JBEIL or GEBAL / BYBLOS
known as Gebal in the holy book. This ancient city was part of Phoenicia, and is today located on the Lebanese coast. It was first occupied in Neolithic times ( 8,000 to 4,000 B.C.E. ) and became one of the major trade/seaport centers from about 3,000 B.C.E. Many empires ( Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian etc. ) extorted tribute in the form of lumber from the great cedar forests of Lebanon, through Byblos.
Long before Greece and Rome flourished, the ancient town of Jbeil-Byblos was a powerful, independent city-state with its own kings, culture and prosperous trade. Byblos was an ancient city in Phoenicia. Phoenicia’s inhabitants considered themselves a single nation, but Phoenicia was not a unified state. Phoenicia was a group of city-states, which fought amongst each other for dominance. One of the most important of these city-states was Byblos. The name Byblos originated from ‘biblion’, which means ‘book’. The word ‘bible’ is derived from the Greek word ‘tabblia’, which means ‘the books’. Byblos is the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world. According to Phoenician tradition, Byblos was founded by the god El who surrounded his city with a wall. The massive early Bronze Age city walls on the site reflect this early religious belief. Thus Byblos was considered, even by the ancient Phoenicians, to be a city of great antiquity. This city was most prosperous between the years of 1200 and 800 B.C. However, it is believed that Byblos was first inhabited in about 5000 B.C. At this time, Byblos was just a small fishing community located near the coast of the Mediterranean Sea.The kings of Byblos adopted the Egyptian cartouche for their names and their titles. An alphabetic phonetic script was developed in Byblos, which was one of the origins of our modern alphabet. The earliest form of the Phoenician alphabet found is an inscription on the sarcophagus of King Ahiram of Byblos.