Tyre, in Lebanon, is one of the oldest cities in the world, having been continuously inhabited for over 4,700 years. Situated in the Levant on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, Tyre became the leading city of the Phoenician civilization in 969 BC with the reign of the Tyrian king Hiram I. Tyre and Phoenicia are also credited with numerous innovations in shipbuilding, navigation, industry, agriculture, and government. Tyre's international trade network was based on its two ports and is believed to have fostered the economic, political, and cultural foundations of Classical Western civilization.
During the early Middle Ages, the city experienced a long period of decline. Its population suffered during the 6th century from the political chaos that ensued when the Eastern Roman empire was torn apart by wars. The decline was compounded by numerous earthquakes that destroyed the city. Tyre then enjoyed a period of prosperity under the Muslims and then the crusaders. In 1291 AD the Mamluks seized the city from the Crusaders. The resulting mass depopulation event started a period of decline for the city that lasted until roughly 1750 AD. Local ruler sheikh Nasif al-Nassar initiated a number of construction projects, which drove a short-lived revival of the city. The city experienced another boom in the 19th century with the start of several new commercial and building projects. Numerous wars in the region beset the city until the independence of the French Mandate of Lebanon in 1943.
Founding millennium (2750–1700 BC)
The Roman historian Justin wrote that the original founders arrived from the nearby Northern city of Sidon in the quest to establish a new harbour. Doric Greek historian Herodotus visited Tyre around 450 BC at the end of the Greco-Persian Wars (499–449 BC), and wrote in his Histories that according to the priests there, the city was founded around 2750 BC, as a walled place upon the mainland, now known as Paleotyre (Old Tyre). Archaeological evidence has corroborated this timing. Excavations have also found that there had already been some settlements around 2900 BC, but that they were abandoned.
The Greek historian Eusebius recorded the common myth that the deity Melqart built the city as a favour to the mermaid Tyros and named it after her. However, there are two other main founding legends. According to the first one, there were two brothers in primeval times – Usoos and Shamenrum – living on the seashore who separated after a fight. Usoos took a tree trunk and was the first to sail in it on the sea. He landed on an island and consecrated two columns there, one to fire and the other to the wind, thus founding Tyre which was called Ushu in Egypt and Mesopotomia. The second legend explains why Astarte as the goddess of fertility was worshipped in Tyre as well:
Originally the island was not attached to the sea floor, but rose and fell with the waves. An Olive tree of the goddess Ashtart rose there, protected by a curtain of Flames. A snake was wrapped around its trunk and an eagle was perched in it. It was predicted that the island would cease floating when the bird was sacrificed to the gods. The god Melqart taught people how to build boats, then sailed to the island. The eagle offered itself, and Sur became attached to the sea floor. Since then, the gods have never stopped living there...
The first known textual reference to Tyre comes from a curse text dated to the 19th century BC. In general, the first half of the second millennium BC in the Eastern Mediterranean was "a time of peaceful trade and Tyre probably shared in the commercial activity."
Egyptian period (1700–1200 BC)
In the 17th century BC, the settlement came under the supremacy of the Egyptian pharaohs. In the subsequent years it started benefitting from the protection by Egypt's Eighteenth Dynasty and prospered commercially. Archaeological evidence indicates that Tyre had already by the middle of the second millennium BCE established the industrial production of a rare and extraordinarily expensive purple dye, known as Tyrian Purple, which was famous for its beauty and lightfast qualities. It was exploited from the Murex trunculus and Murex brandaris shellfishes. According to mythology, deity Melqart was walking on the beach with the nymph Tyros, whom he courted, when his dog bit a mollusc and the sea snail's blood stained its mouth purple. Tyros desired from Melqart a dyed dress of the same colour and thus the manufacture was born.
The colour was, in ancient cultures, reserved for the use of royalty or at least the nobility.Bariaa Mourad. Du Patrimoine à la Muséologie : Conception d'un musée sur le site archéologique de Tyr (Thesis); Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle (MNHN), Study realised in cooperation with the UNESCO, Secteur de la Culture, Division du Patrimoine Culturel, Paris, 1998 Experts have calculated that some 8,000 Murex had to be crushed to extract one gram of the dye, which may have cost the equivalent of about twenty grams of gold. However, the ancient author Strabo, who visited Tyre himself, recorded that the dye industry polluted the air so much that its stench made his stay in the city very unpleasant.
The first clear accounts of the city are given by the ten Amarna letters dated 1350 BC from the Prince of Tyre, Abimilku, written to Akenaten. The subject is often water, wood, and the Habiru overtaking the countryside of the mainland and how that affected the island-city. Eventually, Egyptian forces defeated a Hittite army that besieged Tyre.
While the city was originally called Melqart after the city-god, the name Tyre appears on monuments as early as 1300 BC. Philo of Byblos (in Eusebius) quotes the antiquarian authority Sanchuniathon as stating that it was first occupied by Hypsuranius. Sanchuniathon's work is said to be dedicated to "Abibalus king of Berytus" – possibly the Abibaal,Vance, Donald R. (March 1994) "Literary Sources for the History of Palestine and Syria: The Phœnician Inscriptions" The Biblical Archaeologist 57(1), pp. 2–19 who became the Phoenician king of Tyre towards the end of the 2nd-millennium BC.
