Cedars of Lebanon: Exploring the Roots

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Israel, then as now, was impoverished in natural resources. As the old joke has it, if only Moses had turned right instead of left, Israel would have had the oil. Israel is also poor in sources of timber necessary in ancient times for the construction of important buildings like palaces and temples.

Perhaps the most important sources of timber for these purposes were the famous Cedars of Lebanon.

The Hebrew word usually translated “cedar” is erez. It appears in the Bible more than 70 times.

David used it in his palace—supplied by the Phoenician monarch Hiram of Tyre (2 Samuel 5:11; 1 Chronicles 14:1). The Bible refers to the palace as a “house of cedar” (1 Chronicles 17:1).

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When Solomon succeeded his father, Solomon wrote to Hiram: “As you dealt with David my father and sent him cedar to build himself a house to dwell in, so deal with me” (2 Chronicles 2:3). Solomon also wanted Cedars of Lebanon for the Temple: Solomon asked Hiram to “give orders for cedars to be cut for me in the Lebanon” so that he could build a house to the Lord (1 Kings 5:20 [verse 6 in English]; 2 Chronicles 2:7 [verse 8 in English]). Solomon’s Temple was paneled with cedar and encased with timbers of cedar (1 Kings 6:9–10). Cedar carvings decorated the interior (1 Kings 6:18).

It is hardly surprising that the Philistines also used Cedars of Lebanon. Two cedar logs were excavated in the Philistine temple at Tell Qasile in modern Tel Aviv: One came from the vestibule of the temple, and another, probably the remains of a wooden pillar, came from the main hall.

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At a later date, with the end of their Babylonian captivity, the Jews were granted permission by Cyrus of Persia to negotiate with the Sidonians and Tyrians for a shipment of cedar for the restoration of the Temple (c. 520 B.C.E.; see Ezra 3:7).

The Egyptians, too, were interested in Cedars of Lebanon since the Nile Valley was as void as Israel of trees suitable for timber. In Egypt cedar was used by the carpenters of sarcophagi and other burial appurtenances for the royal family and for the nobles, while its resin was used in mummification. The ship of Cheops (c. 2550 B.C.E.), discovered beneath the Great Pyramid at Giza, was made predominantly of Cedrus libani.¹ The four Egyptian Dashur boats buried at the pyramid of Pharaoh Senwosret (Sesostris) III, who died in 1859 B.C.E., were built only of Cedrus libani.

Cedrus libani is truly a wonderful wood that was highly esteemed in antiquity for its high quality and pleasant scent. The scent has been preserved in wood found in buried archaeological material several thousand years old. It is also a very durable 052 wood, as archaeological samples illustrate, and resists rot and insects.

When the psalmist wants a metaphor for prospering, he writes:

“The righteous shall thrive like a date palm.

They thrive like a cedar in Lebanon.” (Psalms 92:13 [verse 12 in English])

Today, the tree grows native mostly in Lebanon, Turkey and Cyprus, but also in northwestern Syria. The southern limit of its distribution area runs close to the northern part of Israel. It is the national symbol of Lebanon.

The popular belief that Cedrus libani attains ages 053 of several thousand years has never been substantiated. The oldest specimens that have been dated are between 300 and 600 years old. In 1999 at Bcharré, Lebanon, some 20 of the famous cedars fell down in a series of windstorms. The locals cut them into little blocks to make trinkets to sell to tourists. The longest ring sequence was in excess of 588 years.²

The oldest evidence of its use in Israel comes from the Early Bronze Age Ia strata at Afridar, Ashkelon (c. 3500 B.C.E.). Many charred logs and wood remnants were excavated from the ruins of the Middle Bronze Age palace (c. 1800 B.C.E.) and from the Late Bronze Age temple (c. 1400 B.C.E.) at Lachish, where more than 50 percent of the wood remains of both were Cedrus libani. In the post-Biblical period, especially during the reign of Herod the Great, use of cedar wood for construction was widespread. Large quantities of Lebanese cedar samples were found in the northern palace at Masada. The wood was also discovered at the Herodian palace and fortress of Kypros.

As early as the Biblical period, Cedars of Lebanon were apparently transported from Lebanon by sea. The timber was cut, hauled to the Phoenican coast, shipped to Jaffa and then transported to Jerusalem (Ezra 3:7). Earlier written evidence of the export of cedar into Egypt appears in the records of Pharaoh Snefru (c. 2600 B.C.E.). There he acknowledges the arrival of 40 ships filled with cedar wood. He boasts of using it in a ship 1,700 feet (510 m) long, as well as for the doors of a palace.³ The Assyrian king Sargon II may have left a visual record of his own timber imports. The shipment of wood from Lebanon was such an important part of the construction of his late-eighth-century palace at Khorsabad (in Iraq) that a fleet of timber-laden ships sailing from Tyre is depicted on a series of bas-reliefs in his palace. Cuneiform inscriptions indicate that Assyrian kings imported wood from the region of Lebanon starting at the end of the second millennium B.C.E. Although we cannot be sure that the timbers on the reliefs in the palace of King Sargon II are Cedrus libani, the fame of Lebanon’s cedar forests make it tempting to assume that the wood he imported from Lebanon for the construction of his palace was cedar.

Cedar wood was not only cargo; it was also widely used in ship construction. Some of the most famous ancient shipwrecks recovered in modern times in the eastern Mediterranean were made in large part of Cedars of Lebanon. Consider, for example, the Uluburun shipwreck from early in the Late Bronze Age (late 14th century B.C.E.) found 054 off the Uluburun promontory near the town of Kaş, on Turkey’s southern coast. The ship’s cargo included gold and silver jewelry, elephant and hippopotamus ivory, and ebony, all of which suggests that this was a royal shipment of goods.^a The ship was nearly 50 feet long (15 m). The hull had 26 planks, 23 of which were Cedrus libani.

Another well-known shipwreck also found off the coast of Turkey—at Cape Galidonya on the southwestern coast—dates a little later in the Late Bronze Age, to about 1200 B.C.E. It was a more 055 056 modest vessel, about 42 feet long (13 m). When it sank, it was loaded with scrap metal in the form of broken farming tools and other junk. All but one of the planks of the hull was made of Cedrus libani.

In Israel the Athlit Ram galley, found more than 600 feet off the Mediterranean shore at Athlit, is best known for its bronze ram. The galley is dated to about 200–150 B.C.E. The ram preserved some of the ramming timber, which was made of Cedrus libani.

Perhaps the best-known vessel to BAR readers is the 2,000-year-old Sea of Galilee boat, which has been popularly dubbed “the Jesus Boat.”. The boat has now been reconstructed—as much as it can be—and has become a must-see for tourists in the Galilee. The discovery of the boat and a detailed description of it has already been reported to BAR readers.^b It was made mostly of reused timbers, and some of them are Cedrus libani.

Other examples of vessels using Cedars of Lebanon span the entire period from the Early Bronze Age to modern times.

The reason for the popularity of Cedrus libani in ship construction is clear: Shrinkage is minimal, it seasons without significant distortion, it is easily worked and it is more resistant to decay in salt water than most other woods.⁴

Its popularity was as great by sea as by land.

Israel, then as now, was impoverished in natural resources. As the old joke has it, if only Moses had turned right instead of left, Israel would have had the oil. Israel is also poor in sources of timber necessary in ancient times for the construction of important buildings like palaces and temples. Perhaps the most important sources of timber for these purposes were the famous Cedars of Lebanon. The Hebrew word usually translated “cedar” is erez. It appears in the Bible more than 70 times. David used it in his palace—supplied by the Phoenician monarch Hiram of Tyre (2 […]