these buildings belong to the Ptolemaic or Seleucide period. The Roman period would have produced something more correct. However that may be, Bélat is the finest example of a "high place" that the country has to show.Mission de Phenice, p.686-687 They were described by H. H. Kitchener in 1877 as "The most extraordinary ruins of this neighbourhood". He compared it to the columns at the Kfar Bar'am synagogue and to those at the Cathedral at Tyre. He described it as "one of the most perfect and earliest specimens of a temple dedicated to some deity worshipped on this "high place," and attended by a number of priests or votaries who were lodged in the surrounding buildings." E. W. G. Masterman concluded that it was a pagan temple, which pre-dated and may have influenced the architecture of the later Jewish synagogues in the Galilee. W. F. Albright proposed in 1921 that Belat might be biblical Beth-Anath, but later changed his mind, locating Beth-Anath at Bi'ina (Dayr al Ba'ana). References External links Survey of Western Palestine, Map 3: IAA, Wikimedia commons Temples in Lebanon Phoenician temples