From dmaltsbe@direct.ca Date: Wed, 30 Aug 1995 09:56:29 +0200 From: David Maltsberger To: beirut-arch@hiof.no, Mr.Joseph.Issa=+961-1-425325@fax.uio.no, CLDYSON@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu Subject: Beirut News Beirut shows its age as archaeologists dig ------------------------------------------------------------------------ (c) 1995 Copyright The News and Observer Publishing Co. (c) 1995 Reuter Information Service BEIRUT, Lebanon (Aug 29, 1995 - 09:12 EDT) - Archeologists at the world's largest urban dig are rewriting the history of Beirut, extending the city's known existence thousands of years back to when it was a Canaanite seaport in 3000 B.C. Finds include the bejewelled body of a young Canaanite girl from 2200 B.C. in a funerary jar, Roman mosaics and sarcophagi, Greek funeral remains, a marble statue of Apollo, Phoenician city walls and fortifications, the street plan of Phoenician Beirut and cooking utensils and household goods dating back to 1400 B.C. Layers of Canaanite, Phoenician, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Mameluke and Ottoman civilisations have been unearthed since digs began in the heart of Beirut in September 1993. About 150 archeologists from the Netherlands, France, Italy, Germany, Britain, Poland and Lebanon are excavating a dozen sites totalling 48,000 square yards in the city center wrecked by civil war that is being rebuilt by SOLIDERE, Lebanon's biggest company. The greatest achievement, archeologists say, has been to confirm that Beirut existed in the third millennium BC, effectively extending its known existence some 2,000 years. "It is actually now that Beirut has become known to us as a city established in the third millennium BC," said Hareth Boustani, an archeology professor appointed by SOLIDERE to coordinate with Lebanon's Directorate of Antiquities on the digs. "We were looking for the unknown history of Beirut," added Professor Leila Badr, director of the archeology museum at the American University of Beirut. "Nothing was known of Beirut in the third and second millennium BC. We were wondering if it ever existed at that time. "We located the Bronze Age city. We discovered two city walls from that period, one of which is really monumental and beautiful as it has a gate and stairway that lead to the higher level of the city, totally destroyed by the later Ottoman infrastructure," said Badr, who directed one of the digs. One prize the digs have failed to uncover is Beirut's famous law school, the most respected in the Roman empire before the city of Berytus was destroyed by an earthquake in AD 551. "We are still looking for the remains but we haven't found anything yet," Boustani said. Excavations have shown that the location of Beirut's commercial district has changed little in thousands of years. "Souk al-Tawili Street, famous as the commercial center of pre-war Beirut, turned out to be built on the commercial street of the Byzantine, Roman, Hellenistic and earlier Phoenician days," Boustani said. "The Phoenician urban planning we discovered contradicts the widespread belief that Greeks were the first to plan the city of Beirut. Actually the post-Phoenician civilisations planned along Phoenician lines," added Professor Hussein Sayegh. Sayegh's team from the Lebanese University uncovered a Phoenician residential quarter with houses lining streets two yards wide. A unique and magnificent Canaanite stone wall dating from about 3000 BC has also been discovered around the al-Tel (the hill) of Beirut, a 12,000 square yard area near the coast of which 2,600 square yards have been excavated so far. At one end of the Tel a funerary jar in which a three and a half year old Canaanite girl was buried in 2200 BC was found. "The girl had a gold and semi-precious-stone necklace around her neck," Badr said. In the same area, Bronze Age household items were found in a stone room. "We found a big collection of cooking pots, plates, jugs, cups, bronze darts and oil lamps in a very good condition, almost intact, dating back to between 1400 BC and 1300 BC," Badr said. Also in the Tel area archeologists found a defensive incline and a wall believed to be part of the fortifications of the Phoenician city. Some archeologists believe the Phoenicians, a seafaring people who lived in what is now Lebanon, took their name from the Phoenica, a Canaanite tribe that handled the sea trade. The Phoenica identified themselves by their tribal name when traveling abroad and the Greeks later applied the name Phoenicians to the general Canaanite population. In the nearby Sai'fi area -- thought to be on the edge of the Phoenician city -- archaeologists found a semi-circular wall of yellow rock, probably the remains of a defensive tower. The Roman occupation of Beirut brought the destruction of almost all features of the Hellenistic city, but fragments of Hellenistic objects have been discovered, Boustani said. They included bits of jars from Rhodes and lacrimatories usually found in tombs which held the tears of the people burying the dead. Roman remains include 24 sarcophagi of white marble and carved stone and 600 square yards of colored mosaics depicting animals and geometric designs.