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| History of Lebanon |
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The history of ancient Lebanon traces the course of events related to the geographic area in the Eastern Mediterranean of what is now known as Lebanon from the beginning of antiquity to the beginning of Arab rule.
The earliest known settlements in Lebanon date back to earlier than 5000 BC. In Byblos, which is considered to be the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world, archaeologists have discovered remnants of prehistoric huts with crushed limestone floors, primitive weapons, and burial jars which are evidence of the Neolithic and Chalcolithic fishing communities who lived on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea over 8,000 years ago.[ citation needed ]
The area was first recorded in history around 4000 BC as a group of coastal cities and a heavily forested hinterland.[ citation needed ] It was inhabited by the Canaanites, a Semitic people, whom the Greeks called "Phoenicians" because of the purple (phoinikies) dye they sold. These early inhabitants referred to themselves as "men of Sidon" or the like, according to their city of origin. The Canaanites were city-state settlers, who established colonies throughout the Mediterranean (see: List of Phoenician cities) into a form of a Thalassocracy as opposed to an established empire with a designated capital city.[ citation needed ]
Each of the coastal cities was an independent city-state noted for the special activities of its inhabitants.[ citation needed ] Tyre and Sidon were important maritime and trade centers; Gubla (later known as Byblos; in Arabic, Jbeil) and Berytus (present-day Beirut) were trade and religious centers. Gubla was the first Canaanite city to trade actively with Egypt and the pharaohs of the Old Kingdom (2686-2181 BC), exporting cedar, olive oil, and wine, while importing gold and other products from the Nile Valley.[ citation needed ]
Before the end of the 17th century BC, Canaanite-Egyptian relations were interrupted when the Hyksos, a nomadic Semitic people, conquered Egypt. After about three decades of Hyksos rule (1600-1570 BC), Ahmose I (1570-1545 BC), Theban prince, launched the Egyptian liberation war. Opposition to the Hyksos increased, reaching a peak during the reign of the pharaoh Thutmose III (1490-1436 BC), who invaded the area now known as Syria, put an end to Hyksos domination, and incorporated Canaan into the Egyptian Empire.[ citation needed ]
Toward the end of the 14th century BC, the Egyptian Empire weakened, and the city-states were able to regain some of their autonomy by the beginning of the 12th century BC. The subsequent three centuries were a period of prosperity and freedom from foreign control during which the earlier Canaanite invention of the alphabet facilitated communications and trade.[ citation needed ] The Canaanites also excelled not only in producing textiles but also in carving ivory, in working with metal, and above all in making glass. Masters of the art of navigation, they founded colonies wherever they went in the Mediterranean Sea (specifically in Cyprus, Rhodes, Crete, and Carthage) and established trade routes to Europe and western Asia. These colonies and trade routes flourished until the invasion of the coastal areas by the Assyrians.[ citation needed ]
In the Middle Bronze IIA, the Beqa Valley was a high way for trade between the Kingdom of Qatna in the north and Kingdom of Hazor in the south. Hazor may have been subject to Qatna, meaning that the entire region was under influence of Qatna, with Kadesh facing the northern part of the valley. Trade routes went further to Mari on the Euphrates river. In the valley, Kamid el-Loz had a palace and temple, being a hub for trade routes going north-south and east-west. There were trade routes to Beirut, Sidon, Hazor, Damascus, Tell Hizzin and Baalbek.
In the Late Bronze II, the Beqa Valley (Amqu) was controlled from Kamid el-Loz became the seat of an Egyptian governor. The northern part of the Beqa Valley consisted of pasture lands and functioned as a border region to Kadesh in the north. At first Syria was part of the Mitanni Empire, but following the military campaigns of Suppiluliuma I of Hatti (c. 1350 BC), Kadesh became a stronghold of the Hittite Empire facing the Egyptian Empire in the south. Literary evidence from this period is found in the Amarna Archive.
