Ancient Byblos

The first settlers in this city established themselves on the higher of the two hills of the tell, very near the cliff where they built a village of relatively big huts, some 1.2 hectares in extent. This city was the northernmost of ancient Phoenicia’s three major seaports, together with Sidon and Tyre.

Called Gebal by the Phoenicians, Byblos was one of the earliest cities of the Near East probably occupied by around 5000 BC.  The name Byblos derives from the Greek word bublos meaning ‘papyrus scroll’, reflecting the city’s importance as an intermediary in the papyrus trade between Egypt and the Aegean world.

During the Old and Middle Kingdoms, Byblos was Egypt’s principal associate in Near Eastern tarred.

The city’s international prestige was because of the abundance of its cedar, pine and cypress forests growing in the nearby mountains which furnished the timber and aromatic resins highly prized by the Egyptians.

In the Phoenician heyday of the 900s-700s BC Byblos was the nation’s capital with a powerful navy and trade routes extending to Greece and Egypt.

Byblos’s political fortunes in the era 700-300 BC followed those of greater Phoenicia and the city quickly faded in importance after the founding of the early Seleucid-Greek city of Antioch (300BC).
Ancient Byblos