to the legendary forebear of King Cinyras, who was said to have founded a sanctuary for Aphrodite (i.e. Astarte). Reconstructed on a grander scale in Hellenistic times, then destroyed by the Emperor Constantine the Great in the fourth century, it was partially rebuilt by the later fourth-century emperor, Julian the Apostate. The site was finally abandoned during the reign of Theodosius I Massive hewn blocks and a fine column of Syenite granite still mark the site, on a terrace facing the source of the river. The remains of a Roman aqueduct that carried the waters of the River Adonis to the ancient inhabitants of Byblos are also located here. Edward Robinson and Eli Smith camped at the site in 1852, merely remarking on its "shapeless ruins" and the difficulty of transport of two massive columns of Syenite granite. . Frazer describes the village at Afqa in his 1922 book, The Golden Bough as "...the miserable village which still bears the name of Afqa at the head of the wild, romantic, wooded gorge of the Adonis. The hamlet stands among groves of noble walnut trees on the brink of the lyn. A little way off the river rushes from a cavern at the foot of a mighty amphitheater of towering cliffs to plunge in a series of cascades into the awful depths of the glen. The deeper it descends, the ranker and denser grows the vegetation, which, sprouting from the crannies and fissures of the rocks, spreads a green veil over the roaring or murmuring stream in the tremendous chasm below. There is something delicious, almost intoxicating, in the freshness of these tumbling waters, in the sweetness and purity of the mountain air, in the vivid green of the vegetation. Possible early sanctuary of El Marvin H. Pope (Yale University) identified the home of El in the Ugaritic texts of ca. 1200 BCE, described as "at the source[s] of the [two] rivers, amid the fountains of the [two] deeps", with this famous source of the river Adonis and Yammoune, an intermittent lake on the other side of the mountain, which Pope asserted was closely associated with it in legend. Mythology In classical Greek mythology, Afqa is associated with the cult of Aphrodite and Adonis. According to the myth, Cinyras, the King of Cyprus seduced his daughter Myrrha who was transformed into a tree that bears her name (see:Myrrh). After several months,