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89-640: The history of the Palestinian gaonate was revealed in documents discovered in the Cairo Geniza in 1896. Sparse information is available on the Geonim before the middle of the ninth century. The extant material consists essentially of a list in Seder Olam Zutta relating all the geonim to Mar Zutra . In the middle of the ninth century, the leadership of the academy was transferred from Tiberias to Jerusalem . It

178-623: A collection of over 11,000 fragments, which are currently being digitised and uploaded to an online archive. The Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford has a collection of 25,000 Genizah folios. Westminster College in Cambridge held 1,700 fragments, which were deposited by Lewis and Gibson in 1896. In 2013 the two Oxbridge libraries, the Bodleian Library at Oxford and Cambridge University Library , joined together to raise funds to buy

267-575: A fisherman by profession, who was also a traditional storyteller ( hakawati ) and thus interested in cinema – projected films on the wall of a Turkish hammam. In 1939 the Roxy opened, followed in 1942 by the "Empire": By the mid-1950s there were four cinemas in Tyre, and four more soon opened in nearby Nabatieh . Many also hosted live performances by famous actors and musicians, serving as community spaces where people from different backgrounds came together. In 1959,

356-637: A halt after 2012 due to the war there, some of them instead started excavations in Tyre, amongst them a team headed by Leila Badre , director of the Archeological Museum of the American University of Beirut ( AUB ), and Belgian archaeologists. Threats to Tyre's ancient cultural heritage include development pressures and the illegal antiquities trade. A highway, planned for 2011, was expected to be built in areas that are deemed archaeologically sensitive. A small-scale geophysical survey indicated

445-594: A major impact on the development of Lebanese music: Halim el-Roumi (1919–1983) and Ghazi Kahwaji (1945–2017). Some sources claim that the famous musician, composer, singer and actor el-Roumi was born in Tyre to Lebanese parents. However, others suggest that he was born in Nazareth and moved to Tyre from Palestine. For some time, he worked as a teacher at the Jafariya High School there. In 1950 he became director of Radio Lebanon 's music department, where he discovered

534-555: A prominent Phoenician city-state between the 9th and 6th centuries BCE, settling prestigious colonies around the Mediterranean Sea, such as Carthage and Leptis Magna . It went under Persian rule in 572 BCE, before being conquered by Alexander the Great in 332 BCE. Monumental archaeological remains dated from the subsequent Hellenistic , Roman , Byzantine , and Medieval periods led to its inscription on its archaeological remains on

623-470: A sanctuary for sea turtles and migrating birds. Due to its diverse flora and fauna , the reserve was designated a Ramsar Site in 1999 according to the international treaty for the conservation and sustainable use of Wetlands , since it is considered "the last bio-geographic ecosystem in Lebanon". It is an important nesting site for migratory birds , the endangered Loggerhead and green sea turtle ,

712-534: A son of Solomon ben Elijah, addressed from the "gate of the Academy of Fustat" a letter to a man named Abraham in which he gives his whole genealogy, adding the full title of "gaon, rosh yeshivat geon Ya'qov," to the names of his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. The Academy of Palestine had probably ceased to exist before the Christians conquered Palestine, and its head, the gaon Maṣliaḥ, went to Fustat, where there

801-486: A stretch of 2 km with agriculture lands of small family farms and the springs of Ras El Ain with three constantly flowing artesian wells , ranging from Rashidieh to the village of Chaetiyeh in the South. The former is divided into two zones: one for tourism that features a public beach of some 900 m and restaurant tents during the summer season hosting up to 20,000 visitors on a busy day, and another 900 m of conservation zone as

890-598: Is the subject of a citizen-science project on the website Zooniverse . Project volunteers are enlisted to sort digitized fragments of the Cairo Genizah, in order to facilitate research on the fragments. The Friedberg Geniza Project is of great importance to research inasmuch as it includes all Genizah fragments and bibliographical data relating to them. Since 1986, the Princeton Geniza Lab has been studying and digitizing geniza manuscripts. Their projects include

