Archaeology of Lebanon - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Archaeology of Lebanon spans a vast time period, ranging from the Lower Palaeolithic up to the Ottoman period.

Notable findings and sites

Lebanon features several important Paleolithic sites associated with Neanderthals. These include Adloun, Chekka Jdidé, El-Masloukh, Ksar Akil, Nahr Ibrahim and Naame. Jbail is a well-known archaeological site, also known as ancient Byblos

Byblos

Byblos is the Greek name of the Phoenician city Gebal . It is a Mediterranean city in the Mount Lebanon Governorate of present-day Lebanon under the current Arabic name of Jubayl and was also referred to as Gibelet during the Crusades...

(the name assigned by the Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...

s and derived from the word biblio), a Phoenician seaport, where the tomb of Ahiram

Ahiram

Ahiram or, more correctly, Ahirom was a Phoenician king of Byblos Ahirom is not attested in any other Ancient Oriental source. He became famous only by his Phoenician inscribed sarcophagus which was discovered in 1923 by the French excavator Pierre Montet in tomb V of the royal necropolis of Byblos...

is believed to be located. An ancient Phoenician inscription on the tomb dates to between the 13th and 10th centuries BCE. Byblos, as well as archaeological sites in Baalbek

Baalbek

Baalbek is a town in the Beqaa Valley of Lebanon, altitude , situated east of the Litani River. It is famous for its exquisitely detailed yet monumentally scaled temple ruins of the Roman period, when Baalbek, then known as Heliopolis, was one of the largest sanctuaries in the Empire...

, Tyre, Sidon

Sidon

Sidon or Saïda is the third-largest city in Lebanon. It is located in the South Governorate of Lebanon, on the Mediterranean coast, about 40 km north of Tyre and 40 km south of the capital Beirut. In Genesis, Sidon is the son of Canaan the grandson of Noah...

, and Tripoli

Tripoli, Lebanon

Tripoli is the largest city in northern Lebanon and the second-largest city in Lebanon. Situated 85 km north of the capital Beirut, Tripoli is the capital of the North Governorate and the Tripoli District. Geographically located on the east of the Mediterranean, the city's history dates back...

, contain artifacts indicating the presence of libraries dating back to the period of Classical antiquity

Classical antiquity

Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...

Industry names

Lower paleolithic

Lower Paleolithic

The Lower Paleolithic is the earliest subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. It spans the time from around 2.5 million years ago when the first evidence of craft and use of stone tools by hominids appears in the current archaeological record, until around 300,000 years ago, spanning the...

industries of Lebanon have shown similarities to Chelleo-Acheulean, Acheulean

Acheulean

Acheulean is the name given to an archaeological industry of stone tool manufacture associated with early humans during the Lower Palaeolithic era across Africa and much of West Asia, South Asia and Europe. Acheulean tools are typically found with Homo erectus remains...

, Tayacian

Tayacian

The Tayacian is a Palaeolithic stone tool industry that is a variant of the Mousterian. It was first identified from the site of La Micoque in Les-Eyzies-de-Tayac although since then the cave at Fontéchevade has become the "reference site for this industry"....

(Howell's Tabuninan), Tayacio-Levalloisian and Early Levalloisian with some caution suggested to be observed with the use of some early Levalloisian and Acheulean

Acheulean

labels that may be confused with the Heavy Neolithic

Heavy Neolithic

Heavy Neolithic is a style of large stone and flint tools associated primarily with the Qaraoun culture in the Beqaa Valley, Lebanon, dating to the Epipaleolithic or early Pre-pottery Neolithic at the end of the Stone Age...

of the Qaraoun culture

Qaraoun culture

The Qaraoun culture is a culture of the Lebanese Stone Age around Qaraoun in the Beqaa Valley. The Gigantolithic or Heavy Neolithic flint tool industry of this culture was recognized as Neolithic by Henri Fleisch and confirmed by A. Rust and Dorothy Garrod....

