Dekwaneh ( ar, دكوانة translit. Dikwene) (also Dekweneh) is a suburb north 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 ...

in the

Matn District Matn ( ar, قضاء المتن, '), sometimes spelled Metn (or preceded by the article El, as in El Matn), is a district ('' qadaa'') in the Mount Lebanon Governorate of Lebanon, east of the Lebanon's capital Beirut. The district capital is ...

of the Mount Lebanon Governorate,

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 Lebanon–Syria border, the north and east and Israel to Blue ...

. The population is predominantly

Maronite Christian Lebanese Maronite Christians ( ar, المسيحية المارونية في لبنان; syc, ܡܫܝܚܝ̈ܐ ܡܪ̈ܘܢܝܐ ܕܠܒܢܢ) are adherents of the Maronite Church in Lebanon, which is the largest Christian denomination in the country ...

. Tel al-Zaatar, an

UNRWA The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) is a UN agency that supports the relief and human development of Palestinian refugees. UNRWA's mandate encompasses Palestinians displaced by the 1948 ...

administered

Palestinian Palestinians ( ar, الفلسطينيون, ; he, פָלַסְטִינִים, ) or Palestinian people ( ar, الشعب الفلسطيني, label=none, ), also referred to as Palestinian Arabs ( ar, الفلسطينيين العرب, label=non ...

refugee camp housing approximately 50,000-60,000 refugees, and the site of the

Tel al-Zaatar massacre The Siege of Tel al-Zaatar ( ar, حصار تل الزعتر, French: Siège de Tel al-Zaatar), alternatively known as the Massacre of Tel al-Zaatar, was an armed siege of Tel al-Zaatar (meaning ''Hill of Thyme'' in Arabic), a fortified, UNRWA-adm ...

were located on the outskirts of the town.

Archaeology

Dekwaneh I is about northwest of Mar Roucos monastery, in the gullies of (now deforested) pinewood slopes on the west side of a ridge. Material was found by Raoul Describes, who mentioned rock-shelters in the area that were destroyed by quarrying for quicklime.Describes, Raoul., Quelques ateliers paléolithiques des environs de Beyrouth, Mélanges de l'Université Saint-Joseph: Volume VII, 1921. Further collections were found by

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 Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or ...

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 ( Bu ...

. Some of the

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 sta ...

tools recovered were determined to be

Acheulean Acheulean (; also Acheulian and Mode II), from the French ''acheuléen'' after the type site of Saint-Acheul, is an archaeological industry of stone tool manufacture characterized by the distinctive oval and pear-shaped "hand axes" associated ...

as well as a large amount of waste and bifaces from the Middle Paleolithic that suggested it was a factory site at that time. Dekwaneh II material comes from various locations around the area, most notably the ravine below the monastery. Flint tools were also found here by Bergy and Describes which included the

Qaraoun culture The Qaraoun culture is a culture of the Lebanese Stone Age around Qaraoun in the Beqaa Valley. The Gigantolithic or Heavy Neolithic flint tool industry of this culture was recognized as a particular Neolithic variant of the Lebanese highlands ...

Heavy Neolithic Heavy Neolithic (alternatively, Gigantolithic) is a style of large stone and flint tools (or industry) associated primarily with the Qaraoun culture in the Beqaa Valley, Lebanon, dating to the Epipaleolithic or early Pre-Pottery Neolithic at t ...

forms such as massive

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 ma ...

s, picks, scrapers and

rabot Rabot may refer to: Geography * Rabot, Tajikistan, a city in Tajikistan *Rabot Island, island near Antarctica * Rabot Glacier, glacier in Antarctica * Rabot Point, a high rocky point in James Ross Island, Antarctica People with the surname *Charl ...

s. Other early

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 p ...

tools were found along with some Middle Paleolithic material including an

Emireh point 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 rem ...

and tortoise cores. Along with material from Dekwaneh I, finds from the locations are stored in 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 ...

LGBT rights Rights affecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender ( LGBT) people vary greatly by country or jurisdiction—encompassing everything from the legal recognition of same-sex marriage to the death penalty for homosexuality. Notably, ...

Dekwaneh gained notoriety in the press and social media when, on Monday 22 April 2013, the mayor, Antoine Chakhtoura, ordered Lebanese security forces to raid and shut down a gay-friendly nightclub called Ghost. A number of Syrian gay men and a Lebanese

transgender A transgender (often abbreviated as trans) person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth. Many transgender people experience dysphoria, which they seek to alleviate through ...

woman were arrested during the raid and taken to municipal headquarters where it is reported that they were harassed and forced to undress. According to reports, the transgender woman was also photographed naked.

Image gallery

File:General Wessin Street, Dekwaneh, Lebanon.jpg, General Elias Wessin (Wazen) Street in Dekwaneh, Lebanon. File:Dekouané chapelle Saint-Joseph 01.jpg, St. Joseph chapel File:Dekouané chapelle Saint-Joseph 02.jpg, Statue of the

Immaculate Conception The Immaculate Conception is the belief that the Virgin Mary was free of original sin from the moment of her conception. It is one of the four Marian dogmas of the Catholic Church, meaning that it is held to be a divinely revealed truth w ...

Airfield

Remains of a former airfield can be found in Tal El Zaatar. Only a small section of runway exist with Northern section along Mar Roukoz has been reused for commercial warehouses.

References

External links

Dekwaneh - Deir Mar Roukoz - Dahr El Hossein
Localiban {{Archaeological sites in Lebanon Populated places in the Matn District Maronite Christian communities in Lebanon Archaeological sites in Lebanon Paleolithic Heavy Neolithic sites