Byblos ( ; ), also known as Jbail, Jebeil, Jbeil or Jubayl (, Lebanese Arabic Jbeil ), is an ancient city in the Keserwan-Jbeil Governorate of Lebanon. The area is believed to have been first settled between 8800 and 7000BC
It was in Ancient Byblos that the Phoenician alphabet, the ancestor of the Greek alphabet, Latin and all other Western alphabets, was developed.
Etymology
The name appears as
kbnj in Egyptian hieroglyphic records going back to the
Dynasty IV pharaoh Sneferu (BC)
and as Gubla (𒁺𒆷) in the Akkadian
cuneiform Amarna letters to the
XVIII Dynasty pharaohs and
Amenhotep IV. In the 1stmillenniumBC, its name appeared in Phoenician and
Punic language inscriptions as Gebal (𐤂𐤁𐤋, );
[.] in the
Hebrew language Bible as
Geval (גבל);
[Ezekiel 27:9.] and in Syriac as (ܓܒܠ). Eusebius'
Onomasticon stated that Byblos was called "Gobel / Gebal" in Hebrew.
The name seems to derive from (𐤂𐤁, "
water well") and (𐤀𐤋, "
deity"), the latter a word that could variously refer to any of the Canaanite gods or to their leader in particular. The name thus seems to have meant the "Well of the God" or "Source of the God".
Its present Arabic language name Jubayl (جبيل) or J( e) beil is a direct descendant of these earlier names, although apparently modified by a misunderstanding of the name as the triliteral root or , meaning "mountain". All of these, along with Byblos, are etymologically related. During the Crusades, this name appeared in Western records as Gibelet or Giblet. This name was used for Byblos Castle and its associated lordship.
The Phoenician City, known to the Greeks as Býblos (Βύβλος) and to the Romans as Byblus, was important for their import of papyrus out of Ancient Egypt
History and archaeology
Situated approximately 42 km (26 mi) north of
Beirut, Byblos holds a strong allure for archaeologists due to its accumulations of various strata resulting from countless centuries of human dwelling. The initial excavation was conducted by
Ernest Renan in 1860, documented in his work
"Mission de Phénicie" (1865–1874). This was succeeded by
Pierre Montet's efforts from 1921 to 1924, and later by
Maurice Dunand, who continued excavations from 1925 for a span of forty years.
Renan's expedition was to "provide the evidence that the city did not move and that Gebeil is Byblos".
[
]
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Original: "D’abord, le site de Byblos était fixé sans conteste possible. Le passage où Strabon définit Byblos une ville située sur une colline à quelque distance de la nier, avait égaré les savants. Renan lui-même avait songé à Qassouba, mais il comprit vite que cette colline était trop peu importante pour avoir été le siège d’une ville telle que Byblos. L’abondance des fragments antiques recueillis aux environs de la citadelle, la situation des nécropoles au nord et au sud de l’enceinte franque prouvent jusqu'à l’évidence que la ville ne s’est pas déplacée et que Gebeil recouvre Byblos."
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English: "First, the site of Byblos was fixed without question possible. The passage where Strabon defines Byblos as a city situated on a hill some distance away from it, had misled the scientists. Renan himself had thought of Qassouba, but he soon realised that this hill was too small to have been the seat of a city such as Byblos. The abundance of ancient fragments collected around the citadel, the situation of the necropolises to the north and south of the Frankish enclosure provide the evidence that the city did not move and that Gebeil is Byblos."
Fragments attributed to the semi-legendary pre-Homeric priest Sanchuniathon say Byblos was the first city erected in Phoenicia and was established by the god Cronus.
Neolithic and Chalcolithic levels
Neolithic remains of some buildings can be observed at the site.
Jacques Cauvin published studies of
flint tools from the stratified Neolithic and
Chalcolithic sites in 1962.
[Cauvin, Jacques., Les industries lithiques du tell de Byblos (Liban), L'Anthropologie, vol. 66, 5–6, 1962.] Remains of humans found in Chalcolithic burials have been published by Henri Victor Vallois in 1937.
[Vallois, H.V., Note sur les ossements humains de la nécropole énéolithique de Byblos (avec 2 planches). Bulletin du musée de Beyrouth. Tome I, 1937. Beyrouth.] Tombs from this era were discussed by Emir
Maurice Chehab in 1950.
[Chehab, Emir M., Tombes des chefs d'époque énéolithique trouvés à Byblos, Bulletin du Musée de Beyrouth. Tome IX, 1949–1950, Beyrouth.] Early pottery found at the tell was published by E.S. Boynton in 1960 with further studies by R. Erich in 1954 and Van Liere and Henri de Contenson in 1964.
