what happened to the ancient city of tyre

In the south of Lebanese republic there is evidence of an ancient battle and then fierce that it permanently altered the Mediterranean coastline. A peninsula juts out from the mainland in the identify where a proud island city once refused an invader, providing silent testimony every bit to the fate of all those who defied Alexander the Great. The city is called Tyre and it is located approximately 20 kilometres n (12 miles) of the Israeli border and well-nigh 80 kilometres (50 miles) south of the Lebanese capital Beirut. Tyre is well-known to Bible students particularly (although not exclusively) from the prophecy of Ezekiel who was inspired to foresee details of Tyre'south downfall that would take seemed wildly improbable to his contemporaries all the same in the form of time proved accurate to the smallest detail.

Ancient Tyre consisted of two parts. The first office of the urban center was on the mainland and the second part was on an isle just under a kilometre from the shoreline. The island city of Tyre was blessed with non one but two divide harbours which faced opposite sides of the island. The due north harbour (too called the "Sidonian Harbour") which is nonetheless in operation today was one of the best natural harbours on the eastern side of the Mediterranean Body of water. Having two fantabulous sheltered harbours gave the urban center great advantages and enabled Tyre to become a major destination for merchant ships hoping to trade and practice commerce with the people of the eastern Mediterranean. Tyre became very wealthy and the island portion of the city over time became heavily fortified. The city on the mainland was the secondary function of the city and principally served to supply the isle with water and supplies. I might call up of the mainland portion of the city as existence the "suburbs" while the isle was the domicile of the wealthy and those of noble nascency. The island besides served every bit the city's religious centre and the chief location for trade and commerce.

The Wealth Of Tyre

At first, the urban center/country of Tyre enjoyed good relations with Israel and Judah although the relationship was commercial and not based on whatsoever religious or cultural sympathy. When King Solomon congenital the first temple in Jerusalem, Male monarch Hiram of Tyre famously supplied cedar from the forests of Lebanon likewise as other materials and fifty-fifty skilled workmen. For this, Hiram was well paid. (one Kings 5)

One export that contributed to the great wealth of Tyre was imperial wear dye, which came to be known equally Tyrian purple. This was the most precious dye of its time, in large part because of the great amount of labour required to produce even small amounts. First, Murex shellfish from the Mediterranean Sea were captured in traps in large numbers. Information technology took an incredible amount of these shellfish to produce a single gram of dye. For example, as many as 12,000 shellfish were used to produce the dye for a single garment. For this reason, owning garments dyed imperial was prohibitively expensive for most people. In time. purple came to be a colour associated with royalty.

The people of Tyre along with the people of its neighbouring metropolis of Sidon are mostly called, "Phoenician".  The master cities of the Phoenicians were originally Byblos, Sidon and Tyre only they established colonies all along the due north-African coast and as far due west every bit Portugal and Spain. The cities of Byblos, Sidon and Tyre are located inside the territory of modernistic Syria and Lebanon. A Phoenician colony in Due north Africa called Carthage afterward became a major city and a violent competitor with the democracy of Rome. The Phoenician cities were organised as city-states and at that place does not seem to accept been a centralised Phoenician government.  The Phoenicians were a seafaring people and their merchants-ships ventured all over the Mediterranean Bounding main making their cities very wealthy.

The seafaring Phoenicians originally built cities forth the eastern Mediterranean coast. They later established colonies in North Africa and as far west as Spain.

The Religion Of Tyre

Culturally, the Phoenicians were Canaanites and spoke a variation of the Canaanite language and worshipped variations of the same gods as the Canaanite people in Israel. The fertility god normally referred to as "Baal" in the Bible was ordinarily worshipped in Phoenicia along with its attendant practices of ritualized prostitution, sex worship and baby sacrifice. The particular Baal deity worshipped in Tyre was named Melkart (or Melqart). The Greeks saw Melkart as a variation of their ain demigod Heracles (or Hercules to the Romans). This connection to the Greek divine hero of myth would play a part in the metropolis's downfall.

