Around 1919, after Lebanon was liberated from the Ottoman yoke and then swiftly placed under a French Mandate, a large number of young Lebanese activists, intellectuals, and nationalists returned from exile in Egypt intent on founding an independent and modern nation. In Lebanon, the debates surrounding national histories and national identities were intense and resolute as their newborn country had to be completely reformulated if they were to create a modern independent state. At the time, the very essence of Lebanon lay in the understanding that this was a society formed of diverse and divergent religious communities. The activists all assumed that a unique formula of coexistence based on diversity, not unilateralism, would be the way forward. It fell to Michel Chiha, a lawyer, banker, and journalist, to interpret this peculiarity and incorporate it into the text of the Lebanese Constitution. As a member of the Parliamentary Constitution Committee, he was tasked with the actual drafting of this constitution, which in fact he would personally compose—that is, he literally hand-wrote the draft of the original constitution of 1926 (Doumet-Serhal and Nahas 2001: 114). Once the constitutional starting gate had been flung open, history and the role of the past were actively promoted by this very committed generation returning from Egypt, as they were bent on defining a Lebanese identity.
Among these staunch young men returning from exile was a faction of Lebanese Christians who were anxious to dissociate themselves from Arabism and its Islamic connections. For reasons of education and culture, as well as religion, they simply could not identify themselves solely with Arabism. Instead, they opted to embrace the historical Canaanite and Phoenician past as adopted by other like-minded intellectuals, such as the Lebanese poet Charles Corm, who composed in French, and the Lebanese author Said Aql, who composed in Arabic. In 1919, Charles Corm established the Éditions de la Revue Phénicienne and published a flagship monthly journal called La Revue Phénicienne. Iconic and short-lived, the journal would commence and cease production at a meteoric pace between June and December 1919 (Corm 2013: 18–19). La Revue Phénicienne would nevertheless become the political, cultural, and literary mouthpiece for some of these young Lebanese “neo-Phoenician” intellectuals who were reclaiming Lebanon’s Phoenician heritage.
This acceptance and celebration of Lebanon’s distinct Phoenician ancestry was expounded in Charles Corm’s La montagne inspirée, which romanticized and idealized Phoenicia. Rejected completely by the mostly Sunni Muslim community, this Phoenician formula was largely untenable to them because it rejected the country’s Arab heritage, with which the country’s large Sunni community identified (Salibi 1971: 32). Chiha, in contrast to his contemporaries, did not consider Phoenicianism as the hallmark of Lebanese identity, however. According to him, the Lebanese were a “Mediterranean variety” (Chiha 1994b: 134–38, 147–48), and as Lebanon had existed long before Phoenicia, its inhabitants were therefore simply Lebanese (Chiha 1994b: 44; Traboulsi 2007: 95).
At the time, the Lebanese people were also furiously debating the origin of the Phoenicians themselves, a subject which has since become obsolete owing to advancements in archaeological excavation. This debate fueled a flurry of writing and publishing on the subject. Some insisted that, according to the ancient Classical tradition—namely the writings of Herodotus—Phoenicians came from the Red Sea or from the Arabian Peninsula (Salibi 1971: 84; Lipiński 2015: 95), and were therefore Arabs. Concurrently, many blamed the French Mandate in control of Syria and Lebanon for generating the idea that the Christians were descendants of the ancient Phoenicians.
In the background, amid this debate on the question of identity, was a growing movement toward an encompassing Arab nationalism. The movement itself was multifaceted, proposing an Islamic character for the nation and possible unity with other Arab countries (Salibi 1971: 84), including the relinquishing of Lebanon’s sovereignty. Both options were deal-breakers for most Lebanese Christians (Al-Sudairi 1999: 90–97). One of the questions raised by the Cénacle Libanais, an institution founded in 1946 to study dominant currents of thought, was the historical investigation of Lebanon’s identity and an analysis of its geographical position. The goal was to assess its place in the world in general, and in the Middle East in particular, within a regional groundswell of Arab nationalism (Shehadi 1987: 3, 17), especially in view of Lebanon’s Phoenician lineage and its Mediterranean setting.