Assyrian rule (875-608 BC) deprived the Canaanite city-states of their independence and prosperity and brought repeated, unsuccessful rebellions. In the middle of the 8th century BC, Tyre and Byblos rebelled, but the Assyrian ruler, Tiglath-Pileser III, subdued the rebels and imposed heavy tributes.[ citation needed ] Oppression continued unabated, and Tyre rebelled again, this time against Sargon II (722-705 BC), who successfully besieged the city in 721 BC and punished its population. During the 7th century BC, the city of Sidon rebelled and was completely destroyed by Esarhaddon (681-668 BC); its inhabitants were enslaved. Esarhaddon built a new city on Sidon's ruins. By the end of the 7th century BC, the Assyrian Empire, weakened by the successive revolts, had been destroyed by the Median Empire.[ citation needed ]
As the Babylonians finally defeated the Assyrians at Carchemish, much of the region of Canaan was already in their hands, since much of it was seized from the collapsing Assyrian kingdom. In that time two Babylonian kings succeeded the throne, Nabopolassar who focused on ending Assyrian influence in the region, and his son Nebuchadnezzar II whose reign witnessed several regional rebellions, especially in Jerusalem.[ citation needed ] Revolts in Canaanite cities became more frequent during that period (685-636 BC, Tyre rebelled again and for thirteen years resisted a siege by the troops of Nebuchadnezzar 587-574 BC. After this long siege, the city capitulated; its king was dethroned, and its citizens were enslaved.[ citation needed ]
| Achaemenid Phoenicia | |||||||||||||
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| Province of the Persian Empire | |||||||||||||
| c.538 BC–c.332 BC | |||||||||||||
 Phoenicia within The Achaemenid Empire, 500 BC. | |||||||||||||
| Historical era | Achaemenid Empire | ||||||||||||
| c.538 BC | |||||||||||||
| c.332 BC | |||||||||||||
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The Babylonian province of Phoenicia and its neighbors passed to Achaemenid rule with the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus the Great in 539/8 BC. [1]
The Syro-Canaan coastal cities remained under Persian rule for the following two centuries.[ citation needed ] The Canaanite navy supported Persia during the Greco-Persian War (490-49 BC). But when the Canaanites were overburdened with heavy tributes imposed by the successors of Darius I (521-485 BC), revolts and rebellions resumed in the coastal city-states.[ citation needed ]
The Persian Empire, including the Canaan province, eventually fell to Alexander the Great, king of Macedonia in 4th century BC.[ citation needed ]
Main rulers under the Achaemenid Empire:
The Persian Empire eventually fell to Alexander the Great, king of Macedon. He attacked Asia Minor, defeated the Persian troops in 333 BC, and advanced toward the eastern Mediterranean coast. Initially the Canaanite cities made no attempt to resist, and they recognized Alexander as suzerain.[ citation needed ] However, when Alexander tried to offer a sacrifice to Melqart, Tyre's god, the city resisted. Alexander besieged Tyre in retaliation in early 332 BC. After six months of resistance, the city fell, and its people were sold into slavery. Despite his early death in 323 BC, Alexander's conquest of the eastern Mediterranean Basin left a Greek imprint on the area. The Phoenicians, being a cosmopolitan people amenable to outside influences, adopted aspects of Greek civilization with ease.[ citation needed ]
After Alexander's death, his empire was divided among his Macedonian generals. The eastern part—Canaan, Asia Minor, northern Syria, and Mesopotamia fell to Seleucus I, founder of the Seleucid dynasty. The southern part of modern day Syria and modern day Egypt fell to Ptolemy, and the Balkan regions, including Macedonia, to Antigonus I. This settlement, however, failed to bring peace because Seleucus I and Ptolemy clashed repeatedly. A final victory of the Seleucids ended a forty-year period of conflict.[ citation needed ]
The last century of Seleucid rule was marked by disorder and dynastic struggles. These ended in 64 BC, when the Roman general Pompey added Seleucid Syria and Canaan as a Roman province to the Roman Empire. Economic and intellectual activities flourished in Canaan during the Pax Romana. The inhabitants of the principal Canaanite city-states of Byblos, Sidon, and Tyre were granted Roman citizenship. These cities were centers of the pottery, glass, and purple dye industries; their harbors also served as warehouses for products imported from eastern regions such as Persia and India. They exported cedar, perfume, jewelry, wine, and fruit to Rome. Economic prosperity led to a revival in construction and urban development; temples and palaces were built throughout the country, as well as paved roads that linked the main cities like Heliopolis and Berytus. [ citation needed ]
Indeed, starting in the last quarter of the 1st century BCE (reign of Augustus) and over a period of two centuries (reign of Philip the Arab), the Romans built a huge temple complex in Heliopolis (actual Baalbek) on a pre-existing tell consisting of three temples: Jupiter, Bacchus and Venus. On a nearby hill, they built a fourth temple dedicated to Mercury.
