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Amrit is a neo-Phoenician religious centre where one can find Persian, Egyptian and Mesopotamian architectural influences. It was still functioning as a temple when Alexander the Great stopped here in 330 BC. Alexander waited at Marathos, as it was then known, while his army directed to Damascus. The most striking remains of the site are those of the temple of the Achaemenid Persian period. The temple compound, dedicated to the god Melqart (assimilated in the Greek period to Hercules) with a secondary association to the Egyptian god of healing, Echmoun, is built around an artificial lake with a small sanctuary on a platform of living rock at the centre, topped by an Egyptian-style cornice and originally by a frieze of stepped triangular merlons.
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