[5] The earliest European to identify the site was the 17th-century traveller Henry Maundrell in 1697,[6][7] and Franz Heinrich Weissbach [de] was the first editor of the inscriptions in 1922.

The earliest European to identify the site was the 17th-century traveller Henry Maundrell in 1697,[6][7] who wrote of the river crossing:[12]To accommodate the passage, you have a path of above two yards breadth cut along its side, at a great height above the water; being the work of the emperor Antoninus...

In passing this way, we observed, in the sides of the rock above us, several tables of figures carved; which seemed to promise something of antiquity... as if the old way had gone in that region, before Antoninus cut the other more convenient passage a little lower.

[13] At least one of these is thought to have been placed during the Pharaoh's first campaign in the Levant, and set the Nahr al-Kalb as the border between Egypt's province of Canaan and the possessions of the Hittites.Scholars such as Edward Robinson connected the Ramses II inscriptions to Sesostris, the Egyptian Pharaoh mentioned by Herodotus,[13] in reference to Herodotus's note that "The pillars which Sesostris of Egypt set up in the various countries are for the most part no longer to be seen extant; but in Syria Palestine I myself saw them existing with the inscription upon them which I have mentioned and the emblem.

"[14] Currently, only two Egyptian hieroglyphic inscriptions remain; the third (shown on the left) was remodified by Napoleon III when he visited the site, with the original text wiped out and written over in French.

The most significant of these is attributed to the Legio III Gallica of Roman Emperor Caracalla (211–217 AD), who was of Punic and Syrian descent and whose official name was "Marcus Aurelius Septimius Bassianus Antoninus".

The inscription includes the words "Lyco Flumen", which provided scholars such as Edward Robinson to conclude that the Nahr el-Kalb was the ancient Lycus river.

[4] The first inscription is dedicated to Harry Chauvel's Desert Mounted Corps,[4] and the second to the Australian, New Zealand, Indian, and French contingents, as well as the Sharifian Army of Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca.

[4] In October 1918, an inscription was carved to mark the British and French occupation of Beirut and Tripoli, during the Occupied Enemy Territory Administration.

[4] In 2000, Lebanese demonstrators, including supporters of ex-general and current politician Emile Lahoud, erected a monument to mark the departure of Israeli troops from Lebanon.