shafts and capitals were spolia reused from Roman and Byzantine buildings. The quarries that supplied the best stone have yielded Syriac graffiti dated 714.