Byblos Archaeological Site

The Byblos Archaeological Site is one of the most layered in the Middle East — a UNESCO World Heritage site where excavations have uncovered continuous occupation spanning more than 9,000 years. The visible remains cover a remarkable chronological range: Neolithic and Chalcolithic settlements at the base of the tells, Bronze Age temples and the royal necropolis from the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC, Phoenician and Persian period structures, a Hellenistic colonnaded street, and Roman temples and fortifications.

The site is spread across a substantial area and takes at least two hours to see thoroughly. The Temple of the Obelisks and the Temple of Baalat Gebal are the most significant Bronze Age structures; the royal necropolis contains the shaft tombs of Phoenician kings, some excavated to show the original burial conditions. A small Greco-Roman amphitheatre near the seaward edge of the site overlooks the Mediterranean and was used for performances even in antiquity.

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The most important discovery made here was the Sarcophagus of Ahiram, unearthed in 1923, which bears one of the earliest known alphabetic inscriptions — carved in a proto-Canaanite script that is the direct ancestor of Greek, Latin, Arabic, and ultimately all modern Western alphabets. The inscription is a warning to would-be tomb robbers, which adds a certain irony to the fact that we only know it exists because archaeologists broke in. The sarcophagus is now in the National Museum of Beirut.