[Boynton, E.S., The Ceramic Industry of Ancient Lebanon. (Available in MS in American University of Beirut and in microfilm in Harvard Library) 1960.][Erich, R., Relative chronologies in Old World Archaeology, Chicago, 1954.][Van Liere, W. and Contenson, Henri de, "Holocene Environment and Early Settlement in the Levant", Annales archéologiques de Syrie, volume 14, pp. 125–128, 1964.]
Dunand's five-level stratigraphy
Prehistoric settlements at Byblos were divided up by Dunand into the following five periods, which were recently expanded and re-calibrated by
Yosef Garfinkel to correlate with
Tell es-Sultan (Jericho):
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Early Neolithic (early phase) corresponding to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) of Jericho, represented by plastered floors and naviforme technology, dated between 8800 and 7000 BC;
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Early Neolithic (late phase) corresponding to the PNA of Tell es-Sultan (Jericho) IX (also Yarmukian) between 6400 and 5800 BC, represented by pottery, sickle blades, and small points;
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Middle Neolithic corresponding to the PNB of Tell es-Sultan (Jericho) VIII and represented by pottery, dated between 5800 and 5300 BC;
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Late Neolithic corresponding to the Middle Chalcolithic of Beth Shean and represented by pottery, stone vessels, , and seals, dated between 5300 and 4500 BC;
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Early Chalcolithic corresponding to the Late Chalcolithic of Ghassulian, represented by , pierced flint, churn and a violin figurine, dated to between 4500 and 3600 BC and,
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Late Chalcolithic corresponding to the Early Bronze Age, represented by architecture and cylinder seal impressions, dated to between 3600 and 3100 BC.
The site first appears to have been settled during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B period, approximately 8800 to 7000 BC[Vogel, J.C. Waterbolk, H.T., Groningen Radiocarbon Dates X, Radiocarbon, 14, 6–110 / 105, 1972.] (Durand's Early Neolithic).
Early Neolithic Byblos was a later settlement than others in the Beqaa Valley such as Labweh and Ard Tlaili. It was located on the seaward slope of the larger of the two hills that used to compose ancient Byblos, with a watered valley in between.
The original site spread down into the valley and covered an area of providing fertile soils and a protected landing place for boats. Dunand discovered around twenty houses although some of the settlement was suggested to have been lost to the sea, robbed or destroyed.[Dunand, Maurice., Rapport préliminaire sure les fouilles de Byblos en 1948, 1949, Bulletin du musée de Beyrouth. Tome IX, 1949–1950, Beyrouth.][Dunand, Maurice., Fouilles de Byblos, vol II, Atlas, Paris, 1950d (also part I, 1954 – part II, 1958).][Dunand, Maurice., Chronologie des plus anciennes installations de Byblos, Revue Biblique, vol. 57, 1950b.][Dunand, Maurice., Rapport préliminaire sure les fouilles de Byblos en 1950, 1951 & 1952, Bulletin du musée de Beyrouth. Tome XII, 1955, Beyrouth.][Dunand, Maurice., Rapport préliminaire sure les fouilles de Byblos en 1954, 1955, Bulletin du musée de Beyrouth. Tome XIII, 1956, Beyrouth.][Fleisch, Henri., Préhistoire au Liban en 1950, Bulletin de la Société Préhistorique Français, vol. 48, 1–2, p. 26. (Contains report on Byblos presented by Maurice Dunand to the 3rd C.I.S.E.A., Brussels, 1948), 1951.] Dwellings were rectangular with plastered floors, pottery was usually Dark faced burnished ware with some shell impressions.[Dunand, Maurice., Rapport préliminaire sure les fouilles de Byblos en 1960, 1961 & 1962, Bulletin du musée de Beyrouth. Tome XVII, 1964, Beyrouth.]
The Middle Neolithic was a smaller settlement of no more than adjacent to the older site. The pottery was more developed with red washes and more varied forms and elaborate decorations, buildings were poorer with unplastered floors.
The Late Neolithic period showed development from the middle in building design, a wider range of more developed flint tools and a far larger variety of pottery with fabrication including silica. The Late Chalcolithic featured developments of "Canaanean blade" and fan scrapers. Adult burials in jars started to appear along with metal in the form of one copper hook, found in a jar. Some jars were lined with white plaster that was applied and self-hardened after firing.[Dunand, Maurice., Rapport préliminaire sure les fouilles de Byblos en 1957, 1958 & 1959, Bulletin du musée de Beyrouth. Tome XVI, 1961, Beyrouth.] Copper appeared more frequently in the Late Chalcolithic period along with multiple burials in tombs and jar handles with impressed signs.
