The Sands of Beirut were a series of archaeological sites located on the coastline south of

Beirut Beirut, french: Beyrouth is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint o ...

Lebanon Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to the north and east and Israel to the south, while Cyprus li ...

Description

The Sands were a complex of nearly 20 prehistoric sites that were destroyed due to building operations using the soft

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...

in constructing the city of

and

Beirut Airport Beirut, french: Beyrouth is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint o ...

. The large number of open air sites provided a wealth of flint relics from various periods including

Natufian The Natufian culture () is a Late Epipaleolithic archaeological culture of the Levant, dating to around 15,000 to 11,500 years ago. The culture was unusual in that it supported a sedentary or semi-sedentary population even before the introduction ...

remains, unstratified but suggested to date between c. 10000 BC to c 8000 BC. Finds included sickles used for harvesting wild cereals as just prior to the agricultural revolution. The transition into the neolithic is well documented with

Khiamian The Khiamian culture is a Neolithic archaeological culture of Southwest Asia, dating to the earliest part of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA), around 9,700 to 8,600 BC. It is primarily characterised by a distinctive type of stone arrowhead—t ...

sites also being represented in the Sands. Evidence of pre-Natufian

Kebaran The Kebaran culture, also known as the Early Epipalaeolithic Near East, Near East Epipalaeolithic, was an archaeological culture in the Eastern Mediterranean area (c. 23,000 to 15,000 BP), named after its type site, Kebara Cave south of Haifa. The ...

occupation was also found. The materials recovered are now held by the

Museum of Lebanese Prehistory The Museum of Lebanese Prehistory (french: Musée de Préhistoire Libanaise, ar, متحف ما قبل التاريخ اللبناني) is a museum of prehistory and archaeology in Beirut, Lebanon. History The museum is the first museum of prehist ...

part of the

Saint Joseph University Saint Joseph University of Beirut ( French: ''Université Saint-Joseph de Beyrouth'', abbreviated to and commonly known as "USJ") is a private Catholic research university located in Beirut, Lebanon, which was founded in 1875 by French Jesuit mis ...

. It is one of the few sites showing signs of real village occupation in the late

pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...

. The first flints were found by J. Chester and further studies by J.W. Dawson were published in 1874. This was followed by extensive research by Father G. Zumoffen who published in 1893.

Henri Fleisch Reverend Father Henri Fleisch (1 January 1904 – 10 February 1985) was a French archaeologist, missionary and Orientalist, known for his work on classical Arabic language and Lebanese dialect and prehistory in Lebanon. Fleisch spent years rec ...

also catalogued and recovered materials from the sites in the 1960s, the destruction of the Sands of Beirut was recently exhibited through Father Fleisch's photography in June 2010 at the

.Sfeir, Mia., Femme Magazine - Préhistoire VS Urbanisation, le témoignage d’Henri Fleisch - Issue 206 - P.70 Published June 1, 2010
Sands of Beirut archaeological sites included:

Bir Hassan

This site was located at the top of the Bir Hassan dune at approximately fifty five meters above sea level extending down the slopes towards Ouza'i. Thousands of

flint Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Flint was widely used historically to make stone tools and start fir ...

tools were collected from the site from various periods. It was first published as

Lower Paleolithic The Lower Paleolithic (or Lower Palaeolithic) is the earliest subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. It spans the time from around 3 million years ago when the first evidence for stone tool production and use by hominins appears in ...

and

Middle Paleolithic The Middle Paleolithic (or Middle Palaeolithic) is the second subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age as it is understood in Europe, Africa and Asia. The term Middle Stone Age is used as an equivalent or a synonym for the Middle Paleoli ...

Auguste Bergy Reverend Father Auguste Bergy (12 May 1873 – 31 August 1955) was a French Jesuit archaeologist known for his work on prehistory in Lebanon. He is known particularly for excavations and studies at the Sands of Beirut and at Ras Beirut. In 193 ...

in 1932 and as Middle and

Upper Paleolithic The Upper Paleolithic (or Upper Palaeolithic) is the third and last subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. Very broadly, it dates to between 50,000 and 12,000 years ago (the beginning of the Holocene), according to some theories coin ...

by Henri Fleisch in 1965. Some of the material was found at a depth of three and a half meters below the sands. A trace of

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...

was found along with three

Emireh points Emiran culture was a culture that existed in the Levant (Lebanon, Palestine , Syria, Jordan, Israel , and Arabia between the Middle Paleolithic and the Upper Paleolithic periods. It is the oldest known of the Upper Paleolithic cultures and r ...

and a series of styled picks that were given their name from this site, known as

Bir Hassan pick The Sands of Beirut were a series of archaeological sites located on the coastline south of Beirut in Lebanon. Description The Sands were a complex of nearly 20 prehistoric sites that were destroyed due to building operations using the soft sand ...

s.Fleisch, Henri., Depôts préhistoriques de la Côte libanaise et leur place dans la chronologie basée sur le Quaternaire Marin, Quaternaria, Volume 3, p. 111, note 12 and p. 116, note 17, 1956.