. Middle paleolithic

Middle Paleolithic

The Middle Paleolithic is the second subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age as it is understood in Europe, Africa and Asia. The term Middle Stone Age is used as an equivalent or a synonym for the Middle Paleolithic in African archeology. The Middle Paleolithic and the Middle Stone Age...

industries suggested include Amudian (Pre-Aurignacian), early Yabrudian, (Acheulio-Yabrudian), Yarbrudian, Micro-Levalloisian or Micro-Mousterian, Levalloisian, Mousterian

Mousterian

Mousterian is a name given by archaeologists to a style of predominantly flint tools associated primarily with Homo neanderthalensis and dating to the Middle Paleolithic, the middle part of the Old Stone Age.-Naming:...

and Levalloiso-Mousterian. Radio-carbon dating exists for Ksar Akil

Ksar Akil

Ksar Akil is an archeological site 10 km northeast of Beirut in Lebanon. It is located about west of Antelias spring on the north bank of the northern tributary of the Wadi Antelias. It is a large rock shelter below a steep limestone cliff....

and Ras El Kelb

Ras El Kelb

Ras El Kelb is a truncated, seaside cave and Paleolithic settlement located on the low lying coast of Lebanon, 5 miles North of Beirut. It is one of the oldest inhabitations found in the country....

. Various other industries have been judged to be typologically similar to these along with one described by Henri Fleisch

Henri Fleisch

Reverend Father Henri Fleisch, born January 1 1904 in Jonvelle , France and died 10 February 1985 in Lebanon where he was buried. He was a French archaeologist, missionary and Orientalist, known for his work on classical Arabic language and Lebanese dialect and prehistory in Lebanon.He entered the...

in 1962 particular to "mountain sites" for which the Mayroubian

Mayroubian

The Mayroubian is a culture of the Lebanese Stone Age. Archaeological sites of this culture occur in the earliest, cretaceous, sandstone layer at altitudes of over in the districts of Meten, Chouf and Kesrouan....

culture has been defined after it's type site

Type site

In archaeology a type site is a site that is considered the model of a particular archaeological culture...

, Mayrouba

Mayrouba

Mayrouba is a village in Keserwan District, Mount Lebanon Governorate, Lebanon. It sits at an altitude of . The population of Mayrouba is almost exclusively Maronite Catholic, part of the Eastern Catholic Churches...

.

R. Neuville and Dorothy Garrod

Dorothy Garrod

Dorothy Annie Elizabeth Garrod CBE was a British archaeologist who was the first woman to hold an Oxbridge chair, partly through her pioneering work on the Palaeolithic period. Her father was Sir Archibald Garrod, the physician.-Life:Born in Oxford, she attended Newnham College, Cambridge...

divided the Upper Paleolithic

Upper Paleolithic

The Upper Paleolithic is the third and last subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age as it is understood in Europe, Africa and Asia. Very broadly it dates to between 40,000 and 10,000 years ago, roughly coinciding with the appearance of behavioral modernity and before the advent of...

of Lebanon into six stages based on stratified sites in the surrounding area. Stage one has Emiran and transitional varieties, Stage two was possibly evidenced at Ksar Akil

Ksar Akil

. Stages three and four have been termed Lower and Upper Antelian

Antelian

The Antelian culture is an Upper Paleolithic phase of the Levant that evolves from Emirian. The most important innovation in this period is the incorporation of some typical elements of Aurignacian, like some types of burins and narrow blade points that resemble the European type of Font-Yves.-...

after the Antelias cave

Antelias cave

Antelias Cave was a large cave located east of Antelias, northeast of Beirut close to the wadi of Ksar Akil.It was discovered by Heidenborg in 1833. Godefroy Zumoffen made an excavation in 1893, finding an Aurignacian industry amongst large quantities of bones and flints...

. Stage five is Atlitian possibly developed from stage four. Stage six is identified as Kebaran

Kebaran

The Kebaran or Kebarian culture was an archaeological culture in the eastern Mediterranean area , named after its type site, Kebara Cave south of Haifa...

, of which there are many varieties of assemblage based on locality.

Several early Neolithic

Neolithic

The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...

(similar to Neolithic Ancien of Byblos

Byblos

or Amuq A) sites were found by Diana Kirkbride

Diana Kirkbride

Diana Victoria Warcup Kirkbride-Halbaek was a British archaeologist who specialised in the prehistory of the Near East.-Biography:...

in the Beqaa Valley

Beqaa Valley

The Beqaa Valley is a fertile valley in east Lebanon. For the Romans, the Beqaa Valley was a major agricultural source, and today it remains Lebanon’s most important farming region...

in 1964 and mentioned by James Mellaart

James Mellaart

James Mellaart is a British archaeologist and author who is noted for his discovery of the Neolithic settlement of Çatalhöyük in Turkey. He was also expelled from Turkey suspected of involvement with the antiquities black market and was involved with the so-called Mother goddess controversy in...