According to some sources, Tyrians said sailors ventured to the British Isles and purchased tin there to produce bronze for arms and artefacts as early as in the 13th century BC.
In the 12th century BC, Egypt's pharaohs gradually lost political control over the Levant, though Egyptian art continued to influence Tyrian art for more than half a millennium.
Independent Phoenician period (1200–868 BC)
During the 11th century BC the collection of maritime merchant-republic city-states constituting Phoenicia began a commercial expansion. Especially Tyre and Sidon benefited from the elimination of the former trade centers in Ugarit and Alalakh. Hence, Phoenicia came to be characterized by outsiders and the Phoenicians as Sidonia or Tyria. Phoenicians and other Canaanites alike were called Sidonians or Tyrians. Yet, such was Tyre's maritime dominance that the Mediterranean Sea became known as the Tyrian Sea.
There is very little archaeological data from Tyre during this period of Iron Age II and thus it is not known how it imposed its hegemony on others. However, it is widely assumed that it relied on trade as well as cultural exchange, rather than on military conquest. Most prominently, Tyre has been credited for spreading its alphabet and a vigesimal numerical system.
A decisive factor in this global rise were apparently the extraordinary skills by Tyrian scholars in astronomy to navigate their ships. As the space on the island city was limited, the inhabitants constructed multi-storey buildings. They thus acquired a reputation for being great masons and engineers, also in metalworks and especially in shipbuilding.
Written tradition has largely credited one individual with the strong growth of Tyre's prosperity from the 10th century BC onwards: Hiram I, who succeeded his father Abibaal in 969 BC. More than a millennium later, Flavius Josephus recorded the legend that Hiram expanded the urban territory by projects connecting two islands or Reefs to form a single island on which he had temples erected for Melqart, Astarte, and Ba'al Shamem.
Hiram I of Tyre established Tyre's naval supremacy, monopolizing sea transport and exerting control over the Phoenician coastline, including rival cities like Byblos and Sidon. Hiram evidently forged close relations with the Hebrew kings David and Solomon. Reportedly, he sent cedar wood and skilled workers for the construction of the Temple in Jerusalem. In exchange, Israel provided Tyre with silver, agricultural goods, and access to trade routes in Syria, Mesopotamia, and Arabia's interior. As per biblical accounts, Hiram and Solomon jointly planned a Red Sea commercial venture. Phoenician-manned ships were scheduled to annually sail from Ezion-Geber near Elath to Ophir on the Red Sea coast—possibly present-day Sudan or Somalia—to acquire gold, silver, ivory, and precious stones. Imports from Cyprus played an important part in this period.
Furthermore, Hiram's regional cooperation as well as his fight against Philistine pirates helped to develop trade with Arabia, and North and East Africa. Commerce from throughout the ancient world was gathered into the warehouses of Tyre, as its fortifications offered protection for valuable goods in storage or transit. And Tyrians not only settled in Memphis, south of the temple of Hephaestus in a district called the Tyrian Camp. They also founded colonies on the coasts and neighbouring islands of the Aegean Sea, in Greece, on the northern coast of Africa, at Carthage and other places, in Sicily and Corsica, in Spain at Tartessus and even beyond the pillars of Hercules at Gadeira (Cádiz).From "Tyre" in Easton's Bible Dictionary However, after Hiram's reign of 34 years, several Tyrian kings were killed in succession fights:
Neo-Assyrian period (868–612 BC)
In the course of the 9th century BC, the city remained close to the Israelites, as evident through the marriage of Jezebel from a royal Tyrian family with Ahab, King of Israel.
However, Tyre started paying tribute to the Neo-Assyrians who gradually established sovereignty over Phoenicia. It seems though that Tyre only made a nominal subjection and kept a large degree of independence while benefiting in its commerce from the stability of strong regional power. Thus, Tyre itself remained one of the more powerful cities in the Eastern Mediterranean. One of its kings, the priest Ithobaal I (887–856 BC), ruled as far north as Beirut, and part of Cyprus.
According to the myth, the Northern African city of Carthage (Qart-Hadašt = "New City") was founded in 814 BC by Tyre's Princess Elissa, commonly known as Dido, who escaped after a power struggle with her brother Pygmalion with a fleet of ships. Legend has it that she purchased a large piece of land from the local Numid ruler, who granted her the size of land that an oxhide could cover, by having it cut into thin threads. The ancient historians Josephus and Justin give elaborate accounts that a political conflict between the king and the priestly class was at the core of the break-up.
In the course of the 8th century BC, the Assyrian kings attempted to increase their sovereignty over Tyre. Tiglath-Pileser III (744–727 BC) demanded tribute from Hiram II and tried to prohibit trade between Tyre and settlements to the South. His successor Shalmaneser V besieged the city with support from Phoenicians of the mainland from around 725 to 720 BC, but was not able to take it. Cyprus – on the other hand – liberated itself from Tyrian domination in 709 BC.