Beirut Treasure House - The National Museum

Bruce Condè, 1955 and 1960

Getting off the Damascus road's No. 2 tram at Fuad I avenue, the visitor's attention is caught by a colonnade of exquisitely colored and richly carved marble facing the museum from the east. Probably dating from the Herodian Dynasty period of Roman Beirut .some 1,930 years ago this fragment of the now-vanished classic city of is but a single example of the archaeological treasures buried under modern Beirut. It was rescued from beneath a new building site near the Parliament by the Department of Antiquities and moved to the museum area.

The museum building itself is streamlined and spacious, in modern Pharaonic architecture, symbolic of the Lebanon's extremely ancient connection with the Pharaohs of Egypt, some of whose treasures, sent to the Lebanese city states of antiquity are preserved therein. In fact, the entire theme of the museum is to play up the earliest periods of the Lebanon's 7,000 years-old history, so that items from the Byzantine period (ante 600 A.D.) onward are not generally featured.

The museum is open daily except Mondays 9-12, 2-5. There is a 25 piaster entrance-fee for the general public, with schools, church groups, scouts and youth organizations admitted free. Cameras must be deposited at the main desk.

Byblos Treasure Chamber
To the left of the front entrance is the room of the Phoneician treasures of Byblos, the principal feature of the entire museum.

The city state of Byblos or Jebail, some 40 kms. north of Beirut on the Tripoli road, was not only the prototype of the great Phoenician cities of antiquity but also a holy area venerated by Egyptians from the Third Millenium B. C. onward. Alabaster votuary vessels from the Pharaohs of 5,000 years ago are among the temple treasures excavated there.

Of interest to most visitors are the royal treasures of the kings of Byblos. Owing to the lucky discovery of unlooted shaft tombs of the royal necropolis in the 1920's the museum is able to displav the golden diadems or crowns of the kings, their gold and jewelled breastplates, bracelets, rings, necklaces, scepters and ceremonial battleaxes. Here, too, are a vase and a coffer of obsidian (volcanic glass) set with gold, gifts from Pharaohs Amenenhat m and IV to the Phoenician princes Abishemu and Ipshemu Abi of Byblos in the 14th and 18th Centuries B.C.

In the opposite room, right of the main entrance, are equally ancient but not as spectacular votive offerings recovered from the Egyptian-period temple ruins at Byblos. These include a number of statuettes, mostly metal, illustrating people and animals of the period, plus jewellery and some rare pottery. Here is found the famous rython in the form of two pigsheads, of the Hellenistic period of Tripoli some 2,300 years ago.

Gallery of Alphabet
The main hall is divided into galleries, each representing an important phase of pre-Byzantine Lebanese history. Chief among these is the gallery of the alphabet, directly behind the Byblos treasure chamber. Here are preserved stone tablets and castings from rock-carved inscriptions showing the development of alphabetical writing by the Phoenicians of Lebanon, perhaps the greatest contribution'of this country to world civilization. Some of the oldest alphabetical inscriptions known to man, of the 11th century B.C., may be seen on the sarcophagus of King Ahiram of Byblos in the basement of the museum.

Other galleries, arranged clockwise around the hall, are devoted, respectively to Egyptian collossi and statues, to the statuary evidence of Rameses II's voyages and interest in the Lebanon, to the temple remains of Eshmun, principal god of Sidon, and to Greco-Roman statues and mosaics. A handsome model of the restored temples of Baalbek in all their glory is also on display.

In the basement are to be found the finest Phoenician, Greek and Roman sarcophagi discovered in Lebanon including that of King Ahiram.

Ahirams' stone coffin is not only remarkable for its 11th century B.C. alphabetical inscription (which threatens tomb looters with dire calamities and catastrophies) but for its expression of combined Egypto-Hittite influences in local art of the period. The sarcophagus rests on four Hittite lions but the king, shown seated on his Cherub-supported throne, is under a frieze of Egyptian lotus leaves and his subjects are shown approaching him in Egyptian fashion.

Anthropoid Sarcophagi
A richly-carved marble Roman sarcophagus from Tyre stands near Ahiram's. Another shows a full-rigged Sidonian warship. Some a re of delicately worked bronze or lead, while an entire gallery of anthropoid-type sarcophagi from Sidon 511s the east side of the building. These were collected by the late Dr. A. Ford of the American school at Sidon and consist in white marble coffins, each with the head of the deceased carved at the head of the sarcophagus. Some of the finely carved heads retain the red coloring of the hair of these fourth century B.C. inhabitants of the then-Hellenistic citystate of Sidon.

A remarkable feature of the museum is on the north side of the basement. Here is reconstructed an entire tomb chamber of the second century A.D. from Tyre. Discovered deep underground at the foot of a long stone staircase in the necropolis of Tyre, this richlyde corated room, with its murals still in bright colors, was "lifted", intact, and placed in the museum. Greek and Roman goods, goddesses and heroes of Antiquity are portrayed in full color - Psyche, Hercules, Pluto, Priam, Achiiles and Hector.

After seeing these artistic treasures, it is hard to realize that the lament of the Department of Antiquities' director, Emir Maurice Chehab, is that there is not enough space to display an equal and constantly growing number still in storage - to say nothing of the Byzantine, Arab, Crusader and other relics of more recent days!

From See Lebanon, Bruce Condè, second edition, Harb Bijjani Press, Beirut, 1960