key quotes

"The Egyptian king Sneferu sends a maritime expedition to Byblos in search of cedar wood."

"First coinage appearance under Persian mandate."

"Byblos is mentioned in Egyptian sources dating to the Old Kingdom."

"Trading with the pharaohs of Egypt starting from the early first dynasties in Upper Egypt."

"Numerous inscribed Egyptian objects dating from the end of the 2nd dynasty to the later 6th dynasty have been found in Byblos."

"Reliefs in Memphis from the 5th dynasty (2350 B.C.) in Egypt show Phoenician princess arriving on a Byblos ship to marry the pharaoh."

"During the New Kingdom after Egypt conquered the Levant, Byblos became a vassal city-state (1550-1300 B.C.) with its own king called mayor by Egypt and used to provide annual payments to Egypt."

"From the fourth millennium B.C. since the first dynasty in Egypt, Byblos was a very active center for commerce and became the key port city on the Levantine coast."

"The word Byblos comes from Bublos, the essence used to make paper, and Byblos has always been associated with papyrus and the writing of books."

"Byblos used to be also a main religious center in the region."

"The Phoenician female deity, the goddess Baalat-Gebal of Byblos, was associated with Aphrodite and Astarte and was the goddess patron of the city and protector of the royal family."

"Since early antiquity, the site had an east gate giving to the mainland and a north gate giving to the sea and the Phoenician port of Byblos."

"Was found in the tombs a reused Egyptian sarcophagus of the king of Byblos Ahiram dating from around the year 1000 B.C., on this sarcophagus were found the famous inscription of the twenty-two letters of the Phoenician alphabet."

"The Phoenician figurines or statuettes of Byblos date to the late third or early second millennium B.C., they were offered by worshipers as a plea for the god Reshef in the Temple of the Obelisks."

"Byblos appears as the first Phoenician city to strike a coin a little before the middle of the fifth century."

"The old name of Jbeil, Gebal ou Gebla. In the 4th millennium B.C. it used to be called Gubia. The Assyrians used to call it Gubil, the Egyptians Kepen, the Greeks, mainly Herodote called it Byblos. The crusaders used to call it Gibelet. With time, the name transformed to Jbeil."

"In the Early Bronze Age emergence of Byblos as the first city-states harvesting of marine resources, agriculture, and animal husbandry, use of metals and trading Cedar wood with Egypt."

"In the Early Bronze Age appearance of ceramic objects with decoration with red or reddish-brown slip and pottery were produced in large quantities."

"Social stratification was a consistent feature of Byblos at that time."

"By the Middle of Bronze Age more construction of cultic temples, shaft tomb was being used, active trade in the textiles trade, production of glass and faience wares."

"Byblos was the wealthiest of all Phoenician states."

"By the end of the fifth century the trade routes stretched from India to Morocco and from the Black Sea to the Red Sea."

"Construction of roads and trade with Mesopotamia."

"At the arrival of Alexander The Great, the council of Byblos opened their gates to Alexander."

"The site is about 14 ha and has a perimeter of around 1500 m, and has a natural spring cut in the rock in a depression in the middle of the site."

"The site is enclosed in a defense wall that the origins go back to the 4th millennium B.C."

"Since early antiquity the site had an East gate giving to the mainland and a North gate giving to the sea and the Phoenician port of Byblos."

"It is said that the city had two ports as of the customs on the Phoenicians, one on the North part of the site and one on the South part."

"It is not been proved but it is said that perhaps the settlements in the site were reserved to the city personnel and the people taking care of the temples and that the populations lived outside the walls towards the North and East of the acropolis."

"Byblos ruins sites contain layers of civilizations from the Neolithic to Phoenicians to Persians to Greeks to Romans to the Arabs invasion and crusaders era."

"Ernest Renan, during the French archaeologist campaign in Byblos at the end of the 19th century said that the biggest destruction of the site happened during the religious wars, the Arab invasions and the Crusaders campaigns."

"Most of the objects found during the excavations of the site by the English and the French are either in the British Museum or the Louvre."

"There is a collection of these objects in the national museum in Beirut."