Furthermore, the veterans of two Roman legions were established in the city of Berytus (actual Beirut): the fifth Macedonian and the third Gallic. [2] The city quickly became Romanized. Large public buildings and monuments were erected and Berytus enjoyed full status as a part of the empire. [3]
Under the Romans, Berytus was enriched by the dynasty of Herod the Great, and was made a colonia , Colonia Iulia Augusta Felix Berytus, in 14 BC. Beirut's school of law was widely known at the time. [4] Two of Rome's most famous jurists, Papinian and Ulpian, both natives of Canaan, taught at the law school under the Severan emperors.
Furthermore, The city of Heliopolis was made a colonia by Septimius Severus in 193 AD, having been part of the territory of Berytus on the Canaanite coast since 15 BC. Work on the religious complex there lasted over a century and a half and was never completed. The dedication of the present temple ruins, the largest religious building in the entire Roman empire, dates from the reign of Septimus Severus, whose coins first show the two temples. The great courts of approach were not finished before the reigns of Caracalla (211-217 CE) and Philip the Arab (244-249 CE). In commemoration of the dedication of the new sanctuaries, Severus conferred the rights of the ius Italicum on the city. Today, only six Corinthian columns remain standing of this huge Jupiter temple.
Severus also separated the area of modern Lebanon and parts of Syria from the greater province of Syria Coele, and formed the new province of Phoenice.[ citation needed ]
Upon the death of Theodosius I in 395 AD, the Roman empire was ruled by 2 centres: the eastern or Eastern Roman part with its capital at Constantinople, and the western part with its capital at Rome.[ citation needed ] Under the Byzantine Empire, intellectual and economic activities in Beirut, Tyre, and Sidon continued to flourish for more than a century. However, in the late 6th century a series of earthquakes demolished the temples of Heliopolis and destroyed the Romanized city of Beirut, leveling its famous law school and killing nearly 30,000 inhabitants. To these natural disasters were added the abuses and corruptions prevailing at that time in the empire. Heavy tributes and religious dissension produced disorder and confusion. Furthermore, the ecumenical councils of the 5th and 6th centuries were unsuccessful in settling religious disagreements. This turbulent period weakened the empire and made it easy prey to the newly converted Muslim Arabs of the Arabian Peninsula that invaded the region in 642 AD.[ citation needed ]
Sidon or Saida is the third-largest city in Lebanon. It is located in the South Governorate, of which it is the capital, on the Mediterranean coast. Tyre to the south and Lebanese capital Beirut to the north are both about 40 kilometres away. Sidon has a population of about 80,000 within city limits, while its metropolitan area has more than a quarter-million inhabitants.
Canaan was a Semitic-speaking civilization and region of the Southern Levant in the Ancient Near East during the late 2nd millennium BC. Canaan had significant geopolitical importance in the Late Bronze Age Amarna Period as the area where the spheres of interest of the Egyptian, Hittite, Mitanni, and Assyrian Empires converged or overlapped. Much of present-day knowledge about Canaan stems from archaeological excavation in this area at sites such as Tel Hazor, Tel Megiddo, En Esur, and Gezer.
Byblos, also known as Jebeil, Jbeil or Jubayl, is an ancient city in the Keserwan-Jbeil Governorate of Lebanon. The area is believed to have been first settled between 8800 and 7000 BC and continuously inhabited since 5000 BC. During its history, Byblos was part of numerous cultures including Egyptian, Phoenician, Assyrian, Persian, Hellenistic, Roman, Genoese, Mamluk and Ottoman. Urbanisation is thought to have begun during the third millennium BC and it developed into a city making it one of the oldest cities in the world. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The King of Tyre was the ruler of Tyre, the ancient Phoenician city in what is now Lebanon. The traditional list of 12 kings, with reigns dated to 990–785 BC, is derived from the lost history of Menander of Ephesus as quoted by Josephus in Against Apion I. 116–127. Josephus asserts that Menander had drawn his list from the chronicles of Tyre itself. Menander-Josephus also contains a list of 9 kings and judges, with reigns dated to 591–532 BC in Against Apion I. 154–160.
Berytus, briefly known as Laodicea in Phoenicia or Laodicea in Canaan from the 2nd century to 64 BCE, was the ancient city of Beirut from the Roman Republic through the Roman Empire and Early Byzantine period/late antiquity. Berytus became a Roman colonia that would be the center of Roman presence in the Eastern Mediterranean shores south of Anatolia.
