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BYBLOS (Ancient city) PHOENICE
The modern Jebeil; a very ancient city on the coast of Phoenicia, between Berytus and Tripolis, a little north of the river Adonis. It was the chief seat of the worship of Adonis. Here are the remains of a Roman theatre, of which the cavea or auditorium is nearly perfect. The name was anciently applied to the whole of Phoenicia.
This text is cited Oct 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Total results on 23/4/2001: 15 for Byblos, 18 for Byblus.
On the coast at the foot of the Lebanon mountains, 60 km N of Beirut.
Built on a site occupied since Neolithic times, Byblos was for 2000 years a flourishing
Phoenician city that had close ties with Egypt. It was a vassal of the Persian
Achaemenids, then submitted to Alexander the Great and lost its importance in
the Hellenistic period. Threatened by the Itureans in the 1st c. B.C., the city
rebuilt its ramparts with the aid of Herod the Great. In the Roman period it was
famous for its cult of Adonis.
Byblos contains few visible remains of the Greek, Roman, or Byzantine
eras. Some paved streets, a Corinthian colonnade, a theater, and a nymphaeum survive
from the 2d and 3d c. A.D., along with some marble statues and polychrome mosaics.
A deep excavation in the middle of the site marks the location of
the sacred spring. To the N is the acropolis, which faces the sea to the W and
has a mediaeval castle on the E. There are traces of Hellenistic as well as Roman
ramparts, of a large temple and a basilica, both from the Roman period, and of
some Roman streets (restored Corinthian colonnade). The acropolis was approached
by two stone ramps, one coming from the NW, from the port, the other from the
NE, where the ramp, which dates from the Early Hellenistic period, duplicates
another ramp built 1000 years earlier.
To the N, 12 m down from the acropolis, is a paved, colonnaded street
coming from the NE; it dates from the end of the 2d c. A.D. On reaching the acropolis,
the street turns W and climbs the hill to join the road from the port. At the
bend in the road is an apsidal nymphaeum that abuts on the sustaining wall of
the acropolis. Its niches were decorated with marble statues, notably a magnificent
Hygeia, a group of Achilles and Penthesilea in the Classical style, and another
of Orpheus charming the animals, which is Oriental in character (all now in the
Beirut Museum). Water fell from the great basin of the nymphaeum into a fluted
pool. The nymphaeum court was closed to the E by a four-columned portico. A staircase
led up to the acropolis.
The commercial and residential sections lay mainly to the N and E.
The Roman settlement developed along Hellenistic lines, until the 3d c. A.D. onward.
Near the Church of St. Jean des Croises some Roman mosaics have been found illustrating
the legend of Atalanta, while a large villa to the SE contained mosaics from the
2d c. A.D. (both in the Beirut Museum). The theater, which was moved toward the
sea and reconstructed, to allow deeper excavation on its original site, was SE
of the mediaeval castle and oriented NW. The orchestra was decorated with a magnificent
mosaic from the end of the 2d c. A.D. representing Bacchus (now in the Beirut
Museum).
Some bronze coins of Byblos minted in Macrinus' reign (A.D. 217-218)
show a sanctuary with a temple adjoining a huge porticoed courtyard. In the middle
of the courtyard is a square-based monument built in the shape of a cone, often
described as a baetyl, and with a balustrade running around it. No trace has been
found of such a temple at Byblos; nearby, however, at Machnaqa in the valley of
the Adonis river, there is a sanctuary often called the tomb of Adonis that has
a similar plan, with a large cubical altar surrounded by columns in the middle
of a porticoed courtyard.
J. P. Rey-Coquais, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Nov 2002 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
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