"The Quaternary plateau of Byblos and beaches of Byblos is down dropped block covered with poudingues and sandstones on top of the formation of Ghazir Marls."

"The sources used to study the history of Byblos are the classical sources written by the Greeks and Romans, the Biblical texts, the outputs of Egypt, Babylon and Assyria and the Hittites, the Amarna letters, the reports of the Egyptian emissary Wenamun, the Ugarictic texts and the study of some inscription and works on artifacts."

"Several Greek histories of the Phoenicians and Byblos once existed. Besides the histories by Menander of Ephesus and Dius, we know of the Phoinikika by Hestiaeus. Philostratus also composed a Phoenician history."

"Josephus also cites a passage from a Phoenician history by the historian Dius."

"Philo of Byblos writing in about 100 BCE, supposedly translated into Greek a much older Phoenician history by Sanchuniathon."

"Porphyry locates Sanchuniathon in the time of Semiramis. Porphyry says Sanchuniathon collected all the ancient history from city records and temple registers and wrote it up in the Phoenician language."

"Byblos is mentioned in hieroglyphic and hieratic records of Egypt for almost 2000 years."

"The earliest mention of the city's name found on a lintel of a door of a 4th Dynasty at Giza and the city was spelled Kbn."

"During the 6th Dynasty Kbn is mentioned in the tomb inscription of Pharaoh Khui."

"In a text from this same dynasty of Pharaoh Pepi the term Byblos-ships is mentioned."

"In the 18th Dynasty the city's name is spelled Kpn instead of Kbn."

"On two 12th Dynasty Coffin Texts the city was mentioned."

"The mention of the city name is found on a manuscript of the Story of Sinuhe which dates from the late 12th Dynasty."

"Also in a letter from Kahun the city was mentioned."

"Byblos name occurs in several Egypt Middle Kingdom inscriptions one of which is on a 12th-Dynasty stele in the British Museum."

"The name occurs also in the Papyrus Ebers written during the Egypt Second Intermediate period."

"In the Egypt New Kingdom texts Byblos occurs on the Gebel Barkal Stele of Thutmose III and on a stele of War about an officer of Amenhotep II and in an Asiatic list of Amenhotep III."

"The city's name is also found in the satyrical letter of the Papyrus Anastasi I of the 19th Dynasty."

"The Amarna Letters of the 14th century BCE talk about the correspondence between Byblos and Egypt."

"The city is mentioned in the Onomasticon of Amenope which comes from the 22nd Dynasty."

"In cuneiform records from Mesopotamia Byblos is mentioned first in two Drehem texts of the 3rd Dynasty of Ur where it is spelled Ku-ub-la."

"Also from Mesopotamia Byblos is mentioned in the Mari texts of the 18th century BCE."

"Yantin-Ammu or Inten king of Byblos in the 18th-century BCE is mentioned in cuneiform text found in Mari."

"Zirmri-Lim of Mari with his son Hammurabi met Yantin-Ammu of Byblos during a military campaign."

"The city is mentioned in the Assyrian texts from Tiglath-pileser I down to Ashurbanipal, and a Babylonian text from the time of Nebuchadnezzar II where the city is spelled is Gublu, Gubal or Gubla."

"In Phoenician inscriptions written in alphabetic script the name of Byblos occurs first on the Ahiram Sarcophagus."

"The name of the city written Gbl found in the Onomasticon of Eusebius."

"Inscriptions in the temple of the obelisks in Byblos mentioning Egypt date from the 9th and 10th dynasty."

"Byblos is mentioned four times in the Bible."

"Kings 5:18: The craftsmen of Solomon and Hiram and workers from Byblos cut and prepared the timber and stone for the building of the temple."

"Psalm 83:7: Byblos, Ammon and Amalek, Philistia, with the people of Tyre."

"Ezekiel 27:9: Veteran craftsmen of Byblos were on board as shipwrights to caulk your seams. All the ships of the sea and their sailors came alongside to trade for your wares."

"The role of Byblos was a commercial hub. The Phoenicians of Byblos engaged in trade of various commodities in agricultural products, olive oil, metals, ivory, aromatics, resins, textile and artifacts."

