Byblos

Byblos (Greek: Βύβλος) known locally as Jbeil (Arabic: جبيل‎ Jubayl) and in the County of Tripoli as Gibelet, is the largest city in the Mount Lebanon Governorate of Lebanon. It is believed to have been first occupied between 8800 and 7000 BC and continuously inhabited since 5000 BC, making it one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Name

Byblos appears as Kebny in Egyptian hieroglyphic records going back to the 4th-dynasty pharaoh Sneferu (fl. 2600 BC) and as Gubla (????????) in the Akkadian cuneiform Amarna letters to the 18th-dynasty pharaohs Amenhotep III and IV. In the 1st millennium BC, its name appeared in Phoenician and Punic inscriptions as Gebal (????????????, GBL); in the Hebrew Bible as Geval (גבל); and in Syriac as GBL (ܓܒܠ). The name seems to derive from GB (????????, "well") and ʾL (????????, "god"), the latter a word that could variously refer to any of the Canaanite gods or to their leader in particular. The name thus seems to have meant the "Well of the God" or "Source of the God".

Its present Arabic name Jibayl (جبيل) or Jbeil (Lebanese pronunciation [ʒbe:l]) is a direct descendant of these earlier names, although apparently modified by a misunderstanding of the name as the triliteral root GBL or JBL, meaning "mountain". During the Crusades, this name appeared in European records as Gibelet and Giblet. This name was used for Byblos Castle and its associated lordship.

The Phoenician city, known to the Greeks as Býblos (Βύβλος) and to the Romans as Byblus, was important for their import of papyrus from Egypt. The English word "Bible", ultimately deriving from the Greek words bíblos (βίβλος) and biblíon (βιβλίον), may have originated with the Greeks' mispronunciation of the city or its Egyptian export.

History

Byblos is located about 42 km (26 mi) north of Beirut. It is attractive to archaeologists because of the successive layers of debris resulting from centuries of human...