979-528: Is used especially to describe vegetables and fruits from rain-fed, untreated agricultural production – originates from the Baal religion. The Tyrian municipality of Ain Baal is apparently also named after the Phoenician deity. The most visible part of ancient and medieval history on the other side have been the archaeological sites though: The first archaeological excavations were by Ernest Renan in 1860 and 1861. He

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1068-530: The Arabian spiny mouse and many other creatures (including wall lizards , common pipistrelle , and European badger ). Also, there are frequent sighting of dolphins in the waters off Tyre. Altogether, the TCNR includes: 275 species distributed over 50 families. In addition, the reserve is home to seven regionally and nationally threatened species , 4 endemic and 10 rare species , whilst 59 species are restricted to

1157-585: The Cave of the Patriarchs for the welfare of the head of the Gaonate. The hierarchy of the academy was similar to that of Babylonia, although it had become a dynastic institution. The three main positions were controlled by three families, two of which claimed priestly descent. The av beit din , the president of the court, ranked next to the gaon, and that another member of the college, called "the third" ( ha-shelishi ), held

1246-537: The Kievian Letter . The Genizah remained in use until it was emptied by Western scholars eager for its material. A number of other genizot have provided smaller discoveries across the Old World, notably Italian ones such as that of Perugia . An 11th-century Afghan Geniza was found in 2011. The Cairo Genizah fragments were extensively studied, cataloged and translated by Paul E. Kahle . His book, The Cairo Geniza

1335-567: The Köppen climate classification ), characterized by six months of drought from May to October. On average, it has 300 days of sun a year and a yearly temperature of 20.8 °C . The average maximum temperature reaches its highest at 30.8 °C in August and the average minimum temperature its lowest at 10 °C in January. On average, the mean annual precipitation reaches up to 645 mm. The temperature of

1424-560: The Letter of the Karaite elders of Ascalon ), are somewhat smaller, but still impressive: Goitein estimated their size at "about 10,000 items of some length, of which 7,000 are self-contained units large enough to be regarded as documents of historical value. Only half of these are preserved more or less completely." The number of documents added to the Genizah changed throughout the years. For example,

1513-569: The Mushtamil , the philological work of the Karaite scholar Aaron of Jerusalem , was copied for Elijah, a son of the gaon Abiathar, "grandson of a gaon and great-grandson of a gaon." In 1111, the same Elijah purchased at Fustat Chananel ben Chushiel 's commentary on the Book of Joshua , which subsequently fell into the hands of his cousin, the gaon Maṣliaḥ. It may be noted here that the geonic family of Palestine

1602-598: The Quran . Of particular interest to biblical scholars are several incomplete manuscripts of the original Hebrew version of Sirach . Solomon Schechter also found two fragments of the Damascus Document , other fragments of which were later found among the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran . The non-literary materials, which include court documents, legal writings, and the correspondence of the local Jewish community (such as

1691-540: The UNESCO World’s Heritage list in 1984. The Roman historian Justin wrote that the original founders arrived from the nearby city of Sidon in the quest to establish a new harbour. The famous Greek historian Herodotus (c. 484–425 BCE), born in the city of Halicarnassus , visited Tyre around 450 BCE at the end of the Greco-Persian Wars (499–449 BCE), and wrote in his Histories that according to

1780-795: The University of Pennsylvania 's Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies , the British Library , the Hungarian Academy of Sciences , the National Library of Russia , Alliance Israélite Universelle , the Younes and Soraya Nazarian Library at the University of Haifa and multiple private collections around the world. Most fragments come from the geniza chamber of the Ben Ezra Synagogue, but additional fragments were found at excavation sites near

1869-463: The oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, though in medieval times for some centuries by just a small population. It was one of the earliest Phoenician metropolises and the legendary birthplace of Europa , her brothers Cadmus and Phoenix , as well as Carthage 's founder Dido (Elissa). The city has many ancient sites, including the Tyre Hippodrome , and was added as a whole to

