Tyre

TYRE

Southern Lebanon remains one of the world’s finest corners of natural beauty.   It has a rocky coast that is broken by occasional beaches and by the mouth of rivers. On the coast are two towns that have little current significance in economy of Lebanon. Tyre is the southern city of the two. It was situated on the Lebanese coast. It was just south of the spot where the river Litani flows into the Mediterranean Sea.   Its site had been chosen partially because of a small rocky island, located half a mile out from the shore. Tyre is located approximately 33.19N Latitude and 35.16E Longitude. Part of the city was built on the mainland, part on the island. With the double location it offers its citizens both military protection and excellent port facilities.

Tyre was a maritime city. Its fame was based on the ocean with its traffic and trade. Tyre’s sister city is Sidon. Tyre has not been a major focal point of modern archaeological activity. It, along with Sidon, became the focal point for a while of the newly developed techniques of underwater exploration, their respective harbor facilities. The waters of the Mediterranean have risen considerably over more then two millennia, and parts of the original harbors of the cities lay at depths more than forty feet below the surface. Tyre’s harbor was examined at an earlier date, somewhere in 1934 to 1937.Soil excavations at Tyre have uncovered a number of important structures, including an ancient theater, though they are relatively late (Graeco-Roman) and tell little of the city’s earliest history.

Tyre, along with Sidon, has not survived primarily on the basis of modern archaeological discoveries. It, along with Sidon, is known to have flourished in the second millennium BC. Tyre came into prominence in the first millennium BC with the rise of Phoenicia to a central place in world history.

Phoenicia is a territory generally similar to modern Lebanon in scope. Phoenicia was not so much a nation as a...