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Sidon
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Sidon is of immense antiquity, but
few remains of the ancient city have survived the ravages
of time and man. There is evidence that Sidon was inhabited
as long ago as 4000 B.C., and perhaps even earlier, in Neolithic
times.
It was twice destroyed in war between
the 7th and 4th centuries B.C., and again during the earthquake
in the 6th Century A.D. Like most Phoenician cities, Sidon
was built on a promontory facing an island, which sheltered
its fleet from storms off the sea, and became a refuge during
armed incursions from the interior. It surpassed all other
Phoenician cities in wealth, commercial initiative, and
religious significance. At the height of the Persian Empire
(550-330 B.C.) Sidon provided Persia, a great land power,
with the ships and seamen it needed to fight the Egyptians
and Greeks. This vital role gave Sidon and its kings a highly
favored position during that period.
The Persians maintained a royal park in Sidon and it was
then that the Temple of Echmoun was built and became an
important place of pilgrimage. The cult of Mithra survived
here even after Constantine the Great sought to wipe out
paganism. The Mithraeum of Sidon escaped destruction because
the followers of Mithra walled off the entrance to the underground
sanctuary. Evidence supports the belief that the sanctuary
may have been beneath the foundations of the present Greek
Catholic Arch bishopric.
Glass manufacture, Sidon's most important enterprise, was
conducted on such a vast scale that the very invention of
glass has often been attributed to it. Exceedingly vigorous,
too, was the production of purple dye for garments of royalty,
as attested by Murex Hill, a huge mound of remains of the
shellfish Murex trunculus from which the dye was obtained.
Sidon was also famous in ancient times for its gardens and
its twin-basin harbor.
Like other Phoenician capitals, Sidon suffered the depredations
of a succession of conquerors. At the end of the Persian
era, unable to resist the superior forces of the emperor
Artaxerxes III, the desperate Sidonians locked their gates
and immolated themselves in their homes rather than submit
to the invader. More than 40,000 died in the flames. Shortly
after, in 333 B.C., the decimated city was too weak to oppose
the triumphal march down the coast of Alexander the Great,
and sued for peace. The city had the status of republic
in the early days of Roman domination (64 B.C. - 330 A.D.)
before passing into the hands of the Byzantines and, in
667, of the Arabs.
In 1111, Sidon was besieged and stormed by the Crusader
Bald win, soon to become King of Jerusalem. Under Frankish
rule, it became the chief town of the Seigniory of Sagette
and the second of the four baronies of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
In 1187, the city surrendered to Saladin, but was re-occupied
by the Crusaders in l287, later passing into the hands of
the Saracens. The Templars recaptured it briefly before
abandoning it for good in 1291 after the fall of Acre to
the Mameluk forces.
In the 15th Century, Sidon was one of the ports of Damascus.
It flourished once more during the 17th Century when it
was rebuilt by Fakhreddine II, then ruler of Lebanon, although
he was obliged to fill in Sidon's harbor out of fear of
the Turkish fleet. Under his protection and with his encouragement,
a number of French merchants set up profitable business
enterprises in Sidon for trade between France and Syria,
Sidon still being considered the chief port of Damascus.
By the beginning of the l9th Century, Sidon had sunk into
obscurity. It became a part of geographical Lebanon, as
it now exists, after the First World War when the Ottoman
Empire, in which Sidon was administered as part of Greater
Syria, was divided into spheres of influence by the allies.
Lebanon then became a French mandate until the country gained
its independence in 1943.
Classical literature abounds in references to Sidon. It
is mentioned in the poems of Homer. Virgil, in the Aeneid,
speaks of Dido, Queen of Carthage, who was Sidon-born. In
the Bible, it is referred to as the most ancient of the
Canaanite coastal cities (Genesis: 10:15,19). This is where
Jesus cast the devil out of the Canaanite woman's daughter
(Mark 7:24-30). St. Paul was permitted to land here on his
way to Rome as a prisoner "to go unto his friends to
refresh himself" (Acts 27:1-3). In the lst Century
A.D., the Greek geographer Strabo wrote that Sidon rivaled
Tyre not only in size and fame but also in antiquity. Literary
and scientific publications of the 19th Century, which looked
upon Phoenicia as the precursor of all civilization, described
it as the cradle of the humanities and the arts.
Sidon Today:
Sidon today is the third most important Lebanese city, and
the seat of government for the district of Southern Lebanon.
The residential section of Sidon continues to spread beyond
the citrus orchards and banana groves which once marked the
limits of the city. The old section of Sidon as seen today
is believed to have developed at the end of the Crusader period,
ancient Sidon having been larger in area and probably extending
north to where the Temple of Echmoun stands.
The Sea Castle:
The Sea Castle is a fortress built by the Crusaders in the
early 13th Century on a small island connected with the mainland
by a fortified bridge. The present bridge is of later date.
It was one of many castles along the coast which the Crusaders
built to protect the harbors and to ensure the safe landing
of men and supplies from Europe.
The fortress now consists primarily of two towers connected
by a wall . In the outer walls, Roman shaft columns were used
as transverse trusses, a feature common to many fortifications
built on former Roman sites. The west tower is the preserved
of the two; the east tower has lost its upper floor. A further
part of the castle was added during the celebrated visit of
King St. Louis to Sidon. In the basement there are two cisterns.
Old prints of the fortress show it to be one of great beauty,
but little remains of the architectural embellishments and
sculptures that once graced its ramparts. The destruction
of all the sea castles was ordered after the fall of Acre
to the Mameluks to prevent the Crusaders from again establishing
footholds on the coast.
A rest house and restaurant on the water-front offers good
food and refreshment at reasonable prices.
