Tyre Through the Ages

Tyre Through the Ages

By Nina Jidejian

Tyre is a subject of contention to both land and sea, the sea striving for  it in one direction, the land in the other; but it partakes of both, for it  is founded in the sea and is yet not disconnected with the shore; there is a  narrow strip of land which joins it to the mainland.so that it presents the  curious spectacle of a city in the sea and an island on land. Archilles Tatius, the Adventures of Leucippe and Clitophon (Fourth Century A.D.) Tyre Metropolis of Phoenicia in ages past, is coming to light under the archaeologist’s spade.  Excavations on the site have revealed successively the remains of Crusader, Arab, Byzantine and Graeco-Roman cities. Tyre was a flourishing city renowned and envied in the ancient world for magnificent temples, wealthy colonies in the Mediterranean and Atlantic and thriving purple dye industries.

Herodotus visited Tyre during the fifth century B.C. and wrote in the Histories that Priests of the Temple of Melkart, the city’s patron god, told him that Tyre was founded twenty-three hundred years previously, that is about 2750 B.C.  In 1973, archaeological evidence proved that the records of the priests of Melkart were indeed correct.

There was a permanent occupation off Tyre during the Early Bronze Age (middle of the third millennium B.C.), thus corroborating Herodotus’written testimony.  Through the ages, conquerors of the Near East tried to destroy Tyre and her vast commercial empire for political or strategic reasons. Nebuchadnezzar, the mighty king of Babylon, spent thirteen futile years before the city. Alexander the Great of Macedon in 332 B.C. Stormed Tyre relentlessly during seven months.  He was successful at long last by joining the island city to the mainland with a causeway thus enabling him to bring up his siege towers to breach Tyre’s formidable walls.