With the onset of the civil war in 1975, the debate over identity became more acute, as the term Phoenician was once again brandished as an ideological weapon and a means to differentiate Christians from Muslims. Thus, Lebanese political factions could promote their own political agenda and each community could legitimize itself by forging a distinct identity in order to mobilize its supporters. In 1943, Lebanon was a Mediterranean country with an “Arab face.” This was replaced at the end of the civil war in 1990 with an article labeling it “an Arab country.”
The Phoenicians
There is very little objective or trustworthy knowledge in the Homeric epics and early Greek literature in general about Phoenicians in their home setting, except for the activity they were perceived to be doing in Aegean waters. As their history and mythology, mostly recorded on papyrus, has disappeared (Markoe 2000: 11), only biblical references offer a fragmented and external representation of their culture. These references cannot rival the material evidence that archaeology provides, however. It is, therefore, entirely due to the progress of excavations that primary testimonies of the Phoenician civilization (including inscriptions) have been brought to life (for the traces of Phoenician literature, and the biblical and Classical testimonies, see chapters 18, 43–45, this volume). As early as 1882, Renan declared the importance of geography as “one of the essential factors in history” (Renan 1882: 24), thus succinctly illustrating the precise reason that Lebanese nationalists were inclined to use geography rather than history to advocate the Phoenician past of the country.
The Question of Geography
As early as 1859, Sheikh Tannus bin Yūsuf Al Chidiak, a Lebanese scholar, writer, and journalist (Al Chidiak 1859: 6, 8), had listed the main Phoenician cities of Lebanon, which included “Tripoli, Batroun, Jbeil [Byblos], Jounieh, Beirut, Saida [Sidon], Tyre and Acca [Akko].” Three of these eight coastal Phoenician cities—namely Tyre, Sidon and Byblos—were gifted with a naturally protected harbor and a hinterland with arable lands for agriculture. Thus most of the Phoenicians and their Canaanite ancestors lived in a fertile, well-watered coastal area, with the mountains of Lebanon and a 3,000 m summit protecting this narrow 30 km wide coastal plain from incursions from the east. For the most part, the coast is abrupt and rocky, with no deep estuary or gulf. As Henri Lammens, an early twentieth-century Orientalist and Jesuit who settled in Lebanon, underlined in 1908, “with its rocky mountains facing the sunset and with the understanding that in Phoenicia everything looks towards the sea; this is also the direction of valleys: this orientation helps us understand why the whole country’s economy has always closely depended on the Mediterranean” (Lammens 1908: 493).
According to Chiha (Chiha 1973: 3; Chiha 1994a: 22–23; Chiha 1994b: 21–23), “true Mediterranean people are those who have a taste for the sea whilst continental people have another sort of outlook.” He felt strongly that “Lebanon belonged to the Near East as regards the Mediterranean. [It is] Eastern Europe facing Asia, and at the same time, Western Asia facing Europe.” By this he meant that Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Egypt, and Jordan formed the geographical assemblage that made up the Near East, as opposed to Iraq, Iran, the countries of the Arabian Gulf, Libya, Sudan, and Afghanistan, which form the geographical components of the Middle East.
In terms of geographic assets, in biblical times, Lebanon was forested with large tracts of cedars (Cedrus libani) and other evergreens. Hence the territory was prized for its hunting grounds but especially for its timber, suitable for of shipbuilding (Asmar and Doumet-Serhal 2015: 3). Over time, Phoenician cities suffered a series of expatriations (Reclus 1900: 14), spurred by the p
ressure of a series of hostile empires to whom they paid heavy tribute. A case in point were the Assyrians in the eighth–seventh centuries bce (Markoe 2000: 42–43). Given their geographical location confined to a narrow coastal strip, the sea was their natural outlet. Demographic pressures and diminishing returns led the local inhabitants to turn to the sea, where they practiced “transportable” occupations such as trade and craftsmanship.
In 1957, Arnold Toynbee stated that “although today’s Lebanese people are not the direct successors of the Phoenicians, they nevertheless share common traditions and human capacities. Both have benefited from a natural shelter—the sea for some, for others the mountain—to devote themselves to commercial business” (Toynbee 1957: 226). Ironically, in spite of the tyranny of occupation, Lebanon has always had a longstanding tradition of asylum, refuge, and autonomy. Assyrian rulers, caliphs, Crusaders, and Ottoman sultans alike somehow consistently refrained from demanding more from Lebanon than tribute or the formal recognition of their suzerainty (Hourani 1946: 129–30).