Early Bronze
According to
Lorenzo Nigro, Byblos moved from being a fishermen's village to its earlier urban form at the beginning of the third millennium BC.
Early Bronze Age remains were characterised by the development of Byblos combed ware and a lithic assemblage studied by Jacques Cauvin.
[Fleisch, Henri., Néolithique du Proche-Orient, Bulletin de la Société Préhistorique Français, vol. 49, 5–6, p. 212. (Contains report on Byblos excavations of 1951 by Maurice Dunand), 1952.]
Watson Mills and Roger Bullard suggest that during the Old Kingdom of Egypt and Middle Kingdom of Egypt Byblos was virtually an Egyptian colony.[Wilkinson, Toby, 1999, Early Dynastic Egypt p. 78.]
Middle Bronze
Objects have been found at Byblos naming the 12th Dynasty king
Senusret II, the 13th Dynasty Egyptian king
Neferhotep I.
Late Bronze
The rulers of Byblos maintained close relationships with the New Kingdom pharaohs of Ancient Egypt.
Around 1350 BC, the Amarna letters include 60 letters from Rib-Hadda and his successor Ili-Rapih who were rulers of Byblos, writing to the Egyptian government. This is mainly due to Rib-Hadda's constant pleas for military assistance from Akhenaten. They also deal with the conquest of neighbouring city-states by the Habiru.
It appears Egyptian contact peaked during the 19th dynasty, only to decline during the 20th and 21st dynasties. In addition, when the New Kingdom collapsed in the 11th century BC, Byblos ceased being a colony and became the foremost city of Phoenicia.["Byblos" in: Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 2, p. 692. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 1992. ] Although the archaeological evidence seems to indicate a brief resurgence during the 22nd and 23rd dynasties, it is clear after the Third Intermediate Period the Egyptians started favouring Tyre and Sidon instead of Byblos.[Shaw, Ian: "The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt", page 321. Oxford University Press, 2000. ]
Archaeological evidence at Byblos, particularly the five Byblian royal inscriptions dating back to around 1200–1000 BC, shows existence of a Phoenician alphabet of twenty-two characters; an important example is the Ahiram sarcophagus. The use of the alphabet was spread by Phoenician merchants through their maritime trade into parts of North Africa and Europe. One of the most important monuments of this period is the Temple of the Obelisks, dedicated to the Canaanite war god Resheph, but this had fallen into ruins by the time of Alexander the Great.
Iron Age
In the
period,
Sibittibaal of Byblos became tributary to Tiglath-Pileser III in 738 BC, and in 701 BC, when
Sennacherib conquered all
Phoenicia, the king of Byblos was
Urumilki. Byblos was also subject to Assyrian kings
Esarhaddon (r. 681–669 BC) and
Ashurbanipal (r. 668–627 BC), under its kings
Milkiasaph and
Yehawmelek.
In the Achaemenid Empire (538–332 BC), Byblos was the fourth of four Phoenician vassal kingdoms established by the Persians; the first three being Sidon, Tyr, and Arwad.
Classical antiquity
Hellenistic rule came with the arrival of Alexander the Great in the area in 332 BC.
Currency was in use, and there is abundant evidence of continued trade with other Mediterranean countries.
During the Ancient Rome period, the temple of Resheph was elaborately rebuilt, and the city, though smaller than its neighbours such as Tyrus and Zidonia, was a centre for the cult of Adonis.
King Herod of Herodian kingdom, known for his extensive building projects, including beyond his own kingdom, constructed a city wall for Byblos.
In the 3rd century, a small but impressive theatre was constructed. With the rise of Christianity, a Episcopal see was established in Byblos, and the town grew rapidly. Although a Sasanian Empire colony is known to have been established in the region following the early Muslim conquests of 636, there is little archaeological evidence for it. Trade with Europe effectively dried up, and it was not until the coming of the First Crusade in 1098 that prosperity returned to Byblos, known then as Gibelet or Giblet.
Crusader, Mamluk, Ottoman period
In the 12th and 13th century, Byblos became part of the County of Tripoli, a
Crusader states connected to, but largely independent from, the
Kingdom of Jerusalem.
As Gibelet or Giblet, it came under the rule of the Genoa Embriaco family, who created for themselves the Lordship of Gibelet, first as administrators of the city in the name of the Republic of Genoa, and then as a hereditary fief, undertaking to pay an annual fee to Genoa and the Genoa Cathedral (Genoa's Cathedral).
The Embriaco family's residence, the Byblos Castle, along with the fortified town, served as an important military base for the Crusaders. The remains of the castle are among the most impressive architectural structures now visible in the town centre. The town was taken by Saladin in 1187, re-taken by the Crusaders, and conquered by Baibars in 1266, but it remained in the possession of the Embriacos until around 1300.
