In Episode 4 of our podcast we briefly discussed Nick Collins’s trip to Lebanon, in order to research about the Phoenicians for his first book. We discuss everything from the ancient history of the region to the nightlife.
Bordering Syria and Israel, you would be forgiven for believing Lebanon was an arid country. We find out however that forests of cedar trees, diminished in size over thousands of years and themselves living for up to a thousand years, survive by being nourished by the melt water from the snow-capped mountains. It was this thriving of life that could support an ancient civilization that came before the Pharaohs of Egypt, and as Nick argues, should be considered their origin.
Read our conversation below to see how you will be blown away by the History, Culture, Nature and nightlife of this fascinating country.
Nightlife
Nick
The other one (country) for very different reasons. I went to Lebanon to research, really, the ancient Phoenician cities of Tyre, Byblos and Sidon. And I just found the people lovely, the excavations and the history fascinating, and Beirut is a great city. Probably my favorite bar around the world that I could remember is in Beirut.
Michael
What's it called? The one where they take away your phones so you have to communicate with people around you.
Nick
You have to talk to people,
Chetan
That's phenomenal, oh what's it called, do you remember?
Nick
It's just up from The American university
Chetan
We will try and post it on a Blog or something. Okay, cool.
Nick
It was quite a cool concept. Five minutes walk from the American university.
Chetan
Oh, so what just caught my attention. You traveled to Lebanon to actually do ground research of the Phoenicians. How did that go? What inspired it, how did you plan it? And then what was it like on the ground actually trying to get into the details of this kind of thing
The Ancient Phoenicians
Nick
There's a few books written on Phoenicians, but, none of them are particularly comprehensive or, or wonderful in my humble opinion. But the Phoenicians were the great traders of the Mediterranean, and they also traded through the Red Sea to India and East Africa. They were great engineers and they were responsible for bringing many Indian ideas and intellectual ideas into the Mediterranean, which they would then use as they were trading with the Greeks. So I was just curious and, they also are reputed to be, many ancient writers say, they were actually originally from Bahrain.
So, it was interesting standing in the excavations in Byblos, by the way which was originally called Gabel, which means gold and well. And I was standing by the well in Byblos and looking up into the Lebanese mountains, which are snow-capped all year round. And there are rivers and the streams running from them. I immediately though, ah, because Bahrain is known for its sweet water, I immediately thought, of course, this is why they came here. The water's crucial. So yeah, it was, it was a good trip!
Of course I could have done this through intellect, but just to see it was, it was very valuable. And the food is not bad as well, the Lebanese food.
Michael
I'm really upset that I didn't go visit there whilst I was living in Dubai as well, actually. I should have taken advantage of that.
Nick
And its economy is in such a perilous state, it's probably cheaper than when I went, which was cheap enough.
Chetan
Yeah.
Michael
The Phoenicians don't really get much credit, do they? We don't learn anything about them in school. It's basically, well, just the Romans or the Egyptians.
Nick
Yeah, absolutely crucial (Phoenicians). So, you know, the way I tell it in the book, is that they were crucial vectors for intellectual knowledge transfer from India to Greece, which was important. A lot of people just go back to Greece and say, it's the Greek miracle. It wasn't a miracle. They were introduced to these ideas.
Michael
Yeah. When you went, did you see a lot of ruins? And is there a lot of evidence left over of Phoenicians?
Nick
Yes. Byblos in particular. But there's also, a crusader castle there as well, you know?
Michael
What's the most ancient stuff? How old is the stuff that you can still see remains of?
Nick
Byblos? it's conventionally dated to about 3000 BC, but if you read my book, it's more like 2730 roughly
Chetan
Okay. So that's 300 years more recent than the conventional. Interesting. I have a trio of questions. What is Byblos, what is the significance of the later date and why do you think that?
Nick
Okay, well Byblos, first of all we go back slightly to the Egyptians. It is controversial. Before the end of the war, the second world war, the accepted view of the origin of the pharaohs was that it was through invasion. Then for no good reason, other than fashion after the second world war, it changed. The theory that Egypt was invaded from Mesopotamia, from Uruk was called a Dynastic Race Theory. And anything to do with race after the Holocaust was kind of unfashionable. And also as people, as new countries were getting independence from colonial masters, they were stressing their indigenous origins. But so, it was really changed for no good reason other than fashion and a dodgy title. But it seems to me, and quite a number of other historians, it seems to us that the invasion theory makes a lot more sense. And that it was coordinated with the arrival of Phoenicians in Lebanon. And why was that? Because, like in the deserts of Egypt, they needed timber to build their temples and so forth. And the best timber around was the Cedars of Lebanon. They had been imported by land, I suppose, into Mesopotamia well, before that. So they were shipping it down, they were actually towing it down
Ancient ecosystems
Michael
And there's still a large, Cedar forest all over Lebanon at the moment.
Nick
Um, alas, I wish that were true. They are much diminished in size and protected. Now it takes 50 years for a cedar tree to actually start sprouting seeds, and it takes 500 even a thousand years to, to grow to full size.
Chetan
Wow. So you don't want to chop those guys down
Nick
That's why they’re protected now
Chetan
One, every few hundred years.
So in that case, do we see in Egypt Cedar trees inside the construction of some of these ancient sites in Egypt?
Nick
Yeah, I think so. I never really, I've never really gone to Egypt. I mean I have been to Egypt, but I haven't sailed down the Nile and looked at all the temples. But that's what everybody says, and that's not controversial. A lot of what I say is controversial, but that's not. That’s widely accepted.
Chetan
Yeah. We like a good bit of well-reasoned controversy.
Nick
Going back to the forests, the cedar forest. The emperor Hadrian was the first one to put in legislation to protect the forest as a matter of interest.
Chetan
Oh, wow.
Michael
Why because they were already chopping them all down by that point?
Nick
Well they have been chopping them down ever since then, but today…
Michael
But to the point that they needed protection by emperor Hadrian?
Nick
Clearly,
Chetan
That's incredible. Well, it must be a little bit of paradise as well because that region is generally quite dry. And then suddenly you have this huge amount of water, and then you've got these big water guzzling trees in the middle of a generally dry region, so I can see why it was so important.
Michael
It'd be so cool to actually go there and see. You know, because you would think in that area, you would be surrounded by desert almost. And then just to think that there are mountains there, which are, snow-capped all year round with rivers and…
Nick
It's quite rich in vegetation.
Michael
Yeah. It'd be amazing to see that kind of juxtaposition.
Chetan
Incredible. Yeah
The Ancient ruins and the mysterious stones of Balbek
Michael
I had a little look at Byblos, but then also I saw other ruins of Lebanon there's other places like Baalbek as well. And it looks like big temple, almost like a Greek temple
Nick
It's the biggest Roman temple anywhere found,
Michael
Oh, it's a Roman temple. Okay. So it's not, that's not Phoenecian
Nick
No. In fact, the Roman ruins in Baalbek are considered so important that archeologists have decided not to dig to the Phoenecian layers below.
Michael
There are these big stones in Baalbek as well, with some weighing like 1,200 tons each or something. No one knows how they managed to move these around or use them in construction. The six stones of Baalbek.
Nick
I don't, I don't recall that.
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