in 1965. The Neolithic of Lebanon was divided up into three stages by Maurice Dunand

Maurice Dunand

Maurice Dunand was a prominent French archaeologist specializing in the ancient Near East, who served as director of the mission archéologique française in Lebanon. Dunand excavated Byblos from 1928 to 1932, and published a Byblos syllabary in his monograph Byblia Grammata, 1945...

based on the stratified levels of Byblos

Byblos

. The first two stages "Néolithique Ancien" and "Néolithique Moyen" were characterized by an economy based on a mixture of hunting and farming whereas "Néolithique Récent" displayed a shift to agriculture evidenced by fewer arrowheads and more grinding tools and sickle

Sickle

A sickle is a hand-held agricultural tool with a variously curved blade typically used for harvesting grain crops or cutting succulent forage chiefly for feeding livestock . Sickles have also been used as weapons, either in their original form or in various derivations.The diversity of sickles that...

blades.

Various other Neolithic industries have been found in Lebanon such as Trihedral Neolithic

Trihedral Neolithic

Trihedral Neolithic is a name given by archaeologists to a style of striking spheroid and trihedral flint tools from the archaeological site of Joub Jannine II in the Beqaa Valley, Lebanon. The style appears to represent a highly specialized Neolithic industry. Little comment has been made of...

and Shepherd Neolithic

Shepherd Neolithic

Shepherd Neolithic is a name given by archaeologists to a style of small flint tools from the Hermel plains in the north Beqaa Valley, Lebanon. The Shepherd Neolithic industry has never been studied and was provisionally named based on a limited typology collected by Jesuit archaeologist "Père"...

.

One particularly vigorous culture identified at over twenty five sites by Jesuit archaeologists in Lebanon is called the Qaraoun culture

Qaraoun culture

. This culture existed at the dawn of agriculture

Agriculture

Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...

without pottery

Pottery

Pottery is the material from which the potteryware is made, of which major types include earthenware, stoneware and porcelain. The place where such wares are made is also called a pottery . Pottery also refers to the art or craft of the potter or the manufacture of pottery...

and produced Heavy Neolithic

Heavy Neolithic

flint

Flint

Flint is a hard, sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as a variety of chert. It occurs chiefly as nodules and masses in sedimentary rocks, such as chalks and limestones. Inside the nodule, flint is usually dark grey, black, green, white, or brown in colour, and...

tools such as axe

Axe

The axe, or ax, is an implement that has been used for millennia to shape, split and cut wood; to harvest timber; as a weapon; and as a ceremonial or heraldic symbol...

s and picks to work with lumber, such as the Cedars of Lebanon. Their type site

Type site

In archaeology a type site is a site that is considered the model of a particular archaeological culture...

is Qaraoun II, located close to the El Wauroun Dam, Mount Hermon

Mount Hermon

Mount Hermon is a mountain cluster in the Anti-Lebanon mountain range. Its summit straddles the border between Syria and Lebanon and, at 2,814 m above sea level, is the highest point in Syria. On the top there is “Hermon Hotel”, in the buffer zone between Syria and Israeli-occupied...

and Aaiha

Aaiha

Aaiha is a village, plain, lake and temporary wetland situated in the Rashaya District and south of the Beqaa Governorate in Lebanon. It is located in an intermontane basin near Mount Hermon and the Syrian border, approximately halfway between Rashaya and Kfar Qouq.The village sits ca. above sea...

.

The Chalcolithic was divided into two periods by Jacques Cauvin

Jacques Cauvin

Professor Jacques Cauvin was a French archaeologist who specialised in the prehistory of the Levant and Near East.-Biography:...

based on stratified levels at Byblos; "Énéolithique Ancien" and "Énéolithique Récent". The division is marked largely by differences in pottery more than flints with a few notable exceptions such as fan-scrapers. There are a large number of tell

Tell

A tell or tel, is a type of archaeological mound created by human occupation and abandonment of a geographical site over many centuries. A classic tell looks like a low, truncated cone with a flat top and sloping sides.-Archaeology:A tell is a hill created by different civilizations living and...

s in the Beqaa Valley

Beqaa Valley

The Beqaa Valley is a fertile valley in east Lebanon. For the Romans, the Beqaa Valley was a major agricultural source, and today it remains Lebanon’s most important farming region...

and Akkar Plain which have Early Bronze Age

Bronze Age

The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...

or earlier deposits including one under the Grand Court in front of the Temple of Jupiter

Temple of Jupiter

The Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, also known as the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus was the most important temple in Ancient Rome, located on the Capitoline Hill.-First building:Much of what is known of the first Temple of Jupiter is from later Roman...

in Baalbek

Baalbek

. Descriptions of some of the tells in the Beqaa Valley were published by A. Kuschke in 1954.

