The site of ancient Byblos lies on the Lebanese coast about 25 miles north of Beirut.. The Greeks gave the name Byblos to the site because they imported Egyptian papyrus, or byblos, thr
Trang 1The site of ancient Byblos lies on the Lebanese coast
about 25 miles north of Beirut It has been
continu-ously occupied since the late Neolithic Period (c 5000
b.c.e.), and its tradition claims that it is the oldest city
in the world The Greeks gave the name Byblos to the
site because they imported Egyptian papyrus, or byblos,
through the city The Egyptians called it Kebeny, but the
name of the city was Gubal to its inhabitants, and later
Gebal Byblos persists as the name of the archaeological
site, but the town’s name in Arabic is Jebeil
For centuries the location of the ancient city was
forgotten until discovered by the French scholar Ernest
Renan in 1860 It lay under the town of Jebeil, the walls
of its houses containing inscribed stones from the city’s
ancient past Between 1919 and 1924 Pierre Montet’s
excavations revealed the tombs of nine ancient rulers of
Byblos Maurice Dunand succeeded Montet,
conduct-ing excavations from 1925 to 1975
The fourth-century c.e geographer Strabo described
Byblos as a “city on a height only a short distance from
the sea.” It had an excellent geographical situation where
trade routes from north and south met The city was
built on a promontory, behind which the mountains of
Lebanon came closest to the sea, providing easy access
to vast forests of cedar wood and reserves of copper ore
On either side of the promontory were bays that
provid-ed natural harbors, the larger one to the south On the
north side lay the upper town, or acropolis, holding the
palaces and temples The harbors were not particularly
large but quite capable of handling the goods that fl owed
in and out of Byblos Exports included Canaanite wine
and oil and the all-important timber
The earliest example of the Phoenician alphabet
(c 1000 b.c.e.) is found on the sarcophagus of King
Ahiram of Byblos Remains from nearly 3,000 years
of contact with Egypt survive, including artifacts
in-scribed with names of pharaohs from all periods Trade
was disrupted around 2300 b.c.e by Amorite tribes
from the desert invading the coastal plain and
attack-ing Byblos The city soon recovered and entered on a
period of great prosperity that lasted until the
com-ing of the Sea Peoples in the 13th century b.c.e The
Iron Age (1200–586 b.c.e.) ushered in the Phoenician
age of Byblos: the blend of the coastal Canaanites and
the Sea Peoples After 1000 b.c.e the city was never
completely independent of the great powers, Assyria,
Babylon, and Persia
Byblos always put trade fi rst and submitted to
its overlords, including Alexander the Great, to
whom it surrendered and was spared After Alexan-der’s conquest the city slowly adopted Greek culture and language The arrival of the Romans in 64 b.c.e brought three centuries of peace and prosperity to the city, along with the building of temples, theaters, and baths Byzantine imperial rule brought a Christian bishop to the city, but there are few remains from this period In 636 c.e the city passed under Arab rule until taken by the crusaders in 1104 Around 1215 the crusaders built the Church of St John the Baptist
In 1289 the city surrendered to the Mamelukes, and
in the 15th century Byblos was taken over by the Ot-toman Turks, under whose rule Jebeil operated as an obscure fi shing port
See also Egypt, culture and religion; Phoenician colonies
Further reading: Gibson, John C L Textbook of Syrian
Semitic Inscriptions, Vol 3 Phoenician Inscriptions Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982; Herm, Gerhard The Phoenicians
New York: Book Club Associates, 1975; Markoe, Glenn E
Peoples of the Past: Phoenicians Berkeley: University of
Cal-ifornia Press, 2000
John Barclay Burns
Byzantine-Persian wars
In the third century c.e the Sassanid dynasty replaced Parthian rule in the Persian Empire Rome and Persia soon ran into confl ict over disputed territorial claims, particularly in the Caucasus region Diocletian sta-bilized the frontier by forcing the Persians from the re-gion and establishing suzerainty in 299 c.e Hostilities resumed when the Persians invaded Armenia, trying to regain dominance, and continued throughout much of the fourth century In 363 Emperor Julian the Apos-tate was killed fi ghting the Persians Afterward Rome yielded territory, including Armenia Relations remained tense (and sometimes hostile) for decades until confl ict resumed in the early fi fth century Another factor that led to confl ict was religion
The Eastern Roman Empire was set on Christianity, while the Sassanid Empire was set on Zoroastrian-ism When the Persians began to persecute Christians, Theodosius II declared war, which resulted in another treaty In 442 relations were ameliorated when both faced the scourge of the Huns and mobilized for fense Peace was broken in 502 when the Persians de-manded tribute and invaded Syria and Armenia
58 Byblos