Aanjar Citadel is the Umayyad city of Anjar in the Bekaa Valley, a UNESCO World Heritage site and the best-preserved early Islamic urban plan in Lebanon. Laid out in the eighth century under Caliph al Walid I, it has a grid of streets, arcaded souks, a palace, baths and the famous tetrapylon where the cardo and decumanus cross. Columns and capitals were reused from earlier Roman buildings, so the site reads as both Umayyad and late antique. Anjar sits near the Litani and the road toward the Anti-Lebanon, an easy Bekaa stop with Baalbek, Chateau Ksara and the plains around Zahle. For archaeology, it is the place to see an early Islamic capital rather than a Roman temple.
