Ahiram's sarcophagus
Early Phoenician script.
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Lebanon's main archaeology museum, officially opened in 1942 in an Egyptian Revival building. Its collections number about 100,000 objects, some 1,800 of them on display, running from prehistory to the Mamluk period. The star piece is the sarcophagus of Ahiram, king of Byblos, carved with one of the oldest known texts in the Phoenician alphabet. Around it stand Roman statues and sarcophagi, colourful mosaics, jewellery and the small gilded bronze figurines from the Obelisk Temple at Byblos. The museum spent long years closed in the late twentieth century, when its staff saved the collection by hiding small pieces in the basement and encasing the large statues and sarcophagi in wood and concrete. It reopened after an extensive restoration. A visit takes about an hour and a half. It usually opens Tuesday to Sunday from morning to early afternoon and closes on Mondays; it stands at the Museum crossroads on Damascus Road, a short ride from downtown Beirut.
Early Phoenician script.
Small and gilded.
Full of colour.
Museum crossroads, Damascus Road, Beirut
The sarcophagus of Ahiram, king of Byblos, whose inscription is one of the oldest known texts in the Phoenician alphabet, ancestor of many later alphabets.