Phoenician, Mediterranean, or Arab—whichever identity was implicated—archaeological discoveries provided the means to fuel the argument regarding identity.
Archaeological Excavations: Discovering the Roots and Recounting History
By 1860, a nascent Western interest in archaeology, diplomacy, and colonial policy triggered the first wave of archaeological research into Phoenician cities. Archaeology in Lebanon started with the arrival of Western travelers and agents exploring the country for archaeological artifacts, acquiring them, and then shipping them back to their respective countries. The massacre of Lebanese Christians instigated the intervention of France in Lebanon on their behalf, and in the wake of these regional disturbances, Napoleon III, as the omnipotent authority in the region, entrusted Ernest Renan to work in Phoenicia to collect the remains of ancient inscriptions and to investigate the monuments of ancient Phoenicia.
No sooner had Renan arrived in Lebanon than he began immediate work in Tyre, Sidon, Amrit, Arwad, and Byblos. He promptly published his results in the Mission de Phénicie of 1864, which became the first serious publication on Phoenician archaeology, and it would put Lebanon and its antecedents on an almost equal level of importance with the ancient Greek and Egyptian worlds. Later, in 1945, Chiha underlined the importance of archaeology for the Lebanon: “Nowhere else in the world do archaeology and the remains of the past have such a raison d’être. If we want to maintain and develop one of the finest elements of our heritage, archaeology must extensively be taught at home” (Chiha 1945: 18).
The discovery of two major inscriptions between 1855 and 1922 greatly advanced the knowledge of Phoenician writing. The first was a twenty-two-line Phoenician inscription on the lid of the Eshmunazor sarcophagus (first quarter of the fifth century bce), found in Sidon by Alphonse Durighello on January 19, 1855. It identified the occupant of the sarcophagus as the son of Tabnit, king of Sidon. It was gifted to the Louvre Museum and transported to France by the Duke of Luynes, who obtained it from Aimé Péretié, a French consular agent.
The second was an inscription on the lid of the tenth-century bce Ahiram sarcophagus, now housed in the Beirut National Museum, which was discovered after a landslide on a sea cliff at Byblos on February 16, 1922, and which revealed the existence of the Royal Necropolis of Byblos. The inscription represents a milestone in the history of the written word, as its written dedication represents one of the earliest attestations of the Phoenician linear alphabet, the root of all modern Western alphabets, dating back to the tenth century bce (for Phoenician inscriptions and the spread of the alphabet, see chapters 16 and 17, this volume).
The Cities
Sidon
The sensational discovery, in March 1887, of the Royal Necropolis at Sidon greatly influenced the local community. However, the new archaeological law implemented by Sultan Abdülhamid in 1884 stated that the Imperial Museum in Istanbul would be the sole recipient of archaeological discoveries in the Ottoman Empire (Hanssen 1998: 21). This explains why, when the Royal necropolis was discovered in Sidon with a total of eighteen sarcophagi, the “garden of Antiquities,” an open-air museum, was temporarily erected for a short time in the city before the best preserved sarcophagi (at least six) were relocated a few weeks later to Istanbul—“to the great annoyance of the Sidonians, who would have wanted to enjoy a few more days to admire their treasures” (Hanssen 1998: 23). A further stupendous discovery in 1901 of a series of Phoenician rock-tombs in Ain el Helwe, on land belonging to the American Presbyterian Mission based in Sidon, revealed a uniquely Phoenician creation—namely an anthropoid sarcophagus combining Egyptian and Greek elements in a way eminently characteristic of Phoenician art. In 1930, the American Presbyterian Mission School donated the newly named Ford Collection of anthropoid sarcophagi to the Beirut National Museum together with a number of other artifacts. This is still today the largest collection of this type of sarcophagi in the world.