The Tyrian Baal worship of Melkart seems to have been introduced into the 10 tribe kingdom of Israel during the reign of King Ahab. Ahab unwisely made a marriage alliance for the daughter of the Phoenician king of Sidon named in the Bible, "Ethbaal" (pregnant "With Baal"). Ethbaal'south daughter of course, was the infamous Jezebel, an aggressive promoter of the worship of Melkart and a vicious opponent to the worship of the God of Israel.

Afterward this point in history the once good relations enjoyed by Tyre and the people of Judah and Israel soured.  The prophet Joel accused the people of Tyre and Sidon of selling the people of Judah into slavery to the Greeks:

"And the people of Judah and Jerusalem you have sold to the Greeks, In social club to remove them far from their territory" (Joel 3:half dozen)

Ezekiel Prophecies Confronting Tyre

The people of Tyre became overly confident in their natural island defenses and overly proud of the wealth and dazzler of their metropolis. They developed a feeling of jealousy and rivalry toward Jerusalem and exulted over the misfortunes she faced and hoped to exploit them for commercial opportunity. For these reasons the prophet Ezekiel was inspired to prophecy against her:

"Son of man, considering Tyre has said against Jerusalem, 'Aha! The gateway of the peoples has been cleaved! Everything will come my manner, and I will become rich now that she is devastated'; therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord Jehovah says: 'Here I am confronting you, O Tyre, and I volition bring up many nations against yous, merely as the ocean brings up its waves. They will destroy the walls of Tyre and tear down her towers, and I volition scrape away soil and make her a shining, blank rock. She will go a drying yard for dragnets in the midst of the bounding main.' (Ezekiel 26: 2-v)

Notice this prophecy makes certain predictions:

• There would exist "many nations" against Tyre (Ezekiel 26: iii)
• Her walls and towers would be torn down (Ezekiel 26: iv)
• Her soil would be scraped away and she would become a shining bare rock (Ezekiel 26: 4)
• Fishermen would employ the area for drying nets (Ezekiel 26: 5)

A closer examination of the rest of Ezekiel affiliate 26 reveals more details:

• Settlements in the countryside would be slaughtered (Ezekiel 26: 6)
• King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon would come against Tyre (Ezekiel 26: vii)
• He would lay siege and tear down Tyre'southward walls and houses (Ezekiel 26: 12)
• Tyre's stones, woodwork and soil would be thrown in the h2o (Ezekiel 26: 12)

Nebuchadnezzar's  Siege of Tyre

Nebuchadnezzar's siege of Tyre began non long later Ezekiel's words confronting the city. According to the first century Jewish historian Josephus, Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to Tyre for an incredible 13 years:

"I will now add the records of the Phoenicians; for information technology will non be superfluous to give the reader demonstrations more than enough on this occasion. In them we accept this enumeration of the times of their several kings: "Nabuchodonosor besieged Tyre for thirteen years in the days of Ithobal, their rex; after him reigned Baal, 10 years;" (Against Apion, 1.21)

Josephus besides quotes an business relationship that has non survived til our day by a historian named Philostratus (who lived circa 170 to 250 B.C) who in his accounts said of Nebuchadnezzar: "this King besieged Tyre 13 years: while at the aforementioned fourth dimension Ethbaal reigned at Tyre." Unfortunately, this is as much as the ancient records have to say regarding Nebuchadnezzar'due south siege. Still betwixt Ezekiel, Josephus and certain archaeological records, some conclusions may be drawn. That the siege would be long, Ezekiel adds:

"Son of homo, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon fabricated his ground forces labor greatly against Tyre. Every head became bald, and every shoulder was rubbed bare. But he and his army received no wages for the labor he expended on Tyre. Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord Jehovah says, 'Here I am giving the land of Arab republic of egypt to Male monarch Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, and he volition carry off its wealth and accept much spoil and plunder from it; and it volition become wages for his regular army. Equally compensation for his labor against her, I will give him the state of Egypt considering they acted for me,' declares the Sovereign Lord Jehovah." (Ezekiel 29: 18-20)

