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Other Archaeological Sites / The Neolithic of the Levant (500 Page Book Online)
Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times
Winner of the 1993 Best Scholarly Book in Archae-
Pre-History and Archaeology Glossary
Excerpts and Definitions and Addendums: Byblos is situated on a slight sandy promontory jutting out into the Mediterranean about forty two kilometers north of Beirut. Immediately north of the site a shallow indentation of the coast provided a harbor in antiquity, but this was subsequently covered with debris. The city itself occupied only about five hectares, and from the EB III period was surrounded by a stout wall. Within this circumvallation the settlemnt distribution centered upon the temple of the Mistress of Byblos (Baalat Gebel), the epithet of the local Astarte, and a sacred pool. Whereas the magnates of the community enjoyed large domiciles in prime locations overlooking the sea to the west, the rest of the inhabitants were housed in small dwellings squeezed together along narrow, winding streets ...... Byblos in the third millennium dominated that part of the coast from which access to the Cedar forests of Lebanon was easiest, and thus it comes as no surprise that the Byblians should have become both excellent seafarers and shrewd timber merchants ...... Byblian tradition took pride in the belief that it was the oldest city in the world, founded by El, high God of the Canaanite pantheon; and the excavations have revealed a Neolithic stratum ...... |