Byblos:
- The Fortress
- St. Jean-Marc Cathedral
- The Old Harbor
- The Old Souk, Jbeil-Byblos
- Aquilina Church
- Christmas 2012 / 2013 / 2014 / 2016
"The most ancient city in the world,"
said Philon when speaking of Byblos in the second
century after Christ. Of great interest is the fact
that it has been continuously inhabited for at least
eight millennia. On one and the same site it offers
remains covering every period, Neolithic, Canaanite,
Phoenician, Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Greco-Roman,
Byzantine, Ommiad, Frankish, Ottoman and French
Mandate.
In this way it presents all the stages of the evolution
of civilisation up to our own time. One sees the
first settlement in the form of a primitive village
with its huts of fisherfolk or hunters, then sedentary
life and the construction of urban quarters, then
commercial expansion and maritime relations with
all the various countries of the Eastern Mediterranean
Basin, particularly with Egypt, then the state of
vassal to the Mesopotamian, Greek, Roman and Arab
empires.
It was at Byblos that the western consonantal alphabet
was invented and that the art of making books was
developed, starting with the treatment of the Egyptian
papyrus plant. >From the name of Byblos we have
derivations such as Bible, bibliography, bibliophile
and the French bibliothèque. The first clear
evidence of writing with an alphabet comes from
the tomb of King Ahiram of Byblos, dating from the
13th century before Christ.
Its engineers and artisans were called on to construct
the temple of Jerusalem under Solomon in 950 B.C..
Its religious cults and their temples dedicated
to the god Baal (Lord of Earth and Sky) and of his
partner the Lady of Byblos (Ishtar, goddess of fertililty)
were famous throughout the Eastern Mediterranean,
as the famous traveller Lucian of Samosata tells
us, writing in the 2nd century A.D..
One can still admire where it stands the fortress
of the Franks, built by the Genoese in 1108, the
wall surrounding the area 300-metre by 200 m. of
the medieval town, the Romanesque church of St.
John built in 1115, the 5th century Byzantine church
overlooking the harbour, the small port itself whose
entrance is crowned by a small fort, the remains
of the formidable Phoenician rampart with its sloping
bank from the 3rd millennium B.C., the ruins of
a Roman amphitheatre turned towards the sea, the
impressive hypogea and saccophagi of the kings of
the 2nd millennium B.C., and the colonnades along
the Roman ways. To all these may be added the remarkable
museum of fossil fish from the region anything from
100 to 200 million years old. Truly, Jbeil-Byblos,
provincial seat of the Qa’em makam, merits
the attention of the historians, researchers, tourists
and pleasure-seekers that it constantly attracts.
A view on the little harbor of the very ancient
and yet always youthful town of Jbeil-Byblos, thirty
minutes' drive north of Beirut. Twenty centuries
before Christ, well before Tyre and Sidon, its vessels
carried its wares all over the Eastern Mediterranean.
- The Fortress: >> View
Movie << (2001-04-01)
- St. Jean-Marc Cathedral: >> View
Movie << (2001-04-01)
- The Old Harbor: >> View
Movie << (2001-10-01)
- The Old Harbor: >> View
Movie << (2008-01-01)
- The Old Souk: >> View
Movie << (2003-07-01)
- Aquilina Church: >> View
Movie << (2013-12-15)
- Christmas 2012 - 1: >> View
Movie << (2012-12-15)
- Christmas 2012 - 2: >> View
Movie << (2012-12-15)
- Christmas 2012 - 2: >> View
Movie << (2012-12-15)
- Christmas 2014 - 1: >> View
Movie << (2014-12-15)
- Christmas 2014 - 2: >> View
Movie << (2015-01-01)
- Christmas 2016: >> View
Movie << (2016-12-01)