BYBLOS, LEBANON

Byblos, courtesy, Wikipedia

[exerpts taken from Wikipedia, curate.nd.edu, and Maronite-heritage.com]

The ancient city of Byblos, which the Arab occupation authorities refer to as “Jbeil”, is a town in Lebanon, (the ancient Phoenicia) about 26 miles north of Beirut. It is today, almost totally inhabited by indigenous Lebanese, descendants of the ancient Phoenicians, the Maronites. With a population of 40,000, it is the largest city in the Mount Lebanon region and is also considered one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. It is also said that Byblos was the first city built in Phoenicia. Beginning approximately 10,000 years ago, before the arrival of the Phoenicians in, what is now Lebanon, the town was actually known by several names. When the Phoenicians arrived, they renamed it “Gebal” and made it their first capital. A new social structure was built with each Phoenician city-state in Lebanon worshipping their own gods. The god of Gebal was known as Baalat Gebal to which, the local inhabitants built a temple. However, one of the most important local monuments of this period was the temple of Resheph, a Canaanite war god.

Gebal remained the Phoenician capital for 1500 years until it eventually moved to Tyre. From Gebal, they conducted a sea-trading empire, trading with the lands around the Mediterranean and beyond. The use of the alphabet was spread by Phoenician merchants through this maritime trade, especially into parts of North Africa and Europe. The oldest known representation of the Phoenician alphabet is inscribed on the sarcophagus of King Ahiram of Gebal, dating approximately to the 11th century BCE. 

Beginning in the 8^th century BCE, Gebal was ruled by the following kings: Sibittibaal, Urumilki, Milkiasaph, and Yehowmelek who were all tributary to the invading and conquering Assyrian Empire. In 539 BCE, Phoenicia was conquered by the Persian Achaemenid Empire (538–332 BCE) and Gebal became the fourth of four Phoenician vassal kingdoms established by the Persians – the first three being Sidon, Tyre, and Arwad. The year 332 BCE came the Greek conquest under Alexander the Great and Greek influence became widespread. Thus, the name “Gebal” was Hellenized and renamed “Byblos” (from where the word “Bible” originated). Mediterranean trade continued unhampered and coins came to be used as currency. Byblos became the import-export center of papyri – so much so that papyri was known as “Byblos material”. In addition, the temple of Resheph was elaborately rebuilt, and the city, though smaller than its neighbors, was a center for the cult of Adonis. In the 3rd century, a small but impressive theater was constructed. During the Roman period, Byblos grew rapidly. Christianity was introduced by Saint John Mark, an apostle of Jesus Christ, and Byblos became an independent bishopric. By the first and second centuries, the Phoenicians produced many scholars and academics, one of the most prominent being Philo of Byblos who wrote a detailed history of Phoenicia.

In 636, the Arab Muslims conquered Phoenicia and thus began a slow process of Arabization of the area. By 1104 however, Phoenicia fell to the Christian Crusaders with whom, the Maronites formed an alliance. Work on the Church of St. John-Mark of Byblos, later used for Maronite worship, started during the Crusader era in 1116. It was partially destroyed by an earthquake in 1176 AD. When Islamic forces captured the city a decade later, the church was transformed into a set of stables. After the final defeat of the Crusaders by the Muslim Mamluk rulers of Egypt and their conquest of the regions of the Levant, the Maronites of Byblos, like the rest of Lebanon, often came under attack by their new overlords. But in 1357, they became divided against themselves – those of the Byblos area against those of the Bsharre area just to the east. Taking advantage of the situation, the Mamluks invaded Byblos and the nearby town of Batroun in 1367, destroying these and the surrounding villages, and burning their Patriarch alive. Many people escaped to Cyprus. With the Mamluks now the clear masters of the land, and Byblos invaded by Arab settlers, the town was now more often referred to as “Jbeil”, the Arabized form of “Byblos”.

The eparchy of Jbeil was erected on June 12, 1673 and its canonical erection was confirmed in the Maronite Synod of Mount Lebanon in 1736. In 1768 it was united to the Eparchy of Batroun. Later, the Church of Saint John-Mark was given to the Maronites as a gift by the Druze Prince Youssef Chehab after they aided him in capturing the city. In 1848 the seat of the Eparchy Jbeil-Batroun became the seat of the Maronite Patriarch. After the violence in 1860 between the Maronites and the Druze, the Maronites set out on an education program, for both boys and girls. In 1863, following the orders of her superiors, Saint Rafqa, a Maronite nun, went to the School of the Monastic Order in Byblos, where she spent more than a year, teaching girls education and faith. There, she remained with success until she was transferred to another village the following year where, again, she educated the local girls in academic studies.

Since the 1920s, Byblos has been the site of several archaeological excavations. In the 60s and 70s, it was a major tourist destination, often being visited by the likes of Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra. On June 9, 1990, the Eparchy of Jbeil-Batroun was separated and Jbeil became an independent eparchy.  

Today, despite the Maronites in Lebanon, and those of Byblos/Jbeil in particular, being under the constant watchful eye of Hizbollah and their allies, Byblos is still managing to re-emerge, with determination, as an upscale tourist hub. With its ancient port, Phoenician, Roman, and Crusader ruins, sandy beaches, and surrounding picturesque mountains, as well as its fish restaurants, open-air bars, and outdoor cafes, the city makes an ideal tourist destination. Other sites include:

The Church of Saint George, the church of Mar Yacoub, the church of Saint Peter, Ain el-Malik or King’s Spring, the L-shaped Temple erected about 2700 BCE, the Temple of the Obelisks originally built between 1600–1200 BCE, the necropolis of the kings of Byblos including King Ahiram, the Roman theater built around AD 218, the Byblos Wax Museum, the Byblos Fossil Museum, the old medieval part of Byblos, and the old market.

In addition, there is an annual summer music festival that takes place in the historic quarter.