Long-lost Phoenician ports found
Old Mediterranean
harbours discovered buried under modern cities.
Philip Ball
Thanks
to political tensions easing in Lebanon, archaeologists have
finally managed to locate the sites of ancient Phoenician harbours
in the seaports that dominated Mediterranean trade thousands
of years ago.
By drilling out cores of sediment
from the modern urban centres of these cities, geologists have
mapped out the former coastlines that the sediments have long
since buried. From this they have pinpointed the likely sites
of the old harbours, and have marked out locations that, they
say, are in dire need of exploration and conservation.
The modern cities of Tyre and
Sidon on the Lebanese coast were once the major launching points
of the seafaring Phoenicians. They were to the ancient world
what Venice, Shanghai, Liverpool and New York have been in later
times: some of the greatest of the world's ports, and crucia l conduits for trade and cultural exchange. From the harbours of the
Phoenician cities, ships carried precious dyes and textiles,
soda and glass throughout the Mediterranean and beyond.
Both cities still carry the
same name, but the coastlines on which they sit have been reshaped
by silting since the time of the Phoenicians, about 3,000 years
ago. Sidon has extended out to sea through the build-up of silt.
And Tyre, which was once an island, has been joined up to the
mainland by silting, while much of the old land has sunk beneath
the waves.
 If urbanization isn't correctly regulated,
many important archaeological sites will be
damaged or lost.  |
Nick
Marriner
CEREGE, Aix-en-Provence, France |
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But whereas these major geographical changes were roughly
known, no one knew the exact shape of the old coastline, which
would in turn reveal the positions of the ancient harbours themselves.
Digging in
Nick Marriner of the European Centre for
Research and Teaching on the Geosciences of the Environment
(CEREGE) in Aix-en-Provence, France, and his colleagues set
out to drill beneath the modern city centres to determine how
the coastlines have changed over time
Marriner explains that the political situation in Lebanon,
with a civil war that only ended in 1990, has hindered attempts
to explore its ancient history. Much of what is known about
the Phoenician cities comes from indirect or old sources. "At
Tyre, there are presently no large-scale excavation sites, and
much of our knowledge derives from work undertaken during the
nineteenth century through to the early 1970s," Marriner says.
Some of that early archaeological
work has been challenged on further scrutiny. In the 1930s,
for example, the French archaeologist and pioneer of aerial
photography Antoine Poidebard claimed to have found the location
of the southern harbour of ancient Tyre, which is now submerged.
But recent work suggests that he instead found an urban part
of the old city, rather than a port4.
To get a clearer picture, Marriner and
his colleagues drilled a total of 40 cores throughout the two
cities, and used radiocarbon dating of seeds, wood, charcoal
and marine mollusc shells to determine the age of each layer.
The results shed some light
on what is known of the cities. Both of the Lebanese sites were
occupied since at least the Bronze Age (around 3,000 years BC).
Tyre was conquered in 332 years BC by Alexander the Great. And
both sites were later occupied by the Romans, then the Arabs
and the Mameluke Turks.
Marriner's examination of the soil shows
that the rate of coastal silting shot up tenfold during the
Roman occupation. Their geological records show that the Romans
and subsequently the Byzantines must have been forced to dredge
the harbours to keep them workable. Trade during this period
is known to have declined sharply.
Save and protect
Most importantly, the work
indicates where the old harbours lay: underneath today's urban
centres.
Marriner hopes that his findings
will help efforts to protect the cultural heritage of the two
cities, and says that the Directorate General of Antiquities
of Lebanon is very interested in the results. "They are rich
historical and archaeological archives, and the real test is
protecting them from the pressures of urban development," he
says.
Both Tyre and Sidon are undergoing
rapid, uncontrolled urban expansion. "There are plans to develop
areas of Tyre as a tourist resort," says Marriner. "If this
is not correctly regulated many important archaeological sites
will be damaged or lost."
References
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Marriner N., et al. Geology, 34.
1 - 4 (2006).
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Marriner N., et al. J. Archaeol. Sci.,
32. 1302 - 1327 (2005).
-
Marriner N., et al. J. Archaeol. Sci.,
(submitted) (2005).
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El Amouri M., et al. Bull. d'Archéol.
et d'Architect. Libanaises, (in press) (2005).
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Story from news@nature.com:
http://news.nature.com//news/2006/060102/060102-11.html |
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