Shhiim alternatively written as Shheem or Chhim/Chhîm is a town in Lebanon which is located 42 kilometres south-east of Beirut. Shhiim is located on 4 mountains in the Chouf region in lebanon. Chhim has a population of about 49,000. It is considered a city by some people. The most known families in Shhiim are Oueidat, Daher, Moallem, Chaaban, Fawaz,Dahrouj, Abdallah, Hajj-Chehade, Hajjar, Younes, Mrad, Saab and El Khatib, Trawi. Shhiim is the largest Sunnite Muslim town in the Chouf region. The community lives in harmony and there have never been any issues in Shhiim, despite the sectarian violence that Lebanon has suffered from the past 40 years or so. It has been in a battleground long ago when the French and British forces fought here around a century ago. Shhiim has suffered from excessive building which has been ruining its nature. Shhiim was built on a huge forest where wolves and hyenas lived in. However, forests still can be found in and around Shhiim. The town is rich in olive trees. Shhiim is often confused within size due to many parts of it having different names; some more familiar parts of Shhiim include Marj-Ali, Sahle, Jabal swed, Chamis and Jirid. These and many others are part of Shhiim but have different names. Shhiim contains 11 schools, 8 of which are public. It also contains two hospitals, one of them is public, and the other is private.
The archaeological site lies on a slope of a hill on the outskirts of the city. It is a Roman-Byzantine village with a Roman temple towering above the rest of the ancient architecture. The temple faces east and has a small porch. There is a carving of the sun god Helios on one of the doorframes. Another carving portrays the image of a priest with outstretched arms. Haroutune Kalayan reconstructed the temple in the 1970s, and in the 1990s, Renata Ortali Tarazi from the Directorate General of Antiquities of Lebanon undertook the task of site preservation. She started a three-way cooperation with the Institut français du Proche-Orient, represented by Lévon Nordiguian, and the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology, University of Warsaw. An archaeological expedition, established in 1996, worked on the site for more than 20 years under the direction of Tomasz Waliszewski from the PCMA UW. The settlement was founded at the turn of the eras, although the oldest finds date to the Bronze Age. Parts of the village are remarkably well preserved. Apart from the Roman temple, archaeologists discovered houses clustered along narrow streets, oil presses, and a Christian basilica with mosaics, dated to AD 498. A necropolis surrounded the settlement. The village ceased to function in the 7th century. Multicolored mosaics covering the whole floor of the basilica are among the most spectacular discoveries made on the site. Most of them depict geometrical patterns, but floral and figural motifs also occur; birds and vessels appear on the surfaces between columns. In the central part of the presbytery, there is a mosaic with a lioness, and in the west aisle, a panel with two antelopes. The iconography of these mosaics bears many similarities to other Byzantine churches in the province of Phoenicia, e.g., in Zahrani and Ghiné. The conservation and protection of the mosaics were carried out by specialists from the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. The majority of the mosaics from Chhim are currently on display in Lebanese museums.