Damage to archaeological sites

During the 2006 Lebanon war, a number of archaeological sites, including world heritage sites, were damaged as a result of Israeli aerial bombardments in Lebanon.
A survey of the damage to sites in Lebanon was launched by UNESCO after the international archaeological community, including the director of the British Museum

British Museum

The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...

, Neil MacGregor

Neil MacGregor

Robert Neil MacGregor, OM, FSA is an art historian and museum director. He was the Editor of the Burlington Magazine from 1981 to 1987, the Director of the National Gallery, London, from 1987 to 2002, and was appointed Director of the British Museum in 2002...

, urged an investigation into the effects of bombing on "one of the planet's most heritage-rich countries." UNESCO's team of experts found that the most serious damage resulting from the conflict was at the world heritage site of Byblos, where an oil spill

Oil spill

An oil spill is the release of a liquid petroleum hydrocarbon into the environment, especially marine areas, due to human activity, and is a form of pollution. The term is mostly used to describe marine oil spills, where oil is released into the ocean or coastal waters...

resulting from the targeting of fuel tanks at the Jiyeh power plant had stained the stones at the base of the port's two Medieval towers, among other archaeological remains on the seashore. Mounir Bouchenaki, Director-General of the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM) estimated that it would take twenty-five people eight to ten weeks to manually hand-clean the affected areas, placing the cost of the operation at some 100,000 USD.

The mission also found that the main features of the world heritage site of Tyre, such as the Roman

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

hippodrome

Hippodrome

A hippodrome was a Greek stadium for horse racing and chariot racing. The name is derived from the Greek words "hippos and "dromos"...

and triumphal arch

Triumphal arch

A triumphal arch is a monumental structure in the shape of an archway with one or more arched passageways, often designed to span a road. In its simplest form a triumphal arch consists of two massive piers connected by an arch, crowned with a flat entablature or attic on which a statue might be...

had escaped damage, but that frescoes in a Roman tomb

Tomb

A tomb is a repository for the remains of the dead. It is generally any structurally enclosed interment space or burial chamber, of varying sizes...

at the site had come loose, likely because of vibrations caused by bombs. It was also reported that the world heritage site of Baalbek was not damaged by bombs, with the exception of the fall of one block of stone and the widening of fissures on the lintels in the temple

Temple

A temple is a structure reserved for religious or spiritual activities, such as prayer and sacrifice, or analogous rites. A templum constituted a sacred precinct as defined by a priest, or augur. It has the same root as the word "template," a plan in preparation of the building that was marked out...

s of Jupiter

Jupiter (mythology)

In ancient Roman religion and myth, Jupiter or Jove is the king of the gods, and the god of the sky and thunder. He is the equivalent of Zeus in the Greek pantheon....

and Bacchus

Temple of Bacchus

The Temple of Bacchus was one of the three main temples at a large complex in Classical Antiquity, at Baalbek in Lebanon. The temple was dedicated to Bacchus , the Roman god of wine, but was traditionally referred to by Neoclassical visitors as the "Temple of the Sun". It is considered one of the...

, likely due to vibrations from nearby bombings. Also damaged by bombs, as noted by the mission, were the souk

Souk

A souq is a commercial quarter in an Arab, Berber, and increasingly European city. The term is often used to designate the market in any Arabized or Muslim city, but in modern times it appears in Western cities too...

and some old houses in the Old City of Baalbek that were not part of the property inscribed on the World Heritage List.

At a press conference revealing the results of the survey, Françoise Rivière, UNESCO's Assistant Director-General for Culture, reported on UNESCO's efforts during and after the fighting to draw the attention of both parties to their obligations to spare cultural heritage, as protected by the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict

Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict

The Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict is an international treaty that requires its signatories to protect cultural property in war. It was signed at The Hague, Netherlands, on May 14, 1954, and entered into force August 7, 1956...

, to which both Lebanon and Israel are States Parties.

External links

Lebanon's Archeological Heritage

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Notable findings and sites

Industry names

Damage to archaeological sites

See also

External links