Object description

Ras el Ain, , is a place abounding with immense fountains, with reservoirs and aqueducts 6 kilometers south of Tyre, and ca. 77 kilometers south of Beirut, in the South Governorate , in the municipality of Batouliyat. The place lies in a very green and fertile plain, about one kilometer from the sea coast. It is a popular tourist destination, owing to its artesian wells fed by underground springs and collected in stone reservoirs that have been maintained through the ages. It has been the main source of water for ancient Tyre since Phoenician days. One of the reservoirs fed the arched aqueducts of the Roman period, and which once stretched all the way to Tyre. Remains of these aqueducts, exhibiting strong and excellent masonry, with round arches and a continuous cornice above them, can still be seen today, and a short stretch of the original aqueduct is still used today in Tyre's present-day waterworks.