During the protracted, multi-year siege, Babylonian soldiers heads became blank from the chafing of their helmets, their shoulders rubbed raw from wearing armour and labouring long in the siege. Evidently, the mainland portion of the metropolis fell to the Babylonians along with associated settlements in the surrounding area. The walls and towers of the mainland metropolis were levelled forth with the homes within. The neighbouring settlements were razed to the ground and their inhabitants cruelly slaughtered. Still lacking a meaning navy, Babylon was incapable of taking the fortified isle city. And then Nebuchadnezzar choose to lay siege to the isle, cutting it off from provisions from the mainland and to the extent they could, cutting it off from resupply past ocean. In this mode they hoped to starve the urban center into submission. A lengthy siege of this blazon would have cost the Babylonians dearly, which is likewise implied by Ezekiel who said that the army would receive "no wages for the labor he expended on Tyre." (Ezekiel 29:18) As compensation, Nebuchadnezzar is promised the wealth of the land of Egypt.

Although the historical tape of both the Babylonian siege of Tyre and the subsequent invasion of Egypt is express, archeological evidence does back up the Bible record. A broken cuneiform tablet first published in 1926 by High german archeologist  Eckhard Unger refers to provisions of nutrient for "the king and his soldiers for their march against Tyre". Other cuneiform tablets show that at some point Tyre was in the hands of the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar. Finally, a cuneiform tablet at the British Museum shows that Nebuchadnezzar did indeed successfully engage the Egyptian forces.

Nebuchadnezzar did not take the island urban center by force. It seems likely that the city negotiated a give up after thirteen years of siege. Either King Ithobal of Tyre died during the siege or he was surrendered to the Babylonians to be replaced by his son Baal who would get a Babylonian puppet-ruler. The subsequently theory is supported by an ancient list of foreign kings residing in Babylon who like Judean Male monarch Jehoiachin were prisoners dependent on the Babylonian monarch for their lives. At the top of this listing is an unnamed king of Tyre.

Yet the prophecy apropos Tyre at this point could but be said to be partly fulfilled. Nebuchadnezzar had taken the mainland city, but the isle city had non been destroyed allow solitary "thrown in the water". The fulfilment of this part of the prophecy would wait over 250 years for the rise of Alexander the Bang-up. Remember, Ezekiel had said that Tyre would be plundered past "many nations". (Ezekiel 26: three)

After the fall of Babylon, the Achaemenid dynasty, ruled over what the Bible calls the empire of "the Medes and the Persians" (Daniel 5:28). This Western farsi empire ruled for two centuries over the former holdings of Babylonia including Tyre until they were taken abroad by a fierce immature king from Macedonia. By the time of his decease before long earlier reaching the age of 33, Alexander the Great controlled an empire that stretched from Greece, downwards south to Arab republic of egypt and as far east equally Bharat. He was never defeated in battle and may have connected his conquests had he not suddenly died in Babylon nether circumstances that are controversial withal. Many ancient historians thought he had been poisoned although many (but non all) mod historians believe he died of natural causes such as malaria or typhoid fever.

Soon later succeeding his male parent, Alexander turned his eyes east toward the ancient rivals of Greece and adamant to conquer Persia. First his army marched south, towards Egypt. Alexander had already bested two massive Persian armies before coming to Phoenicia. The king of the Persians, Darius 3 had eluded capture and fled to the eastern role of his empire, gratis to fight another day. Alexander's army connected s where the Phoenician cities of Byblos and Sidon capitulated without a fight. Now only Tyre, the grandest and richest metropolis of the Phoenicians remained outside Alexander's command.

Tyre Denies Alexander'southward Asking

Hoping to avoid bloodshed, the king of Tyre sent envoys bearing gifts to come across with Alexander. They greeted Alexander most courteously and while non formally submitting to him, requested a formal alliance. Alexander countered with a request of his own that made the Tyrians immediately suspicious.  Inside the heavily fortified island city there was an old and famous temple to the chief god of Tyre, Melkart (or Melqart).  The Greeks identified this god with their famous mythic hero Hercacles (Hercules). Similar many ancient kings, Alexander claimed descent from the gods. Specifically, Alexander claimed descent from Heracles. On statues and images created of Alexander he is depicted wearing or carrying items associated with Heracles. On his coins he is depicted as a youthful and powerful Heracles. In modern terms you could say that Heracles was Alexander'due south "brand".

