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Promontory of Byblos. The royal necropolis lies at the base of the Romancolonnade.
The royal necropolis of Byblos is a group of nine Bronze Age underground shaft and chamber tombs housing the sarcophagi of several kings of the city. Byblos (modern Jbeil) is a coastal city in Lebanon, and one of the oldest continuously populated cities in the world. The city established major trade links with Egypt during the Bronze Age, resulting in a heavy Egyptian influence on local culture and funerary practices. The location of ancient Byblos was lost to history, but was rediscovered in the late 19th century by the French biblical scholar and OrientalistErnest Renan. The remains of the ancient city sat on top of a hill in the immediate vicinity of the modern city of Jbeil. Exploratory trenches and minor digs were undertaken by the French mandate authorities, during which reliefs inscribed with Egyptian hieroglyphs were excavated. The discovery stirred the interest of western scholars, leading to systematic surveys of the site.
On 16 February 1922, heavy rains triggered a landslide in the seaside cliff of Jbeil, exposing an underground tomb containing a massive stone sarcophagus. The grave was explored by the French epigrapher and archeologist Charles Virolleaud. Intensive digs were carried out around the site of the tomb by the French EgyptologistPierre Montet, who unearthed eight additional shaft and chamber tombs. Each of the tombs consisted of a vertical shaft connected to a horizontal burial chamber at its bottom. Montet categorized the graves into two groups. The tombs of the first group date back to the Middle Bronze Age, specifically the 19th century BC; some were unspoiled, and contained a multitude of often valuable items, including royal gifts from Middle Kingdom pharaohs Amenemhat III and Amenemhat IV, locally made Egyptian-style jewelry, and various serving vessels. The graves of the second group were all robbed in antiquity, making precise dating problematic, but the artifacts indicate that some of the tombs were used into the Late Bronze Age (16th to 11th centuries BC).
In addition to grave goods, seven stone sarcophagi were discovered—the burial chambers that did not contain stone sarcophagi appear to have housed wooden ones which disintegrated over time. The stone sarcophagi were undecorated, save the Ahiram sarcophagus. This sarcophagus is famed for its Phoenician inscription, one of five epigraphs known as the Byblian royal inscriptions; it is considered to be the earliest known example of the fully developed Phoenician alphabet. Montet compared the function of the Byblos tombs to that of Egyptian mastabas, where the soul of the deceased was believed to fly from the burial chamber, through the funerary shaft, to the ground-level chapel where priests would officiate. (Full article...)
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The Assaf dynasty (also called Banu Assaf) were a Sunni Muslim and ethnic Turkmen dynasty of chieftains based in the Keserwan region of Mount Lebanon in the 14th–16th centuries. They came to the area in 1306 after being assigned by the Bahri Mamluks to guard the coastal region between Beirut and Byblos and to check the power of the mostly Shia Muslim population at the time. During this period, they established their headquarters in Ghazir, which served as the Assafs' base throughout their rule.
Under the leadership of Emir Assaf, they were confirmed as the rulers of Keserwan by Sultan Selim I following the Ottoman conquest in 1516. Emir Assaf died two years later and was succeeded by his son Hasan, who was in turn killed by his brother Qa'itbay. The latter ruled Keserwan until his death without children in 1523, after which he was succeeded by Hasan's son Mansur. Mansur had a long reign and was accorded by the Ottomans numerous districts in Mount Lebanon and its environs as tax farms. He eliminated many of his Sunni rivals, and his local power relied on a Maronite Christian support base and his Maronite agents, namely members of the Hubaysh clan, who served as a check on the Shia Muslim sheikhs of Keserwan. At the peak of his power, Mansur's realm stretched from Beirut to Homs.
Mansur was dismissed in 1579 and replaced by his son Muhammad, who was imprisoned by the authorities in 1584 for alleged involvement in a looting raid against an Istanbul-bound caravan. He was restored to Keserwan in 1585 and was given tax collection authority over the rural districts of Tripoli Eyalet; this brought him into conflict with the Sayfa clan, the Assafs' erstwhile Turkmen clients, one of whose members, Yusuf Pasha Sayfa, was governor of Tripoli. The Assaf realm dissipated in 1591 when Muhammad was killed while attempting to collect taxes from the Sayfas in Akkar. Afterward, Yusuf Pasha Sayfa married Muhammad's widow and inherited the Assaf realm. (Full article...)
Image 11Portrait of Fakhreddine while he was in Tuscany, stating "Faccardino grand emir dei Drusi" translated as "Fakhreddine: great emir of the Druze" (from History of Lebanon)
Image 18A selection of Lebanese dishes from Cafe Nouf Restaurant in London (from Culture of Lebanon)
Image 19Map showing power balance in Lebanon, 1983: Green – controlled by Syria, purple – controlled by Christian groups, yellow – controlled by Israel, blue – controlled by the United Nations (from History of Lebanon)
Image 20Flag as drawn and approved by the members of the Lebanese parliament during the declaration of independence in 1943 (from History of Lebanon)
Image 27Sidewalk Cafes are a trademark of the BCD (from Culture of Lebanon)
Image 28Csontváry Kosztka, Tivadar - Pilgrimage to the Cedars of Lebanon (from Culture of Lebanon)
Image 29Map showing power balance in Lebanon, 1976: Dark Green – controlled by Syria; Purple – controlled by Maronite groups; Light Green – controlled by Palestinian militias (from History of Lebanon)
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