The Pyramid of Mount Hermel in Lebanon, the Macedonian Ideology of Triparadeisos – Abai and the Arab Kings of Emesa

Abstract

The spark for the present study was given by the pyramidal monument on Mount Hermel in North Lebanon, well known to the readers of M. Rostovtzeff. Classical archaeology, political history, historical geography and architectural forms – according to the methodology applied by M. Torelli – lead to attributing the funerary monument to Zabdiel, the first Sheich – King of the Arab tribe of Hemesa – Homs, erected in the years around 130 B.C., which would develop into the dynasty of Sampsiceramus from the time of Pompey (64 B.C.) on. The political context is that of the dissolution of the Kingdom of the Seleucids and the emergence of the Arabs as semi-independent political entities in Syria in 150 B.C. onwards. The fact that Alexandros I Balas of Syria was captured in the stronghold of Zabdiel called «Abai, in Arabia» opened the possibility to detect the history of this landscape of the Upper Syria – Beqa’ Valley: On grounds of the frieze depicted on the Pyramid where scenes of hunting are alluded, Abai might be identified with the celeberrimus Persian royal locus o f Triparadeisos – «Three P arks» and should be located at Hermel near the source bleu of the river Orontes, Ain es Zerka, at Dardara – Mar Marun, where the definite division of the Empire of Alexander took place in 321 B.C. This older Macedonian layer explains the plans of political organization, according to the ideology of Dorian Apollo Pythios, displayed by the Macedonian colonization, otherwise unattested, which may have started during the encounter of Alexander with the king of Sidon Abdalonymus, probably an ancestor of Zabdiel. The architectural form of the Pyramid imposed a wider consideration of the term «Arab Hellenism», as well, in comparison with what has been stated as being «Hellenistic» in the Mausolea of Numidia in North Africa – since there is a common root among them which dictated the choice of such particular architectural patterns: Ptolemaic Alexandria, as in the case of Khazne at Petra.