The Tyrians politely declined Alexander'south request to offering cede in their city. The asking came during their major annual religious festival to Melkart and they may have felt that to allow Alexander to cede there and at that time would accept meant that they acknowledged his sovereignty over the city. Perhaps they suspected (correctly) that having invited Alexander and his forces in the front door the Greeks might never leave. Or they may have wanted not to selection a side between the Greeks and the Persians before the war was decided. In any case, they proposed that rather than making his sacrifice in the temple of the island urban center of Tyre, Alexander make his sacrifices in a temple in "One-time Tyre", the city on the mainland that Nebuchadnezzar had destroyed. Alexander was furious and immediately threatened to lay siege maxim, "You indeed, relying on your situation, because you alive on an isle, despise this army of human foot-soldiers, merely I will soon show you that you are on the mainland. Therefore I want you to know that I volition either enter your city or besiege it."

The Tyrians connected to pass up Alexander. Further envoys from Alexander were murdered. He was right in his cess of them, the Tyrians were over-confident in their natural isle defences and in their own military forces. They may take too thought that if Alexander could exist forced into undertaking a hard and protracted siege, that Darius Iii of Persia would have time to gear up and come up to their rescue. Another theory is that the people of Tyre may accept hoped for assist from their greatest colony, Carthage.

Unlike Nebuchadnezzar two centuries earlier, Alexander was not content to merely look and starve the Tyrians into submission. Nebuchadnezzar did not have the imagination to do what Alexander would practice next. Alexander had empires to conquer and the island of Tyre was in his way. Delay was intolerable! Further, if he allow Tyre lonely, the Persians could safely harbor their fleet there and Alexander would continue to have an enemy at his back as he ventured e. Though the sea barred his path Alexander was able to run across past this obstacle. True to his word, he would plow the island of Tyre into mainland.

Alexander Builds A Causeway

Demolishing the ruins of mainland Tyre ("Old Tyre"), Alexander had the stones thrown into the sea at the point where the altitude betwixt the mainland and the island of Tyre was the shortest. His forces began to build a massive causeway (also called a "mole") to the island. Alexander'south soldiers became engineers and construction workers. Their material was timber from the famous cedar forests of Lebanon and the arable stone and fifty-fifty soil from the old city of Tyre that had lain in ruins since its destruction past Nebuchadnezzar over two centuries before.

As the water deepened, the progress of the causeway began to irksome. At this point, the efforts of Alexander's men invited but mockery from the Tyrians. The men of Tyre would approach the workers in boats so that they would be close enough to be heard merely far plenty away to avert danger. They would shout scorn and reproach at Alexander'southward men. "Was this piece of work for proud soldiers? Did you lot imagine when you enlisted that you lot would exist carrying baskets of rock and dirt on your backs? Do you imagine that Alexander is greater than the god of the sea?"

Labor on the causeway continued and presently included tens of thousands of men drafted into service from neighbouring cities and towns. Only now did the men of Tyre begin to awake to the danger.

As the causeway progressed, it came within range of the archers on the walls of Tyre. Although ancient accounts of their elevation may exaggerated, there is no dubiousness that the walls of the isle fortress were unusually high and formidable. Arrows and other projectiles hurled down on the Alexander's workers killing and wounding and making further progress all but impossible. Alexander countered past building 2 of the tallest siege towers in ancient history and then had them moved to the end of causeway. These wooden towers were covered in rawhide to protect the frame from burning arrows. These towers sheltered Alexander'southward workers from enemy fire and allowed them to continue working. Further, the towers also served equally artillery platforms. Catapults and archers at the top of the siege towers were able to return burn at the soldiers on the walls of Tyre.