Having voluntarily surrendered to the Mamluks, the city was relatively spared from looting following its capture.
Contemporary history
Byblos and all of Lebanon were placed under French Mandate from 1920 until 1943 when Lebanon achieved independence. The 2006 Lebanon War negatively affected the ancient city by covering its harbour and town walls with an oil slick that was the result of an oil spill from a nearby power plant.
During the 2024 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, UNESCO gave Byblos and 33 other cultural sites enhanced protection to safeguard them against damage.
Demographics
Byblos's inhabitants are significantly Christian, mostly
Maronite, with minorities of Armenian Apostolic, Greek Orthodox, and Greek Catholics. There is also a minority of
Shia Islam and
Sunni Islam Muslims. It is said that the predominantly Shi`i city of
Bint Jbeil ("Daughter of Byblos") in Southern Lebanon was founded by Shi`a migrants from Byblos. Byblos has three representatives in the Parliament of Lebanon: two Maronites and one Shi`i Muslim.
Education
is home to the professional schools of the Lebanese American University (LAU). The LAU Byblos Campus houses the Medical School, the Engineering School, the School of Architecture and Design, the Pharmacy School, which offers the only Pharm.D. Program outside the United States accredited by the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE),
the School of Business, and the School of Arts and Sciences.
Tourism
Byblos is re-emerging as an upscale touristic hub.
With its ancient
Byblos Port,
, Roman, and Crusader ruins, sandy beaches and the picturesque mountains that surround it make it an ideal tourist destination. The city is known for its fish restaurants, open-air bars, and outdoor cafes. Yachts cruise into its harbor today as they did in the 1960s and 1970s when
Marlon Brando and
Frank Sinatra were regular visitors to the city.
Byblos was crowned as the "Arab Tour Capital" for the year 2016 by the Lebanese minister of tourism in the Grand Serail in
Beirut. Byblos was chosen by Condé Nast Traveler as the second best city in the
Middle East for 2012, beating
Tel Aviv and
Dubai,
and by the World Tourism Organization as the best Arab
tourist city for 2013.
The Byblos archaeological site
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Ain el-Malik or King's Spring, about 20 m deep, is a large cavity accessible by spiral stairs. Once it supplied the city with water.
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The L-shaped Temple was erected about 2700 BC.
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The Temple of the Obelisks, originally built in 1600–1200 BC on top of the “L-shaped temple,” was moved by archaeologists to its present location. The many small obelisks found in this temple were used as religious offerings. The sanctuary contained a large number of Byblos figurines, which are now displayed in the National Museum of Beirut.
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The royal necropolis dates back to the second millennium BC and contains tombs of the Byblos kings, including King Ahiram.
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The Bronze Age necropolis of the Gebalite elite, discovered in 2019 at the southern outskirts of the ancient city acropolis.
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The Roman theater was built around AD 218.
Other historic buildings
The Byblos Wax Museum displays wax statues of characters whose dates of origin range from times to current days.
The Byblos Fossil Museum has a collection of fossilised fish, sharks, eel, flying fish, and other marine life, some of which are millions of years old.
The old medieval part of Byblos is surrounded by walls running about 270m from east to west and 200m from north to south.
Byblos Castle was built by the Crusaders in the 12th century. It is located in the archaeological site near the port.
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St John the Baptist Church
Work on the church started during the Crusades in 1115. It was considered a cathedral and was partially destroyed during an earthquake in AD 1170. It was later given to the Maronite bishop as a gift by Prince
Yusuf Shihab.
The old mosque by the Castle dates back to the
Mamluk period, and adopted the name of Sultan
Abdulmejid I after he renovated it.
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Historic Quarter and Souks
In the southeast section of the historic city, near the entrance of the archaeological site, is an old market.
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Byblos International Festival
This summer music festival is an annual event that takes place in the historic quarter.
The Armenian Genocide Orphans' Aram Bezikian Museum is a museum dedicated to preserving the memory of the Armenian Genocide and its survivors.
Notable people
Twin towns – sister cities
Byblos is
Sister city with:
Gallery
Byblos ancient ruins, Byblos, Lebanon.jpg
The city of Byblos, Lebanon.jpg
Byblos historic quarter, Byblos, Lebanon.jpg
Byblos Historic Quarter.jpg
Byblos 02.jpg
ByblosStreet.jpg
Byblos le port.jpg
Byblos 09.jpg
Souk de Byblos.JPG
Byblos-harbor.jpg
See also
Notes
Further reading
External links
