Stone of the Pregnant Woman / Stone of the South

The monolith is named after a pregnant woman who, as local legend has it, tricked the naive people of Baalbek into believing that she knows how to move the giant stone, if only they would feed her until she gives birth.

The Roman stone block still lies in the ancient quarry at a distance of 900 m from the Heliopolis temple complex. In 1996, a geodetic team of the Austrian city of Linz conducted topographical measurements at the site which aimed at establishing the exact dimensions of the two monoliths and their possible use in the construction of the gigantic Jupiter temple.According to their calculations, the block weighs 1,000.12 t, thus practically confirming older learned estimations such as by the French scholar Jean-Pierre Adam.

The established dimensions of the rectangular limestone block are:

* 20.31–76 m length
* 4 m width at base
* 4.14–5.29 m width at top
* 4.21–32 m height
* 2.6–2.8 g/cm³ density