8,000 years of continuous habitation

I got into the country just fine, but my blog had a hard time getting its visa issues worked out. This is a total blogger cliché, but sorry for the delay!

I've started renting cars more and more often, mostly on the weekends, because public transportation on Sundays leaves a lot to be desired. So for the past two weekends, I've been reveling in the freedom that a car brings. Last Sunday, I went to my Quaker meeting, but yesterday I decided to go to Jbeil, also known as Byblos. Byblos is one of those places like Jericho, with layers and layers of human habitation going back many millennia before the Common Era. In the archaeological site yesterday, I saw Neolithic houses, Phoenician tombs, Roman temples, and a Crusader castle. My brother Will, an archaeologist who (if I may brag just a little) found part of a Clovis point on one of his digs, would be miffed if I didn't mention that there are certainly similar sites in the Americas, but the scale of what was left behind was different. It doesn't make it any less impressive theoretically, but in terms of actually being on the site...well, let's just say that the phrase "Old World" suddenly takes on a much deeper meaning.

In the Byblos souk (think of a stereotypical "Arab" market, but marketing exclusively tourist trinkets), there was a delightful bookstore where I got the Atlas Historique de la Mer Méditerranée. The book contains page after page of the same map of the Mediterranean, just at different points in history. Thumbing through it, I thought of this amazing video showing an animated history of the Middle East. (This made the blog rounds a few years ago--thanks to [my uncle] Ned at starchamber.com for being the first to show it to me.)




It's hypnotic to watch the waves of civilization after civilization wash over the region, and then recede as a new one grows. The first time I watched it, I thought, "Huh. That's cool." Now, living here, and watching Lebanon turn new colors time and time again, it takes on a new significance. Lebanon is geographically either very fortunate or very unfortunate, depending on how you look at it. In ancient times, its ports were a gateway to "The Orient" and a stop along the Silk Road. It was (still is) a crossroads of language, culture, and trade. Of course, it was also halfway between the Egyptians and the Assyrians, the Greeks and the Persians, the Muslims and the Catholics...and now it's between Israel and Syria.

Every group that has come through has left its mark. The Egyptians left their gods (at least until the Greeks and Romans got here). The Phoenicians left their ports, their alphabet, and their place names--driving through Lebanon (and also Our Southern Neighbor), you see village after village whose names begin with Kfer or Ain--these are the remnants of the Phoenicians. Kfer means village, and Ain means both eye and spring (of water). The Romans left temples. The Arabs...well...they're still here, linguistically, religiously, and in every other sense of the word. The Crusaders left castles and family names (Franjieh, for example, which means "Frankish"). The Turks left architecture and political institutions. The Armenians brought refugees, religion, and crafts. The French left language and bureaucracy. The Syrians and the Israelis left a bloody mess.

And through all that, largely the same people, the same families, have lived here continuously. The Druze, my community here, don't allow converts, so they have existed as a community since the 11th century. As an American mutt who can't trace her family lines reliably past 200 years--and who has the luxury of not needing to--I am astounded by this sort of thing. It makes being here that much more interesting. It also makes questions of "But who does the land really belong to?" much more complicated.

I joked before I came here that what this region was really crying out for was another American with a minimal understanding of the context to set things right. Now, even as I understand the context a little more, I'm not any closer to feeling like I have a notion as to what will come next, or even what the best thing to come next would be. What color(s) will be washing over Lebanon in the future?