The book „The ruins of Balbec, otherwise Heliopolis in Coelosyria“, written by Robert Wood (1716/17 – 1771) and published 1757 in London contains a systematic documentation of the ancient ruins of Palmyra (Syria) and Baalbek (Lebanon). The cover is made out of thick, grey carton with the back and corners covered in leather. The title and author of the book is written on the second page, including the print date in latin numbers. It consists of 83 Pages, hosts 55 illustrations, partly to unfold, and is structured in three parts: The Introduction about the journey from Palmyra to Balbec and the ancient state of Balbec, an explanation of the plates and the plates itself. With the size of 580mm x 390mm x 40mm the book is categorized as Folio and is written in English with insertions in Latin and Arabic.
In the Introduction Robert Wood, a classical scholar, describes his journey and provides additional knowledge about the Region and the historic sites shown in the book.
The second part is a listing of the plates (illustrations) with additional information and description of the indices.
The illustration are a mix of different scaled plans and views, including cut views and detailed close-ups of ancient temples, altars and temple complexes. Many of them have litte numbers included, which are explained before and underline the systematic approach of the book to show these sites. This part of the book has no text, only the different scale illustration and their numbers.