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1958-532: The sea water reaches a minimum of 17 °C in February and a maximum of 32 °C in August. At a depth of 70 m it is constantly at 17–18 °C. Meanwhile, rising sea levels due to global warming threaten coastal erosion to Tyre's peninsula and bay areas. The ancient city of Tyre is located along the coast of Phoenicia in modern Lebanon. The site has been occupied since the Bronze Age . The city became

2047-593: The "Cinema Rivoli of Tyre" opened and quickly became one of the prime movie theatres of the country. According to UNIFIL , it was visited "by celebrity who's whos of the time, including Jean Marais , Brigitte Bardot , Rushdi Abaza and Omar Hariri." In 1964, the "Dunia" opened, two years later followed by the "Al Hamra Cinema", which became a venue for some of the Arab world's most famous performers, like Mahmoud Darwish , Sheikh Imam , Ahmed Fouad Negm , Wadih el-Safi , and Marcel Khalife . Meanwhile, two Tyrian artists had

2136-463: The 1914 Man in the Opera Hat painting by Pablo Picasso . The proceeds totaled US$ 5.26 million. The painting was won by a 25-year-old fire-safety official from Pennsylvania . IAST president Maha al-Khalil Chalabi is a daughter of feudal lord and politician Kazem el-Khalil . In September 2017, she opened "Les Atelier", which is located in the middle of an orange grove covering an area of 7.300 m at

2225-403: The 6th and 19th centuries CE, and comprise the largest and most diverse collection of medieval manuscripts in the world. The Genizah texts are written in various languages, especially Hebrew , Arabic , and Aramaic , mainly on vellum and paper, but also on papyrus and cloth. In addition to containing Jewish religious texts such as Biblical , Talmudic , and later Rabbinic works (some in

2314-729: The Antiquities Service in Lebanon and was the curator of the National Museum of Beirut . His teams uncovered most remains in the Al Bass / Hippodrome and the City Site/Roman baths. During the 1960s, Honor Frost (1917–2010) – the Cyprus -born pioneer of underwater archaeology initiated several investigations "aimed at identifying and documenting the significant archaeological potential for harbour facilities within coastal Tyre". Based on

2403-476: The Eastern Mediterranean area. It is also worthy to indicate that, several bio-indicator species as well as 25 medicinal species were recognized. TCNR encloses flora species belonging to the various habitats: the sandy shore, rocky shore, littoral and Freshwater ecosystems . A wide number of Gramineae , Fabaceae , Asteraceae and Umbellifereae families dominate the floristic resources. However,

2492-652: The Egyptian exilarch also subjected its community, forcing Abiathar to leave the academy. However, the academy resisted the exilarch, declaring his claims invalid and pointing out his godlessness and tyranny while in office. Fast-day services were held (1093), and the sway of the Egyptian exilarch was soon ended. The nagid Meborak, to whom ben Daniel owed his elevation, called a large assembly, which deposed him and reinstated Abiathar as gaon in Iyar of 1094. Abiathar wrote his Megillah in commemoration of this event. A few years later, at

2581-509: The Genizah but not of its significance, immediately recognized the importance of the material. With the financial assistance of his Cambridge colleague and friend Charles Taylor , Schechter made an expedition to Egypt, where, with the assistance of the Chief Rabbi, he sorted and removed the greater part of the contents of the Genizah chamber. Agnes and Margaret joined him there en route to Sinai (their fourth visit in five years) and he showed them

2670-455: The Genizah fragments related to Jewish merchant Abraham Ben Yiju in the book In an Antique Land . Tyre, Lebanon Tyre ( / ˈ t aɪər / ; Arabic : صُور , romanized :  Ṣūr ; Phoenician : 𐤑𐤓 , romanized:  Ṣūr ; Hebrew : צוֹר , romanized :  Tsur ; Ancient Greek : Τύρος , romanized :  Týros ) is a city in Lebanon , one of

2759-610: The Genizah include sacred and religious materials as well as great deal of secular writings. The Genizah materials include a wide range of content. Among the literary fragments, the most popular categories are liturgical texts, Biblical and related texts, and Rabbinic literature. There are also materials with philosophical, scientific, mystical, and linguistic writings. Among the non-literary items there are legal documents and private letters. Also found were school exercises and merchants' account books, as well as communal records of various sorts. The normal practice for genizot (pl. of genizah)

