Banias

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Banias (or Paneas; Greek: ¿¿¿¿¿¿¿; Arabic: ¿¿¿¿¿¿ ¿¿¿¿¿¿¿; Hebrew: ¿¿¿¿¿¿) is an archaeological site by the uninhabited former city of Caesarea Philippi, located at the foot of Mount Hermon (Ba'al-Hermon, Arabic: ¿¿¿ ¿¿¿¿¿¿, Jabal esh-Shaiykh, Hebrew: ¿¿ ¿¿¿¿¿¿, Har Hermon) in the Golan Heights. The site is 150 km north of Jerusalem and 60 km southwest of Damascus. The city was located within the region known as the "Panion" (the region of the Greek god Pan), and is named after the deity associated with the grotto and shrines close to the spring called "Paneas". The temenos (sacred precinct) included a temple, courtyards, a grotto and niches for rituals, and was dedicated to Pan. It was constructed on an elevated, 80m long natural terrace along the cliff which towered over the north of the city. A four-line inscription at the base of one of the niches relates to Pan and Echo, the mountain nymph, and was dated to 87 CE.