Fortifications

If Tyre itself has left little of its Iron Age past, other sites help fill the gaps. Sarepta (modern Sarafand), halfway between Sidon and Tyre, was a modest settlement whose Iron Age Phoenician levels were excavated by the University of Pennsylvania from 1969 to 1974. More extensive are the fortifications and other architecture from the Iron Age at Tell Dor, a large site on the Israeli coast excavated principally by Haifa University and Hebrew University, in levels dating from the twelfth or eleventh century to the mid-seventh century BC. In 1075 BC, when visited by the Egyptian official Wenamun during a trip to secure Phoenician wood, Dor was an independent city ruled by Beder, a Tjeker prince (the Tjeker were one of the Sea Peoples). That this city was Phoenician in the Persian period, controlled by Sidon, is attested on the early fifth century BC sarcophagus inscription of Eshmun’azar II, king of Sidon. Its political history during the intervening centuries is unknown. Some Phoenician connection is to be expected, considering the geographical proximity and finds such as Phoenician-type Bichrome pottery, but what that was — political, cultural, or commercial — we cannot say.

The best evidence for fortifications in the Phoenician heartland comes from Beirut. The Lebanese Civil War, 1975—90, wreaked havoc on the country, with downtown Beirut a significant casualty. During the reconstruction that followed the war, archaeological excavations were conducted in this district, giving much information about the long history of the city. The sequence of fortifications is well documented from the Middle Bronze Age on. The earliest Iron Age was protected by a stone wall with a steep glacis, in use into the eighth century BC. During the seventh century BC, a casemate wall of limestone ashlars was built. Yet another fortification wall was built during the Persian period, huge, faced with rubble. Techniques of wall construction used in the Persian and later Hellenistic periods include upright ashlar pillars with rubble fill in between, and parallel walls of ashlar blocks also with a rubble core.

Literary and artistic sources give additional evidence about construction. From Arrian, we learn that blocks of Tyre’s city wall were cemented together, for extra strength. Images of fortifications in Assyrian relief sculptures give some idea of the overall appearance in the ninth to seventh centuries BC, with towers and crenellations typical features of the superstructure.