This prompted the Tyrians to devise a very clever counter-attack. Taking an erstwhile transport ship, they filled it to the gunwales with highly combustible materials. They hung cauldrons of oil from the masts and then 2 galley ships towed the fireship to the end of the causeway and ran her aground. Tyrian soldiers quickly set up the vessel aflame and the inferno spread to Alexander'southward siege towers and other siege equipment. Tyrian soldiers in boats landed on the causeway to kill or drive back those of Alexander's soldiers and workers that would try to douse the flames. The gambit was a complete success. The towers were destroyed and work on the causeway came to a halt.

The setback was brusk-lived. Alexander would not let the same strategy piece of work twice. He realised he would demand a navy. Fortunately the other cities of Phoenicia which had surrendered to him largely without a fight possessed fighting ships. Farther, the king of Cyprus wished to be allied to Alexander and sent 120 of his fighting ships. Another 23 fighting ships came from the Greek city-state of Ionia. In total, Alexander at present had a navy of 223 ships which was more than Tyre possessed and more enough to blockade the island city. Finding themselves outnumbered, Tyrian ships could be independent in Tyre's 2 harbours where the all-time they could now do was guard against entrance into the city. The blockade was complete, the Tyrians were now cooped upward inside their urban center, unable to harass Alexander's men or resupply the city from the sea.

Work resumed on the causeway. Alexander ordered that information technology be widened further and the siege towers rebuilt. As the causeway was being completed, his new navy tested the urban center's defences at various points and attacked the entrances to the harbours. May ships were sunk at the mouths of the harbour only the defenders were able to go on Alexander's ships at bay. Some of Alexander's ships were mounted with battering rams and they tested the urban center walls in a number of locations. Other ships were strapped together then they could support a siege tower tall enough to reach the summit of the city walls. Finally, one of the battering ram equipped ships succeeded in punching a small breach through the walls.

The Fall Of Tyre

To dissever the Tyrian'due south attention, the Greek forces launched a number of diversionary attacks on various points of the islands walls and the navy bombarded the urban center from all sides with projectiles. With Tyre'due south forces fighting on all sides, two ships approached the breached wall. From a alpine siege tower, Alexander personally led some of his elite soldiers onto the walls of Tyre and they forced their fashion into the city. The thoroughly demoralised defenders of Tyre were now in a panic and Alexanders forces were at present able to punch through other areas of the metropolis including through its harbours. The fighting within the city was tearing but relatively short-lived.

Some citizens of Tyre sought shelter in the Temple of Melkart (Melqart), where Alexander had wanted to sacrifice to Heracles (Hercules). The city became a slaughterhouse. 6,000 of the Tyrian defenders died in battle while reportedly, only 400 of Alexander'due south men died in the last fight for Tyre. Even if those numbers are exaggerated the disparity was surely great. 30,000 of the citizens of Tyre were afterwards sold into slavery while 2,000 soldiers who had survived the downfall were forced onto the beaches of Tyre and hung or nailed by the easily onto trees, posts and rudimentary frames until they were dead. The Roman empire would afterwards famously employ this grade of slow public execution chosen in Latin, "crucifixion".

Ancient historians relate that 15,000 Tyrians were secretly saved from the victor'due south cruelty. Since Alexander had pressed into service the soldiers and sailors of subjugated  Phoenicians cities, many of his forces were related to the people of Tyre past blood and culture. Some of these troops quietly provided their kinsmen protection and secreted them onto their ships where they were smuggled away from danger.

In the end, Alexander did make sacrifices to Hercules at the Temple of Melkart. Interestingly, in spite of the great slaughter that he ordered, those who had sought shelter in the temple were spared. Hither to, he probably sought to show his reverence for a temple that he associated with the worship of Heracles.

Tyre In Later Centuries

Tyre was razed to the ground. It was standard practice for a victorious ground forces to reduce the walls of a conquered city to rubble, lest the city be refortified and again used confronting them. This was the case with Tyre. Stripped of its impressive defences and denuded of its citizens, proud Tyre, no longer even an isle was for a time, only fit for fishermen to dry their nets on the bare rock.