The Harbor:
The Sea Castle overlooks the north channel harbor, now used
only for fishing boats, Fakhreddine having filled it in the
17th Century to deny entry to the Turkish fleet. The remains
of the harbor do not go back beyond the Roman area.
In Phoenician times, the north channel harbor was the safest
of the four harbors of Sidon. It was protected on the east
by a line of natural reefs, and on the north by a mole built
upon the rocky bottom to shelter it from the winds. Port facilities
consisted of an inner harbor which protected the ships in
winter and an outer harbor that was used in summer. An ingenious
system of flushing to prevent silting attested to superior
technology of the Sidonian master-builders. The force of the
waves was used to create a current of water flowing from the
outer basin into the inner basin, thence through an outlet
into the sea. When the wind rose, filtered water was forced
through a channel into the inner basin, flushing the sandy
sediment-accumulating there from the outer basin - back out
through the narrow entrance, where another current carried
the sediment seaward. Apparently this system was unique to
Sidon, for it has not been observed in other Phoenician seaports.
The Souks and Khan el Franj:
Not far from the Sea Castle, a short distance from the wharf,
is the picturesque old vaulted souk of Sidon - which dates
back to an age when most inhabitants dwelt in the area between
the city walls and the harbor - and Khan el Franj, one of
the many khans built by Fakhreddine II during his region to
accommodate merchants and goods. Here as elsewhere the khan
was traditionally a large rectangular courtyard with a central
fountain, surrounded by covered galleries.
Entrance to the khan is through a small postern cut in the
nail-studded main gate. Beyond is a cloistered court around
which were the shops and dwelling places for traders. The
khan (from the Persian word for "inn") was the center
of economic activity for the city. Later, in the 19th Century,
Sidon's khan housed the French consulate, a school, a convent,
an inn and a small museum displaying local artifacts.
The terrace affords a clear view of the harbor and the Sea
Castle.
Sidon is famous for a variety of local sweets that can be
seen being prepared in the shops of the old souk as well as
in the newer parts of the shopping area. The particular specialty
of Sidon in known as " Sanioura ", a very delicious
crumbly cake that melts in the mouth.
The Great Mosque:
Towards the south from the souk, on the way to the Castle
of St. Louis, is the Great Mosque. The mosque has replaced
the Church of St. John of the Hospitalers. The four walls
of this great rectangular building date back to the 13th Century.
The palace of Fakhreddine was formerly situated on the terrace
to the east of the Mosque.
The Castle of St. Louis:
The Castle of St. Louis was erected by the Crusaders during
the Frankish occupation of the city, on what is reputed to
have been the acropolis of ancient Sidon. Remains of a theater
have been recently found there also. The French King, Louis
1X , better known as St. Louis, appears to have spent a long
time here, and this is perhaps why the castle is attributed
to him. The citadel was probably completely demolished, then
rebuilt by the Arabs.
To the south of the citadel is a mound of debris called Murex
Hill. A talus of crushed murex shells along the western slope
can still be seen. This artificial mound (100m. long by 50m.
high) was formed by the accumulation of refuse from the purple
dye factories of Phoenician times. The small shell of the
murex was broken in order to extract the pigment that was
so rare it became the mark of royalty. Mosaic tiling at the
top of the mound suggests that Roman buildings were erected
there when the area was no longer used as the city's dumping
ground. Part of the hill today is covered by the cemetery
of the Moslem Shiite community of Sidon.
The Necropoli of Sidon:
Sidon differs from other Phoenician cities in that its rich
necropoli were almost completely pillaged by clandestine excavators
during the 19th Century. Most of the works of art are now
to be found at the louvre, the Topkapi Archaeological Museum
in Istanbul, and other museums in Europe.
The three main cemeteries of Sidon lie beyond the ancient
city limits and were in use from the end of the 6th Century
B.C. to the late Roman and early Christian eras. These are
the necropolis of Magharet Abloun, the royal necropolis of
Ayaa in the rocky foothills below what is now the village
of Helalie, and the necropolis of Ain el Helwe to the southeast.
None are open to visitors.
The famous sarcophagus of Echmounazzar II was discovered in
a small recess in the Necropolis of Magharet Abloun in 1855
and was transported to the louvre soon afterwards. It was
the first sarcophagus of a Phoenician king to be found, and
it carried the most important Phoenician inscription yet discovered,
that which records the building of the Temple of Echmoun.
A large collection of sarcophagi from Sidon can be seen at
the National Museum in Beirut. The most outstanding is the
ship sarcophagus, so called because of a bas-relief representing
Roman trading vessels of the early Christian era.
Two types of sarcophagi were used simultaneously in Phoenicia.
One was built in the shape of a house. The other, the anthropoid,
was modeled after the human body. The largest find of anthropoid
sarcophagi recorded was at Ain el Helwe, while the royal necropolis
at Ayaa has yielded the most important group of marble sculptured
sarcophagi yet found in Lebanon. Among these was the sarcophagus
erroneously called the Alexander Sarcophagus ( on display
at the Topkapi Museum in Istanbul ) which is a striking example
of sculpture and polychromy in the Greek style.
Even before the Hellenistic age, the influential position
of Sidon in Persian times attracted scholars and artists from
the Aegean region. Local artisans were trained by them and
were thus influenced by Greek artistic forms.
The Temple of Echmoun:
On the way back to Beirut, at the right of the bridge on Nahr
el Awali, near the city limits of Sidon, is a spot known as
Bustan el Sheikh where the most important Phoenician temple
has been found. This , the Temple of Echmoun, goes back to
the Persian period ( 6th Century B.C. ) when Sidon was at
its zenith. Additions were made to the temple in following
eras and it remained a sacred shrine place of pilgrimage well
into the first centuries after Christ.
Source: Ministry of Tourism |
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