The National Museum of Beirut is the principal museum of archaeology in Lebanon. The collection begun after World War I, and the museum was officially opened in 1942. The museum has collections totaling about 100,000 objects, most of which are antiquities and medieval finds from excavations undertaken by the Directorate General of Antiquities.
During the Middle Assyrian Empire and the Neo-Assyrian Empire, Phoenicia, what is today known as Lebanon and coastal Syria, came under Assyrian rule on several occasions.
Phoenicia under Roman rule describes the Phoenician city states ruled by Rome from 64 BCE to the Muslim conquests of the 7th century. The area around Berytus was the only Latin speaking and Romanized part of Aramaic-speaking Phoenicia.
The Assyrian conquest of Aram concerns the series of conquests of largely Aramean, Phoenician, Sutean and Neo-Hittite states in the Levant by the Neo-Assyrian Empire. This region was known as Eber-Nari and Aram during the Middle Assyrian Empire and the Neo-Assyrian Empire.
The architecture of Lebanon embodies the historical, cultural and religious influences that have shaped Lebanon's built environment. It has been influenced by the Phoenicians, Romans, Byzantines, Umayyads, Crusaders, Mamluks, Ottomans and French. Additionally, Lebanon is home to many examples of modern and contemporary architecture. Architecturally notable structures in Lebanon include ancient thermae and temples, castles, churches, mosques, hotels, museums, government buildings, souks, residences and towers.
Phoenicia, or Phœnicia, was an ancient Semitic thalassocratic civilization originating in the coastal strip of the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily located in modern Lebanon. The territory of the Phoenicians expanded and contracted throughout history, with the core of their culture stretching from Arwad in modern Syria to Mount Carmel in modern Israel covering the entire coast of modern Lebanon. Beyond their homeland, the Phoenicians extended through trade and colonization throughout the Mediterranean, from Cyprus to the Iberian Peninsula.
The Temples of the Beqaa Valley are a number of shrines and Roman temples that are dispersed around the Beqaa Valley in Lebanon. The most important and famous are those in Roman Heliopolis. A few temples are built on former buildings of the Phoenician & Hellenistic era, but all are considered to be of Roman construction and were started to be abandoned after the fourth century with the fall of the Roman Paganism.
The Apostolic Vicariate of Beirut is a Latin Church ecclesiastical jurisdiction or apostolic vicariate of the Catholic Church in Lebanon, where Eastern Catholics are far more numerous. In 2010, there were 15,000 baptized. Its current bishop is Cesar Essayan.
Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples or Proto-Semitic people were speakers of Semitic languages who lived throughout the ancient Near East and North Africa, including the Levant, Mesopotamia, the Arabian Peninsula and Carthage from the 3rd millennium BC until the end of antiquity, with some, such as Arabs, Arameans, Assyrians, Jews, Mandaeans, and Samaritans having a continuum into the present day.
Phoenicia was an ancient Semitic-speaking thalassocratic civilization that originated in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily modern Lebanon. At its height between 1100 and 200 BC, Phoenician civilization spread across the Mediterranean, from Cyprus to the Iberian Peninsula.
Eshmunazar I was a priest of Astarte and the Phoenician King of Sidon. He was the founder of his namesake dynasty, and a vassal king of the Achaemenid Empire. Eshmunazar participated in the Neo-Babylonian campaigns against Egypt under the command of either Nebuchadnezzar II or Nabonidus. The Sidonian king is mentioned in the funerary inscriptions engraved on the royal sarcophagi of his son Tabnit I and his grandson Eshmunazar II. The monarch's name is also attested in the dedicatory temple inscriptions of his other grandson, King Bodashtart.
This article lists historical events that occurred between 101–200 in modern-day Lebanon or regarding its people.
This article lists historical events that occurred between 1–100 in modern-day Lebanon or regarding its people.
Sidon is one of the oldest inhabited cities in the world and has a rich and diverse history that spans over 6,000 years. The city's name has changed over time and has been known by various names, including Sidun, Saida, and Saïd. The earliest evidence of human settlement in the area dates back to the Neolithic period, around 4000 BCE. Sidon rose to prominence during the Bronze Age and became one of the most important city-states in the region. It was a major center for trade and commerce and played a significant role in the Mediterranean trade network. The city's strategic coastal location made it a hub for maritime activities.
