Antiquities of Tyre Spared Despite PLO Occupation and War in Lebanon

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BAR has been able to confirm a New York Times report that the famous antiquities of Tyre have not been seriously damaged either by the PLO occupation of the site or by the war in Lebanon.

According to the Times, the PLO placed the ancient Roman ruins of Tyre off-limits even to its Lebanese custodians and turned the site into a PLO arsenal.

The PLO stored weapons beneath the seats of the hippodrome, said the Times. When BAR visited the site, styrofoam packing with the impressions of weapons was still to be seen strewn beneath and around the hippodrome. We also observed the now empty rooms beneath the hippodrome seats where archways had been filled in to form storage areas. Sandbagged foxholes were in place for PLO guerrillas stationed at the site.

In 1980, the Lebanese government invited a UNESCO-appointed commission to investigate Tyre’s antiquities in order to determine whether any damage had been done to them. At that time, the Commission was unable to visit the sites because PLO guerrillas were encamped there and would not allow UNESCO observers to enter. Two days after the Israelis entered Lebanon in June 1982, UNESCO applied to the Israeli government for permission to visit the antiquities. Permission was granted and a team of four investigated Tyre’s antiquities from July 11–15, 1982.

As of October 1, 1982, the report of the Commission was completed but not yet released by UNESCO. BAR discussed its contents with a source at UNESCO who had read the report. The report observed that the Roman/Byzantine necropolis near the hippodrome is “not in bad shape”—indeed, the antiquities in Tyre, including over 300 excavated sarcophagi strewn on either side of an ancient roadway and triumphal arch are in “relatively good shape”—and that most of the damage at the archaeological sites in Tyre can be repaired. The Lebanese Antiquities Department guard showed 15 cracked sarcophagi lids to the Commission members. But the report does not indicate when or how this damage occurred.

The report recommends proceeding quickly to safeguard the site, and to continue construction of a new museum which was interrupted by the war in 1975.

Established as early as the third millennium B.C., Tyre by the second millennium had become one of the most important Phoenician city-states trading across the Mediterranean. Tyre emerged as the dominant Mediterranean commercial power in the 12th century B.C. when its trading rivals to the north, Ugarit and Alalakh, were eliminated by the invading “Sea Peoples.” Tyrian trade flourished, and through trade Tyre spread its cults, art and technology.

Tyre is mentioned as a fortified city in both Joshua 19:29 and in 2 Samuel 24:7, but the most familiar Biblical references to Tyre are from the time of David and Solomon (1000 B.C. to 920 B.C.). Tyre’s famous king Hiram reigned for 34 years spanning the end of David’s reign and the reign of Solomon. To David, Hiram sent cedar trees, carpenters and masons to build his palace in Jerusalem (2 Samuel 5:11). David in his old age started preparation for the building of the Temple; stone was prepared and “the Sidonians and Tyrians brought great quantities of cedar to David” (1 Chronicles 22:4). (Sidon was another Phoenician port north of Tyre, but in the Bible the term “Sidonians” seems often to refer to Phoenicians in general.)

When Solomon became king of Israel, a flourishing partnership between Hiram and Solomon began, lasting more than 20 years. Hiram sent craftsmen and timber to Jerusalem for construction of the Temple, and Solomon in turn supplied olive oil and wheat which the Tyrians could not grow on their narrow coastal plain.

Although Tyre today is a peninsula stretching into the Mediterranean, Tyre before Hiram occupied two small rocky islands separated from the mainland by a strait 500–700 yards wide and some three fathoms deep. According to Josephus (Antiquities 8:147 and Against Apion 1:113), Hiram joined the two islands while also extending their area by land-fill on the eastern shore. Josephus also recounts that Hiram expanded the two harbors and connected them by a canal through the city.