Borj Barajne

Also called Tell aux Crochets, Tell Mouterde or Cote 52, it is now built over by a refugee village. Finds from this site were recovered by Jesuits and included flint arrowheads and geometric

Mesolithic The Mesolithic (Greek: μέσος, ''mesos'' 'middle' + λίθος, ''lithos'' 'stone') or Middle Stone Age is the Old World archaeological period between the Upper Paleolithic and the Neolithic. The term Epipaleolithic is often used synonymous ...

tools. It was first discovered by Father René Mouterde and material was published by

Godefroy Zumoffen Reverend Father Godefroy Zumoffen (1848 in France – 1928) was a French Jesuit archaeologist and geologist notable for his work on prehistory in Lebanon. He is known particularly for pioneering Lebanese archaeology, and for discovering severa ...

in 1910, Auguste Bergy in 1932 and Henri Fleisch in 1956 and 1965.

Microlith A microlith is a small Rock (geology), stone tool usually made of flint or chert and typically a centimetre or so in length and half a centimetre wide. They were made by humans from around 35,000 to 3,000 years ago, across Europe, Africa, Asia an ...

s were found along with trapezoid and crescent

arrowhead An arrowhead or point is the usually sharpened and hardened tip of an arrow, which contributes a majority of the projectile mass and is responsible for impacting and penetrating a target, as well as to fulfill some special purposes such as sign ...

s of the

variety with

tangs TANGS is a department store located on Orchard Road in Singapore, owned by C.K. Tang Limited. The store is regarded as a principal shopping destination in the city, comparable to Bloomingdale's in New York City and Selfridges Selfridges, a ...

and notches along with

Helwan point Helwan ( ar, حلوان ', , cop, ϩⲁⲗⲟⲩⲁⲛ, Halouan) is a city in Egypt and part of Greater Cairo, on the bank of the Nile, opposite the ruins of Memphis. Originally a southern suburb of Cairo, it served as the capital of the now de ...

s. Also found were a

Ksar Akil flake Ksar Akil Flake is an oval type of Lithic flake with fine, regular teeth at frequent intervals. The flint tool is named after the archaeological site of Ksar Akil in Lebanon, where several examples were found and suggested to date to the late Up ...

, Emireh points and traces of a Neolithic settlement. A

Ksar Akil Ksar Akil (also Ksar 'Akil or Ksar Aqil) is an archeological site northeast of Beirut in Lebanon. It is located about west of Antelias spring on the north bank of the northern tributary of the Wadi Antelias. It is a large rock shelter below ...

flake ''(pictured)'' was found here.

Khan Khalde

There are two sites at Khan Khalde, south of Beirut around the Khalde station. Site 1 or 3.A. is located west of the station buildings and contained mostly

material with traces of

and

along with one Emireh point. Site 2 or 3.B. is a section in the railway cutting where material studies by Fathers Fleisch and Ramonnay determined to be largely Levalloiso-

Mousterian The Mousterian (or Mode III) is an archaeological industry of stone tools, associated primarily with the Neanderthals in Europe, and to the earliest anatomically modern humans in North Africa and West Asia. The Mousterian largely defines the latt ...

with some Upper Paleolithic and Neolithic traces. They were found by Auguste Bergy, published by Henri Fleisch in 1965 and kept in the Museum of Lebanese Prehistory.Fleisch, Henri., Les sables de Beyrouth et leurs industries préhistoriques, Festschrift for A. Rust's 65th Anniversary, Cologne University, 2nd Series, 1965.

Mar Elias (or St. Elie) and Mar Elias el Tiffeh

These sites were discovered by either

Paul Bovier-Lapierre Reverend Father Paul Bovier-Lapierre (1873–1950) was a French Jesuit archaeologist, notable for his work on prehistory in Egypt and surveys in southern Lebanon Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republ ...

or Chester. One is northwest of the

monastery A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in communities or alone (hermits). A monastery generally includes a place reserved for prayer which ...

of St. Elie, now in the

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...

building complex, another is in the area of Rue Ittifek and another was in the extension south of the monastery. A Mesolithic industry was found along with a Levallois one by Bergy in 1932.Bergy, Auguste., La paléolithique ancien stratifié à Ras Beyrouth, pp.200-202, Mélanges de l'Université Saint Joseph, Volume 16, 5-6, 1932. Material was mentioned by Fleisch in 1965, who considered it Levalloiso-Mousterian with a few pieces from the Neolithic.