"Byblos played a major role in trade between Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Cyprus, Crete and Egypt known as the Byblos Run."

"Early trade involved obsidian, flint, and lapis lazuli over long distances."

"Since the third millennium BCE the Phoenicians of Byblos imported raw materials, processed them and exported them in large quantities."

"The shipment of goods were made using trade mark jars with sealing, stamping, weighing using balance and labelling and using tablets for identification of the products."

"Byblos had a kind of a capitalist economy."

"The system was kind of a feudal model with a palatial economy where storage and production was made within the house or palace."

"International and civil law was not unsophisticated."

"In the second millennium there were numerous lending contracts for commercial purposes."

"Some commercial firms functioned as banks."

"Byblos had organized metalworking."

"The Phoenicians of Byblos were skilled metalworkers, ivory makers and jewelry craftsmen."

"Byblos has a significant collection of metal weapons dating back to the Middle Bronze Age."

"Byblos had a significant collection of bronze artifacts, including torques, spirals, belts, pins, swords, and daggers."

"Found Pseudo-hieroglyphic inscription on bronze tablets and spatulas called linear script."

"Byblos had a variety of beads made from different minerals, including carnelian and amethyst."

"Flat-topped circular tables offer important evidence for the reconstruction of the cultic and diplomatic activities of the Egyptians in the sanctuary of Baalat Gebal in Byblos."

"Early Bronze IB houses and later on in Byblos are rectangular usually with an inner partition at two thirds."

"It was proposed that the town of Byblos is divided into seven quarters by main streets at a short distance from the Baalat Temple between the temple of Baalat and the temple in L."

"The maritime installation of Byblos is located below the archaeological site and extends from the medieval port in the north to the sandy beach in the south."

"Found in Byblos some unfinished scarabs indicating that there was probably a local seal production workshop in Byblos."

"Stone anchor on the rocky sea floor were found after a maritime archaeological survey about two kilometres southwest of Byblos in an area called Dahret Martine that might have served as an offshore anchorage area."

"Another common Neolithic and later a Bronze Age artifact found in Byblos is a flat disk with a hole in the middle. The whorl is a flywheel on the shaft of a hand-held spindle designed to maintain a twisting momentum to the yarn drawn out from a cluster of fibers."

"The jars found below the pavement of Temple of Baalat Gebal contained numerous artifacts including scarabs with hieroglyphs, cylinder seals with hieroglyphs, vases and beads and date back to the Old Kingdom in Egypt."

"Flat-topped circular tables offer important evidence for the reconstruction of the cultic and diplomatic activities of the Egyptians in the sanctuary of Baalat Gebal in Byblos."

"Bronzes in Byblos are manufactured on the spot or imported with a quantity of objects dating back to the first dynasties."

"The jars found below the pavement of Temple of Baalat Gebal contained numerous artifacts including scarabs with hieroglyphs, cylinder seals with hieroglyphs, vases and beads and date back to the Old Kingdom in Egypt."

"The deposits of the Temple of the Obelisks contained various objects, including scarabs, bronze pins, torcs, helixes, spearheads, gold figurines."

"Some objects found in the Royal Tombs, such as vases and incense boxes, bear the names of pharaohs and were made in Egypt."

"The Royal palace in Byblos is formed by an East Wing, a West Wing and a North Wing."

"Necropolis K dates to 1750-1550 BCE. It is constituted of many subterranean rooms."

"The Tower temple is not far from the edge of the hill, near the sea and just above the bay at the South of the site, where the ancient harbor may have been located."

"Byblos defense walls have been reworked and enhanced over and over since the beginning of the 3rd millennium BCE, 2700BCE."

"The Persian complex contains a grand podium with two preserved towers nos 1 and 10, eight defensive towers nos 2-9, a ramp, a retaining wall and a restored temple topped the podium."

"In the Early Bronze IA in Byblos around 3300 BCE the Sacred Precints represents the earliest cult temple."

"In the Eneolithic necropolis of Byblos the grave goods in burial jars were abundant with an average of 3 objects per tomb and a total of 3652 objects were found in 255 tombs.