Byblos
Byblos was a key trading harbor, sitting at the foot of the Mount Lebanon mountain range. The French Egyptologist Pierre Montet excavated in Byblos between 1921 and 1924. In 1925, the Louvre Museum put Maurice Dunand in charge of the Byblos excavations, a position he held until he was reappointed to the same post by the Lebanese government, which had assumed control over the site in 1929. He would remain in charge until 1975.
The cedar tree on the Lebanese flag evokes the ancient and widespread shipment of “cedar wood” from the shores of Byblos to the Nile Delta, and is probably the best documented commodity of commercial transactions in antiquity. There is no contemporary book, magazine, poster, or movie on the heritage of Lebanon without some representation of the treasures of Byblos housed in the Beirut National Museum, especially the symbolic mass-produced bronze copper or silver statuettes of warrior gods with their tall headgear coated with gold leaf.
Tyre
The first archaeological excavations in Tyre were carried out by the Frenchmen Ernest Renan between 1924 and 1936. He was succeeded by the Reverend Father Antoine Poidebard, a French aviator and archaeologist who undertook a submarine and aerial survey of the city. Nevertheless, while the historical importance of Tyre was well known, largely owing to the biblical account of the city in Ezekiel 26:1–14 and Alexander’s Causeway, the city was not fully excavated until after Lebanon’s independence in 1947, when the country’s first Director General of Antiquities, Emir Maurice Chéhab, instigated what would become one of his most important and famous projects—namely the excavation of Roman Tyre.
The Impact of Archaeological Discoveries in a Modern Nation
It wasn’t until after it was rid of its various imperial yokes in the late 1920s that Lebanese archaeology came into its own. After the Lebanese gained ownership and control of the already uncovered sites and new excavation projects were undertaken, archaeology in Lebanon became a viable conduit for national pride in a newly formed nation only just coming to grips with its heritage.
Once the Lebanese government had gradually assumed control of the country’s archaeological sites, it appointed the first Director General of the Department of Antiquities, Émir Maurice Chéhab. Four years after the inauguration of the Beirut National Museum, in an interview with the Livre d’or de l’association amicale des anciens élèves de l’université Saint Joseph (Chéhab 1949: 60–61), Émir Maurice Chéhab stated that he had always been interested in Lebanon’s ancient history until two major events had an even greater impact on him: one was the major discoveries made by the French archaeologist Pierre Montet in Byblos, and the second was the newly published book of Père Lammens, La Syrie, which he said clarified his thoughts on national history.
This fresh wave of national pride even reached various communities of the Lebanese diaspora. As early as 1920, and as far away as the United States, the Lebanese communities of Birmingham, Alabama, exhibited their “patriotism” by naming their social group “The Phoenician Club.” This would later become the “Cedars Cl
ub” (C. N. Faires and N. Faires 1987: 79). According to an article in La revue du Liban, a new social club opened in Paris in 1928, called the “Cercle Nova-Phoenicia,” where young people from the Near East would meet. A first ball was organized by the Nova-Phoenicia on December 31, 1928, at the Bohy-Lafayette Hotel (La Revue du Liban 1953: 28). The ball was attended by Lebanese settlers now able to claim kinship with their own nation. Later in 1931, the same journal covering “Lebanon at the international Vincennes exhibition” reported that the Levantine pavilion had placed on its threshold a stela by sculptor Auguste Biaggi representing a Phoenician carving of the Phoenician alphabet, “to remind us of the essential role played by this nation of sailors in the history of civilization.”
In 1949, at the Beirut convention of UNESCO’s General Assembly, in his “Six Thousand Years of Pacifist Genius in the Service of Humanity” lecture at the Cénacle Libanais, Charles Corm claimed “that the Lebanese created, preserved, defended, and developed their country from the earliest times when they were known as the Canaanites and that the Phoenicians were an expansive liberal civilization, of universal trend” (Corm 1949: 152). This trend even reached the very edge of Western Europe. In the entrance hall of the Irish pavilion of the 1939–1940 World’s Fair in New York City, a large inscription read: “From about 2000 BC, Ireland was the treasure land of Western Europe. To its shores came traders from Tyre and Sidon to bear away in their light sailing craft the products of this early civilisation” (Corm 1949: 165; on the reception of the Phoenicians in the West, see chapter 46, this volume).
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