Ancient Lebanon between text and stone

“I made a voyage to Tyre in Phoenicia, hearing there was a temple of Hercules at that place, very highly venerated,” wrote the Greek historian Herodotus after visiting the Phoenician city in the fifth century B.C.

His account is one of the earliest surviving written descriptions of ancient Lebanon. But it would not be the last time ancient Lebanon appeared in the written record.

In the centuries that followed, writers from across the ancient world continued to document the region's cities. The Greek geographer Strabo described the prosperity of the Levantine coast, while the Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder praised Sidon's renowned glass production in his encyclopedic Natural History. The Hebrew Bible likewise returned repeatedly to Tyre, portraying it as a wealthy maritime kingdom whose merchants traded across the Mediterranean.

Although they wrote across different centuries and for different audiences, these works remain among the principal written sources for ancient Lebanon. They also raise a fundamental question: How do archaeologists reconstruct the history of a civilization that left behind relatively few written records of its own?

“Archaeology is so important, because it allows you to compare the textual evidence with the material evidence,” Hélène Sader, professor of archaeology at the American University of Beirut, told The Beiruter.

Archaeology becomes the only source capable of replacing the missing written record.

Much of what historians know about ancient Lebanon comes through the accounts of Greek and Roman authors. Archaeology provides the material record against which those accounts can be tested, refined and expanded.

Reading Lebanon through ancient eyes

The surviving written record is inseparable from the perspectives of those who wrote it.

Herodotus encountered the Phoenician cities during the Persian period, when Tyre, Sidon and Byblos remained kingdoms within the Achaemenid Empire. Writing primarily to explain the Greco-Persian Wars, he nevertheless recorded local traditions surrounding sanctuaries such as the Temple of Melqart in Tyre.

Later authors approached the region with very different aims. Strabo sought to describe the geography of the known world. Pliny the Elder compiled an encyclopedia of the Roman Empire. Lucian was drawn to religious customs that appeared unfamiliar to Greek audiences, while the Hebrew Bible portrayed Tyre through the theological and political concerns of its own narrative.

"The classical authors wrote about what they actually saw," Sader said.

As successive generations of Greek and Roman writers encountered the Levant, she explained, their accounts became less concerned with local political affairs and more focused on the region's wealth, monumental architecture and religious life.

Their importance, however, extends beyond what they observed firsthand. By preserving local oral traditions surrounding cities, sanctuaries and royal dynasties, Greek and Roman writers recorded histories that might otherwise have disappeared.

"They reported these stories as myths and legends, recording them as they were told by the local population," she said.

The classical texts are therefore important because they preserved the oral traditions of the Phoenician cities.

Those texts also provide the historical framework that guides archaeological investigation.

"When archaeologists want to carry out an excavation or conduct a study, they must begin with the classical texts," Tania Zaven, director general of antiquities at Lebanon's Directorate General of Antiquities, told The Beiruter.

Those sources establish the historical context surrounding a site, identify places known to ancient writers and suggest what researchers might expect to find. Excavation then tests those accounts against the material record, asking not only whether ancient authors were accurate but also what they overlooked.

Sidon's ancient glass industry offers one of the clearest examples.

Writing in the first century A.D., Pliny the Elder praised Sidonian glass, while Strabo also referred to the city's reputation for craftsmanship. For centuries, those literary references formed much of what historians knew about one of antiquity's most celebrated industries.

Excavation has since transformed that picture.

As part of her doctoral research, Zaven combined literary sources with archaeological discoveries to reconstruct Sidon's glass industry. Rather than simply confirming that the city produced glass, excavations revealed how production was organized, offering a far more detailed understanding than ancient writers could provide.

The archive that never survived

Ancient Lebanon presents archaeologists with a paradox. Greek and Roman writers left detailed descriptions of its cities, temples, industries and trade. The Phoenicians themselves, however, left remarkably little written testimony behind.

"What we lack is direct written testimony from the Phoenicians themselves," Sader said.

If you want to write the history of Mesopotamia, you have thousands of clay tablets. The same is true for Ugarit, the Hittites and much of Syria. But in Lebanon we have virtually nothing.

Part of that absence stems from what has survived. As Sader notes, not a single Phoenician palace has been identified in Lebanon, despite historical evidence that such buildings once existed. Without those palaces, the archives they likely contained were also lost, while records written on perishable materials disappeared over time. Historians therefore rely largely on Assyrian, Egyptian, Greek and Roman sources.

Roman rebuilding further obscured the Phoenician past. According to Sader, much of the Iron Age landscape was rebuilt under Roman rule, erasing many earlier structures. The result is a striking imbalance in the archaeological record: Lebanon preserves abundant Greek and Roman monuments, but comparatively little monumental architecture from the Phoenician period itself.

Beyond the written record

While invaluable for reconstructing the ancient world, written history, particularly classical sources, is inherently selective. Ancient authors chose what they considered worth recording, preserving the deeds of rulers, cities and temples while leaving much of everyday life undocumented. Archaeology offers a different archive.

“Whenever you read history, you have to ask, ‘Who was writing?’” Zaven said.

It was not the common people. You primarily see the history of ordinary people emerging in archaeology.

Yet archaeology does more than recover the lives omitted from ancient texts. It also refines how historians interpret the societies those texts describe.

One of the clearest examples is the idea of the "Phoenicians."

For centuries, the eastern Mediterranean coast of present-day Lebanon was home to a series of prosperous maritime city kingdoms, including Tyre, Sidon and Byblos. Greek writers collectively called their inhabitants "Phoenicians," but archaeology and inscriptions suggest a more complex reality.

“‘Phoenician’ itself is a Greek term,” Sader said.

But there was no pan-Phoenician identity. They identified themselves as Tyrians, Sidonians or Byblians. We know this from the inscriptions we have.

Rather than describing a unified nation, "Phoenician" was therefore a label applied by outsiders to a collection of independent coastal kingdoms whose inhabitants primarily identified with their own cities. By combining inscriptions with material culture, archaeology has refined a picture that literary sources alone could only partially capture.

Preserving the past means preserving the landscape

Archaeology does not stop at reconstructing the past. It also informs how cultural heritage is protected.

Archaeological sites exist within natural landscapes, where settlements, agricultural land, native vegetation and buried remains together preserve evidence of how people interacted with their environment over thousands of years.

“Archaeological sites are part of landscapes,” Zaven said.

You always have a connection between archaeology and nature. They are not disconnected.

That understanding has taken on new urgency as conflict has threatened Lebanon's cultural heritage. During both the 2024 and 2026 wars, the Directorate General of Antiquities worked to secure enhanced protection status for 73 archaeological sites, primarily in southern Lebanon. According to Zaven, the effort reflected a recognition that safeguarding heritage requires protecting entire archaeological landscapes, not simply individual monuments.

Modern warfare threatens those landscapes in multiple ways. Airstrikes can destroy monuments, destabilize nearby archaeological structures and erase buried remains that have never been excavated. Damage to olive groves, vineyards and other historic environments also alters landscapes shaped by millennia of human settlement.

“When you have heavy airstrikes, they destroy both the land and what is underground,” Zaven said.

They are also destroying archaeology that has not yet been excavated.  Destroying cultural and natural landscapes means destroying part of humanity's shared history. Lebanon is part of that story.

Without the archaeological record, the ancient texts become our only witnesses. Protecting Lebanon's landscapes ensures they will never have to stand alone.