Nahr Ghedir

This site is on the right bank at the old mouth of the Nahr Ghedir. Material including an Emireh point, large quantities of Middle Paleolithic tools, a few Upper Paleolithic and a trace of Neolithic were discussed by Fleisch in 1965.

Ouza'i (Neba el Auza'i)

This site is south of Beirut also on the east of the road to Sidon and is around by in the dunes at the start of the Khalde Boulevard, east of the

mosque A mosque (; from ar, مَسْجِد, masjid, ; literally "place of ritual prostration"), also called masjid, is a place of prayer for Muslims. Mosques are usually covered buildings, but can be any place where prayers ( sujud) are performed, ...

. It was mentioned by Godefroy Zumoffen in 1900 and Henri Fleisch in 1956. Material from the site was considered largely similar to that of the Néolithique Récent of Byblos by

Jacques Cauvin Professor Jacques Cauvin (1930 – 26 December 2001) was a French archaeologist who specialised in the prehistory of the Levant and Near East. Biography Cauvin started his work in France at Oullins Caves and Chazelles Caves (near Saint-André-de ...

including long, narrow

adze An adze (; alternative spelling: adz) is an ancient and versatile cutting tool similar to an axe but with the cutting edge perpendicular to the handle rather than parallel. Adzes have been used since the Stone Age. They are used for smoothing ...

s, chisels, segmented sickle blades with fine denticulation, borers and a transverse arrowhead found by

about east of the

minaret A minaret (; ar, منارة, translit=manāra, or ar, مِئْذَنة, translit=miʾḏana, links=no; tr, minare; fa, گل‌دسته, translit=goldaste) is a type of tower typically built into or adjacent to mosques. Minarets are generall ...

Site 6

This site is north of Shell petrol station, south of Beirut near the Airport terminal. Some flints similar to the Neolithique Moyen period of

Byblos Byblos ( ; gr, Βύβλος), also known as Jbeil or Jubayl ( ar, جُبَيْل, Jubayl, locally ; phn, 𐤂𐤁𐤋, , probably ), is a city in the Keserwan-Jbeil Governorate of Lebanon. It is believed to have been first occupied between 880 ...

were found at this site alongside

Palaeolithic The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic (), also called the Old Stone Age (from Greek: παλαιός ''palaios'', "old" and λίθος ''lithos'', "stone"), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone too ...

material.

Site 7

A semi-circular site northeast of the Shell petrol station continuing to a point underneath Airport Boulevard. It was discovered by August Bergy and Henri Fleisch with collections made by P.E. Gigues of a non-geometric Mesolithic industry along with numerous core scrapers and two Emireh points. The site has now been destroyed but material is stored in the

Site 8

Another Mesolithic site located a few meters north of Site 7 with tools from a similar industry but with no Neolithic material.

Site 10

Mdaoura or Tell aux Haches, south of Beirut on the east of the road to

Sidon Sidon ( ; he, צִידוֹן, ''Ṣīḏōn'') known locally as Sayda or Saida ( ar, صيدا ''Ṣaydā''), is the third-largest city in Lebanon. It is located in the South Governorate, of which it is the capital, on the Mediterranean coast. ...

, inland from the coast near Mdaoura. A small site containing two Emireh points, a Natufian arrowhead and a number of

axe An axe ( sometimes ax in American English; see spelling differences) is an implement that has been used for millennia to shape, split and cut wood, to harvest timber, as a weapon, and as a ceremonial or heraldic symbol. The axe has many for ...

s from various periods including the Neolithic.

Site 11

Also known as Haret Hraik and located about east of Ouza'i at around above sea level, this site contained only Middle Paleolithic and Upper Paleolithic material. It disappeared underneath a refugee camp in 1950.

Site 12

This site is east of the ''Zone Militaire'' on the top of a dune above a wood to the west of the first circle of Airport Boulevard, near Bir Hassan. Middle and Upper Paleolithic forms were found with traces of Neolithic material. The site disappeared in 1954.

The Stone Circles

A site where stone circle structures were found by

Lorraine Copeland Lorraine Copeland (born Elizabeth Lorraine Adie, 1921April 2013) was a British archaeologist specialising in the Palaeolithic period of the Near East. She was a secret agent with the Special Operations Executive during World War II. Early life ...

and

Peter Wescombe Peter Wescombe (4 January 1932 – 25 November 2014) was a British diplomat, amateur archaeologist, historian and founding member of the Bletchley Park Bletchley Park is an English country house and estate in Bletchley, Milton Keynes ( Buck ...