The city would eventually be rebuilt, although never again would it savour its old political importance. However, nether the Romans the city would go an of import commercial centre. The worship of Melkart did not disappear quickly. His prototype , continued to be presented on Tyrian coinage. It is a strange fact that during the lifetime of Jesus, the Tyrian Shekel (besides called a Tetradrachma), was the only acceptable coin that could be used to pay the temple tax in Jerusalem. The money changers that Jesus collection out of the temple were changing Roman currency into Tyrian shekels. The 30 pieces of silverish that the arch-traitor Judas was bought with (Matthew 26: xiv,15) were about certainly Tyrian shekels and bore the face up of the Baal of Tyre.

Many of the Phoenician's who escaped the fall of Tyre eventually made their fashion to Carthage in North Africa. With Tyre destroyed, Carthage became the most of import Phoenician city and would for a time under her famous general Hannibal, even rival Rome for say-so of the Mediterranean.

During the ministry of Jesus, crowds of people from Tyre and Sidon would travel to hear Jesus speak. On one occasion, Jesus personally visited the region around Tyre, on which occasion he cured the demon-possessed child of a Phoenician adult female who was suffering greatly. Jesus visit to the region evidently diameter fruit, because just over twenty years later toward the conclusion of the Apostle Paul's tertiary missionary trip, he sought out and stayed with the Christian community in Tyre for seven days.

In the 7th century Advertizement, Tyre and what is now Lebanon and Syria fell to Muslim Arab invaders. In 1124, European Crusaders won Tyre for Christendom in the First Crusade. In 1291, Muslim forces drove out the Crusaders and for the adjacent many centuries, what remained of Tyre lay in ruins, inhabited past almost no one. In 1697, an English academic and clergyman named Henry Maundrell passed through Tyre on his mode to Jerusalem. He reported in Tyre only "a few poor wretches, harboring themselves in vaults and subsisting chiefly on fishing." This immediately brings to mind Ezekiel'southward statement that Tyre, "…will become a drying yard for dragnets in the midst of the sea." (Ezekiel 26:v)

By the end of the 19th century, a population was over again offset to form in what had once been Tyre. These were no longer Phoenician people, whose civilisation, organized religion and linguistic communication has been lost to history. Rather the new urban center is peopled by descendants of the Arabs who first settled in the land after the decease of Muhammad. Sadly, war continues to visit the region. Notably, the Lebanese Civil War which raged from the mid-1970'due south until 1990 brought much suffering to the region. During the third stage of the war the city was heavily shelled by Israeli arms in 1982. Most recently, armed services in the metropolis belonging to the Shia Muslim "Hezbollah" militia were bombed past Israel during the 2006 Lebanese republic State of war.

Aerial photo of Tyre circa 1934. Centuries of sedimentation has turned Alexander's causeway into a peninsula 500 meters wide.

Today, visitors who await for ruins from Phoenician Tyre will be disappointed for nothing at all remains from that time flow. Everything from that era was removed and thrown into the sea to build Alexander's causeway, leaving only "shining, blank rock" (Ezekiel 26:4). Impressive ruins from Roman period do exist and UNESCO has declared the area a World Heritage Site. Alexander'due south causeway permanently altered the ocean currents and many long centuries of sedimentation has turned the causeway into a sandy peninsula approximately 500 meters wide. In recent decades the area has been heavily built over. The area of the causeway at present contains hundreds of flat blocks and Lebanese Tyre has a population roughly estimated in 1993 to be 117,000 (although the real number is probably much higher). Tyre's southern harbour gradually filled with silt and has long since disappeared but the northern, "Sidonian" harbour is nevertheless used and is filled with fishing boats and pleasure craft. Recent years accept seen a marked increase in tourism and it is hoped that the newborn urban center'south white sandy beaches and rich historical heritage volition make modern Tyre a tourist hotspot.

Photo Credits:

Aeriform photo of Tyre, circa 1934. {PD} Source: Wikimedia Commons

Phoenicia map past author. Created on StepMap.

Siege of Tyre. Created by Frank Martini of the Department of History, United States Armed forces University. {PD} Source: Wikimedia Commons

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