Beirut Museum Survives
Like the stone monuments it displays, the venerable archaeological museum stands the tests of time
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Now, if a king among kings, or a governor among governors or a commander of an army should come up against Byblos and uncover this coffin, may the scepter of his rule be torn away, may the throne of his kingdom be overturned, and may peace flee from Byblos!”
This warning, inscribed more than 3,000 years ago on the sarcophagus of King Ahiram of Byblos, attests to stone’s ability to endure as a testament to the past.
In the ancient world, stone monuments not only protected the memory of the dead but also served as witnesses to covenants and to the presence of god. In the Hebrew Bible, after God appears to Jacob at Bethel, the patriarch erects a standing stone (massebah in Hebrew) to mark the spot (Genesis 35:15); as part of the covenant between God and Israel, Moses erects 12 standing stones, representing the 12 tribes (Exodus 23:3–8); and when Moses’ covenant is renewed at Shechem, Joshua erects a standing stone at the site (Joshua 24:26).
It is this capacity of stone to serve as witness that informs Stones and Creed, a catalogue of stone artifacts, including Ahiram’s limestone sarcophagus, from the Beirut National Museum.
Perhaps the museum’s own recent history has inspired this fascination with stone’s ability to survive. In the 1970s and 1980s civil war raged in Beirut; the museum protected its collection by encasing the valuable artifacts in concrete containers. In 1993, after the war had ended, the museum invited the public to a non-show: The concrete containers were displayed alongside old photos of the artifacts concealed inside. The museum spent the next five years cracking open the concrete and restoring the artifacts. In November 1997 the museum reopened, this time with artifacts on display.
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Stones and Creed celebrates this reopening with stunning photos and descriptions of 100 of the museum’s most significant and durable artifacts. The finds provide a mini-survey of the history of ancient Lebanon and the people who lived there. The earliest relic, a severely damaged relief of the king of Byblos bowing to the Egyptian goddess Hathor (dating to 2055–1650 B.C.), recalls the days when Byblos lay under Egyptian rule and local kings earned the title “Egyptian Prince.” The hieroglyphic inscription reads “Loved by Hathor, the Lord of Byblos.”
At the end of the second millennium B.C., the sea-skilled Phoenicians, who inhabited the Lebanese coastal city-states of Byblos, Sidon and Tyre, emerged as the chief maritime power in the eastern Mediterranean. Massive stone anchors from Byblos recall this city’s thriving trade, which eventually stretched from Spain to Persia. One anchor, discovered near the entrance to the sacred precinct of a Byblos temple, was probably left as an offering—perhaps with thanks for a successful voyage. It bears the paddle-shaped Egyptian hieroglyph nefer, which may be translated “perfect,” “beautiful” or “happy.”
The Phoenicians’ commercial success was admired by the various superpowers of the Near Eastern and Mediterranean world—the Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians and Greeks—who allowed the Phoenicians to continue trading in order to profit from their mercantile skill and commercial networks.
Phoenician artists borrowed heavily from the artistic traditions of these superpowers. The reliefs on the 13th-century B.C. Ahiram sarcophagus, depicting ritual offerings of food to the king, resemble Egyptian tomb reliefs. King Ahiram appears seated on a throne, the sides of which are formed by winged sphinxes. 055Five stone thrones flanked by sphinxes appear in the catalogue. Ranging in size from about a foot to nearly 5 feet in height, these empty thrones, originally placed in temples, are not thought to have been intended for royalty: Rather, they were benches for the gods. Like the standing stones of the Bible, they served as a witness to the divine presence and as aniconic representations of the deity. A close biblical parallel appears in a prayer of King Hezekiah, addressed to the “Lord of Hosts, enthroned on the cherubim” (2 Kings 19:15; Isaiah 37:16). The stone thrones from Lebanon are generally associated with the Phoenician goddess Astarte, the protectress of Sidon, whose symbol was a sphinx and whose name appears on some of the thrones. Thus worshipers kneeling before these thrones probably believed that they were in the presence of the goddess of love and war, Astarte.
Column capitals from fifth-century B.C. Sidon depict the foreparts of two kneeling bulls, facing in opposite directions; the closest parallels come from the Persian palaces at Persepolis and Susa.
The chubby realism of 30 life-size marble statues of babies (most appear to be about 2 years old), holding a bird, a turtle, a ball or knucklebones (12 are photographed here), suggests Hellenistic influence. Discovered in a temple dedicated to the healing god Eshmun, whose cult was centered at Sidon, the fifth- to fourth-century B.C. statues may have been left in gratitude for the successful cure of a child.
A poignant inscription on another Greek monument, a funeral stela of a first-century B.C. man, captures just what is so powerful about these stone objects, and the memories they bear: “Sarapion, Oh good one / and missed, farewell.”
Now, if a king among kings, or a governor among governors or a commander of an army should come up against Byblos and uncover this coffin, may the scepter of his rule be torn away, may the throne of his kingdom be overturned, and may peace flee from Byblos!” This warning, inscribed more than 3,000 years ago on the sarcophagus of King Ahiram of Byblos, attests to stone’s ability to endure as a testament to the past. In the ancient world, stone monuments not only protected the memory of the dead but also served as witnesses to covenants and […]
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