. They were located at the east end of the runway of Beirut Airport covering a site of approximately . Preliminary excavations were carried out by M.R. Saidah in 1964. The site contained two areas, one of red sand where human burials were discovered and another of modern sand where six stone circles were observed in 1964 around to from the runway, these were bulldozed in 1965 to make a

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...

course, leaving only one standing. The circles were composed of large river boulders, varying in diameters between and . A nearby ramleh outcrop contains a large, square empty cistern or well cut into the sandstone. Flints including Levallois cores, flakes and waste were dispersed across the whole area but gave little evidence regarding the age of the stone circles.

Tell Arslan

Tell Arslan was a more substantial archaeological site in the Sands of Beirut than the open air surface stations, with a full tell mound covering situated south of Beirut and about 800 m east of the beach. It was first excavated by Father

in 1930. It represents the earliest known

neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...

village settlement in the Beirut area. Henri Fleisch also recovered more material during a rescue mission in 1948 when the site was levelled due to construction of

Beirut airport Beirut, french: Beyrouth is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint o ...

. All this material is now in the Saint Joseph University, Museum of Lebanese Prehistory. The site shows evidence of also having been occupied during the

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...

era.

Pottery Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other ceramic materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. Major types include earthenware, stoneware and por ...

and flints were recovered including a variety of axes, knives,

chisels A chisel is a tool with a characteristically shaped cutting edge (such that wood chisels have lent part of their name to a particular grind) of blade on its end, for carving or cutting a hard material such as wood, stone, or metal by hand, stru ...

, scrapers, borers, and picks. Sickle blades were mostly finely serrated or showed coarse denticulation. Pottery was hardened by firing and included flat bases, a strap handle and a few sherds incised with stab marks and parallel lines. Jacques Cauvin concluded the artefacts similar and the site likely contemporary with middle neolithic periods of Byblos. A.M.T. Moore argued that finds such as Amuq points and short axes were more archaic still, possibly even dating into the Upper Paleolithic. He further suggested the site had been frequented by hunter-gatherer groups forming temporary camps and developed into a village during the early neolithic period.

Tell aux Scies

Tell aux Scies or Tell of Saws is located south of Beirut, in the dunes near the coast. Father

collected

PPNB Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) is part of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic, a Neolithic culture centered in upper Mesopotamia and the Levant, dating to years ago, that is, 8800–6500 BC. It was typed by British archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon during h ...

materials from the site in 1932 before it was turned into

landfill A landfill site, also known as a tip, dump, rubbish dump, garbage dump, or dumping ground, is a site for the disposal of waste materials. Landfill is the oldest and most common form of waste disposal, although the systematic burial of the waste ...

for rubbish. The large and notable assemblage from the site included a set of nibbled or finely denticulated

sickle A sickle, bagging hook, reaping-hook or grasshook is a single-handed agricultural tool designed with variously curved blades and typically used for harvesting, or reaping, grain crops or cutting succulent forage chiefly for feeding livestock, ei ...

blades from which the site takes its name. Also recovered were crested blades, two distinct types of

, awls, scrapers, polished

scissors Scissors are hand-operated shearing tools. A pair of scissors consists of a pair of metal blades pivoted so that the sharpened edges slide against each other when the handles (bows) opposite to the pivot are closed. Scissors are used for cutti ...

, chisels, borers, scrapers, retouched blades, microburins and a few flaked picks.

has termed the collection of flints from this site as a "nucléus naviformes", which he claimed may represent an older type of lithic technology than found in the most archaic neolithic levels from

.Cauvin, J., Les outillages néolithiques de Byblos et du littoral libanais. Fouilles de Byblos, tome IV, Paris, Librairie d’Amérique et d’Orient, J. Maisonneuve, 1968, p. 228. The site has shown many similarities to

Damascus )), is an adjective which means "spacious". , motto = , image_flag = Flag of Damascus.svg , image_seal = Emblem of Damascus.svg , seal_type = Seal , map_caption = , ...

basin sites and compared to the very earliest levels of

Tell Ramad Tell Ramad ( ar, تل رماد) is a prehistoric, Neolithic tell at the foot of Mount Hermon, about southwest of Damascus in Syria. The tell was the site of a small village of , which was first settled in the late 8th millennium BC. The tell was ...

, dating to the earliest stage of the

References

External sources

Maison de l'Orient et de la Méditerranée - Atlas des sites du proche orient - Online Application
{{Portal, Lebanon, History, Asia Megalithic monuments in the Middle East Paleolithic Natufian sites Neolithic settlements Archaeological sites in Lebanon Khiamian sites