The northern harbour of Tyre. Not as illustrious as when the island city was conquered by Nebuchadnezzar and later Alexander the Great, but a charming place to spend a day…
boat building in Tyre
…stepping over Roman pillars in the sand, strewn with tile fragments old and new, and imagining the once-famous ships of Tarshish.
I think that this part of Lebanese culture is sorely ignored.
As a sailing fanatic, I was kind of dismayed that there seemed to be so little activity in the world of boating- recreational or commercial. Maybe it’s just hard to find on the internet.
What a beautiful shot. And I agree with @yasmine 100%
Tarshish happens to be a village in the Upper Metn district
So it is – I’ll have to take a drive there some day.
seems to be a small mix-up Georgia, Tyre is actually a coastal city in Southern Lebanon, not in the North, and as for Tarshish, I believe Jimmy beat me to clarify that it’s a small village, pretty far from the coastline and couldn’t possibly have anything to do with boat-manufacturing. As for the “famous ships of Tarshish” now, that’s new stuff to me, mind clarifying or pointing to where I can read about it?
Nice blog btw, Pretty interesting to see how “foreigners” or “westerners” in particular perceive us :)
Hi Maury, Phoenicia and Tyre in particular were famous for trading throughout the Mediterranean, using what became known as the ships of Tarshish. They weren’t named after a Phoenician port but after one of their more distant destinations, thought to be in Southern Spain (see Tartessos). Ezekiel’s prophecy about Tyre’s downfall mentions these ships and the sumptuous goods they transported. Tyre had two harbours, a southern and a northern one; this shot is of the northern one, the only one still used.
For those wanting to know more about the totally different namesake in Lebanon, Google Maps places the village here.