Kingdom of Tyre

Courtesy Theron Dunn, Lodgeroominternational.com Download the Magazine Here

Kingdom of Tyre
http://www.middleeast.com/tyre.htm

Phoenician Tyre was queen of the seas, an island city of unprecedented splendor.
She grew wealthy from her far-reaching colonies and her industries of purple-dyed textiles. But she also attracted the attention of jealous conquerors among them the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar and Alexander the Great.

Five Millennia of History
Founded at the start of the third millennium B.C., Tyre originally consisted of a mainland settlement and a modest island city that lay a short distance off shore. But it was not until the first millennium B.C. that the city experienced its golden age.

In the 10th century B.C. Hiram, King of Tyre, joined two islets by landfill. Later he extended the city further by reclaiming a considerable area from the sea. Phoenician expansion began about 815 B.C. when traders from Tyre founded Carthage in North Africa. Eventually its colonies spread around the Mediterranean and Atlantic, bringing to the city a flourishing maritime trade. But prosperity and power make their own enemies. Early in the sixth century B.C. Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, laid siege to the walled city for thirteen years. Tyre stood firm, but it was probable that at this time the residents of the mainland city abandoned it for the safety of the island.

In 332 B.C. Alexander the Great set out to conquer this strategic coastal base in the war between the Greeks and the Persians. Unable to storm the city, he blockaded Tyre for seven months. Again Tyre held on. But the conqueror used the debris of the abandoned mainland city to build a causeway and once within reach of the city walls, Alexander used his siege engines to batter and finally breach the fortifications. It is said that Alexander was so enraged at the Tyrians' defense and the loss of his men that he destroyed half the city.

The town's 30,000 residents were massacred or sold into slavery. Tyre and the whole of ancient Syria fell under Roman rule in 64 B.C.. Nonetheless, for some time Tyre continued to mint its own silver coins. The Romans built great important monuments in the city, including an aqueduct, a triumphal arch and the largest hippodrome in antiquity.

Christianity figures in the history of Tyre, whose name is mentioned in the new testament. During the Byzantine era, the Archbishop of Tyre was the primate of all the bishops of Phoenicia. At this time the town witnessed a second golden age as can be seen from the remains of its buildings and the inscriptions in the necropolis. Taken by the Islamic armies in 634, the city offered no resistance and continued to prosper under its new rulers, exporting sugar as well as objects made of pearl and glass.

With the decline of the Abbasid caliphate, Tyre acquired some independence under the dynasty of Banu 'Aqil, vassals of the Egyptian Fatimides. This was a time when Tyre was adorned with fountains and its bazaars were full of all kinds of merchandise, including carpets and jewerly of gold and silver.

Thanks to Tyre's strong fortifications it was able to resist to onslaught of the Crusaders until 1124. After about 180 years of Crusader rule, the Mamlukes retook the city in 1291, then it passed on to the Ottomans at the start of the 16th century. With the end of the World War I Tyre was integrated into the new nation of Lebanon.


Archeological Tyre
For a period of nearly 50 years the General Directorate of Antiquities excavated in and around Tyre, concentrating on the three major Roman archaeological sites in the town, which can be seen today.

The most important recent archaeological find in a Phoenician cemetery from the first millennium B.C. Discovered in 1991 during clandestine excavations, this is the first cemetery of its kind found in Lebanon. Funerary jars, inscribed steles and jewelry were among the objects retrieved from the site. The importance of this historical city and its monuments was highlighted in 1979 when UNESCO declared Tyre a world Heritage Site.

In the meantime, government efforts have stopped much of the wartime pillaging that Tyre's archaeological treasures have suffered because of economic stress in the area and international demand for antiquities. Grassroots campaigns have also drawn attention to the importance of the city's antiquities.


Sarafand (28 Kilometers north of Tyre) is the site of ancient Serepta, mentioned in the bible. Excavations here revealed the remains of Canaanite-Phoenician structures and Roman port installations. Modern Sarafand still has a workshop where the ancient Phoenician art glass blowing is practiced.

Tomb of Hiram: On the road to Qana El-Jaleel, (6 Kilometers southeast of Tyre) is a burial monument from the Persian period (550 - 330 B.C.). This has traditionally been called the tomb of Hiram, the celebrated Phoenician architect of the Temple of Jerusalem.

The ancient world had much to thank Tyre for. The Greek attributed the introduction of the alphabet to their country Cadmus, the son of a Tyrian king. The name of the continent if said to come from Europa, the sister of Cadmus.

It was Tyre's purple-dyed textiles, however, worn throughout the ancient world as a mark of royal rank, that brought fame and fortune to the city. One gram of pure purple dye was worth ten or twenty grams of gold, so it is not surprising that some of the beautiful sarcophagi of the necropolis belonged to wealthy purple dye manufactures of Tyre.

The ancient Tyrians extracted the dye from the Murex, a marine snail that still lives along Tyre's shores deep among the rocks and sunken archeological remains. Dye extraction is no longer a viable commercial venture, but scientists have documented the process for historical purposes.