Tyre’s location permitted it to repulse invaders, which it did successfully until the fourth century B.C. Tyre stood 075before the Assyrian onslaught in the eighth century B.C. when the rest of the Phoenician city states and the northern kingdom of Israel fell. For 13 years, beginning in 585 B.C., Tyre withstood a siege by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. The island of Tyre held out despite Ezekiel’s prophecy (chapter 26) that God will punish Tyre for boasting that Tyre “shall be filled now that [Jerusalem] is laid waste.” Ezekiel declares that many nations will come against Tyre to destroy her walls, break down her towers and “scrape her debris from her and make her a bare rock” (26:4). Ezekiel concludes in the words of God “I shall bring terrors on you and you [Tyre] will be no more; though you will be sought, you will never be found again” (26:21).

After Tyre resisted the Babylonians, the small rocky island stood independent for another two and a half centuries behind its 150-foot-high walls surmounted by towers. Then Alexander the Great vowed to take the city after he was refused entry to the island where he wished to sacrifice at the great temple of Heracles-Melqart.

Beginning in January 332 B.C., Alexander’s forces blockaded the city with 250 ships. While the city was besieged, Alexander spent seven months building a causeway 60 yards wide, connecting the mainland city of Tyre to the southern side of the island fortress. Despite a fierce defense by the Tyrians, the causeway was completed, Alexander’s siege machines assaulted and penetrated the southern city wall, and his army entered Tyre. Eight thousand Tyrians died in the fighting and 30,000 residents of the city were sold into slavery. Although many escaped, 2,000 were captured and crucified.

Alexander left a permanent mark—Tyre would never again be an island separated from the mainland. The causeway gradually enlarged as silt accumulated and the island of Tyre and its mainland city merged.

The Romans who followed Alexander and the later 076Byzantines built extensively over both the original island of Tyre and on the now-connected mainland. Extensive remains dating from this period have been uncovered by archaeologists. Ernest Renan conducted the first excavations in 1860 which yielded a first-century B.C. Greek inscription and a portion of the original northern coastline which had been obscured by silt. In 1903, a Turkish expedition uncovered some Roman sepulchers. A French survey followed in 1921, and in 1934 and 1936, A. Poidebard located by land excavations and by deep sea diving the southern or “Egyptian” harbor and the northern or “Sidonian” harbor of Tyre. In 1947, systematic excavations began, led by Emir Maurice Chehab, Director General of Antiquities of Lebanon, excavations that continued until the PLO occupation in 1975.

The Lebanese excavation team of the past 30 years uncovered and restored notable Roman-Byzantine structures including the extensive necropolis. Nearby is the principal Roman road into Tyre, beautifully paved and spanned by a reconstructed 65-foot-high monumental archway at the point where Alexander’s causeway joined the mainland. Other remains include aqueducts and one of the largest hippodromes known from the Roman world, 1560 feet long and 520 feet wide. Thousands of spectators sitting on the tiers of benches around its perimeter could view the chariot races in this second century A.D. hippodrome.

No excavations have yet penetrated extensively to the early Phoenician levels—to the time of Solomon, Tyre’s golden age as a city-state. In 1973, Patricia Maynor Bikai directed a limited excavation in one area on the original island of Tyre. Her goal was to establish a chronological Phoenician pottery sequence that could be used to date occupation strata at Phoenician sites. Bikai dug through the Byzantine and Late Roman levels down through the Phoenician levels to bedrock. In addition to establishing a Phoenician pottery chronology, Bikai discovered material remains on bedrock dating to the mid-third millennium B.C. These remains confirm literary evidence from the fifth century historian, Herodotus, that there was a permanent settlement on the island by about 2750 B.C.

When this article went to press employees of the Lebanese Department of Antiquities had returned to their jobs at the ancient sites of Tyre. However, officers of the Lebanese Department of Antiquities had yet to visit Tyre. Spearheading efforts to resume restoration and preservation is the distinguished Khalil family of Tyre who returned recently to their homes following seven years of exile during the PLO occupation of Lebanon.

BAR has been able to confirm a New York Times report that the famous antiquities of Tyre have not been seriously damaged either by the PLO occupation of the site or by the war in Lebanon. According to the Times, the PLO placed the ancient Roman ruins of Tyre off-limits even to its Lebanese custodians and turned the site into a PLO arsenal. The PLO stored weapons beneath the seats of the hippodrome, said the Times. When BAR visited the site, styrofoam packing with the impressions of weapons was still to be seen strewn beneath and around the hippodrome. […]