Belat is a ruined temple of unknown identification in southern Lebanon, between Marwahin and Ramyah. H. H. Kitchener described its location as "on top of a very commanding, steep, and narrow ridge, difficult of access... in this, the wildest part of the country". Kitchener and Ernest Renan considered it perhaps the finest example of a "high place" in the Galilee. Description Descriptions of the temple in the mid-19th century describe the remains of 16 columns, with 10 still standing in 1852, of which four on the east and three on the northwest still held architraves with Doric-style capitals. In 1858 when Van de Velde visited, only nine of the columns were still standing. In 1877 when H. H. Kitchener visited, only six columns still bore an architrave. The temple measured approximately 90 ft x 22 ft, with the supporting platform extending 7 ft beyond the row of columns. The columns are approximately 12 ft high and 1 ft in diameter, standing 7 feet apart. Including the architrave the total height was 14 1/2 ft. It was built from the common limestone of the region. Interpretations In his 1852 travels to the region, Edward Robinson wrote: The whole area is now full of fallen columns, architraves, and the like; but there does not appear to have been any interior building or fane. The stones are exceedingly worn by the weather, and there is the appearance of great rudeness in architecture. No sculpture is to be found except the columns; nor any trace of inscriptions. There is a cistern roughly hewn, in which we found water. Some traces of a small village are seen nearby; and a few hewn stones. We saw also a single sarcophagus sunk in a rock, with a rudely formed lid. This is a singular ruin, and hard to be accounted for. It has no resemblance to the heathen temples in Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon... Ernest Renan wrote in his Mission de Phénicie The height of Bélat possesses the most striking ruin in the whole country... All the stones, or nearly all, are scattered about the hill, and one could almost rebuild the temple. This picturesque mass of ruins... ought to be thoroughly examined... Bélat was very probably dedicated to the Magna Dea Calestis, or Venus (Βλάττα ὄνομα ̓Αφροδίτης κατὰ τοὺς φοίνικας, Lydus de Mens. § 24), or at least to some goddess... I am inclined to believe that