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2848-447: The Great in 332 BCE . This isthmus increased greatly in width over the centuries because of extensive silt depositions on either side. The part of the original island not covered by the modern city of Tyre is mostly of an archaeological site showcasing remains of the city from ancient times. Four municipalities contribute to Tyre city's 16.7 km built-up area, though none are included in their entirety: Sour municipality contains

2937-439: The Great in 332 BCE to seize the city. This reportedly 750 m-long and 60 m-wide causeway was laid over a submarine shoal less than 5.4 m deep. This shoal was interpreted as a sandbank (also called a ‘salient’), formed by the accretion of sand in the lee of the island, under the effects of the refraction and diffraction of waves around the island. The causeway interrupted longshore sand transport, forcing sand to accumulate along

3026-599: The IDF bombed the conservation site. The oil spill which devastated the coast north of Ashkelon in February 2021 also contaminated Tyre's beaches. Arguably the most lasting Phoenician legacy for the Tyrian population has been the linguistic mark that the Syriac and Akkadian languages have left on the Arabic spoken in the region of Tyre. Most notably, the widely used term "Ba'ali" – which

3115-554: The Ottoman period like Khan Rabu and Khan Sour / Khan Ashkar have partly collapsed after decades of total neglect and lack of any maintenance whatsoever. In 2013, the International Association to Save Tyre (IAST) made headlines when it launched an online raffle in association with Sotheby's to fund the artisans' village Les Ateliers de Tyr at the outskirts of the city. Participants could purchase tickets for 100 euros to win

3204-550: The Princeton Geniza Project, a database of more than 30,000 records and 4,600 transcriptions of geniza texts. In early 2021, under the leadership of director Marina Rustow and in partnership with Daniel Stoekl Ben Ezra , the Lab began exploring machine learning as a method of transcribing geniza documents, using handwritten text recognition applications. Indian anthropologist and writer Amitav Ghosh recounts his study of

3293-578: The Tyre area profited from the abundance of fresh water supplies, especially from the nearby springs of Rashidieh and Ras Al Ain in the South. In addition, there are the springs of Al Bagbog and Ain Ebreen in the North as well as the Litani River , also known as Alqasymieh. The present city of Tyre covers a large part of the original island and has expanded onto and covers most of the causeway built by Alexander

3382-423: The Tyrian population. Vast reserves of natural gas are estimated to lie beneath Lebanese waters, much of it off Tyre's coast, but exploitation has been delayed by border disputes with Israel. Early names of Tyre include Akkadian Ṣurru , Phoenician Ṣūr ( 𐤑𐤓 ‎ ), and Hebrew Tsur ( צוֹר ). In Semitic languages , the name of the city means 'rock' after the rocky formation on which

3471-548: The Westminster collection (now renamed the Lewis-Gibson collection) after it was put up for sale for £ 1.2 million. This is the first time the two libraries have collaborated for such a fundraising effort. Many of the fragments found in the Cairo Genizah may be dated to the early centuries of the second millennium CE, and there are a fair number of earlier items as well as a number of nineteenth-century pieces. The manuscripts in

3560-506: The adjacent mainland, later called Palaetyrus , meaning "Old Tyre" in Ancient Greek . The fortified city was on top of a rock from which its name was inherited as " S‘r " is the Phoenician word for "rock". It had two ports, the "Sidonian port" to the north, still partly existing today, and the "Egyptian port" to the south which has perhaps been discovered very recently. Throughout history from prehistoric times onwards, all settlements in

3649-467: The armed conflict and by anarchic urban development. In the late 1980s, "clandestine excavations" took place in the Al-Bass cemetery , which "flooded the antiquities market". Regular excavation activities only started again in 1995 under the supervision of Ali Khalil Badawi. Shortly afterwards, an Israeli bomb destroyed an apartment block in the city and evidence for an early church was revealed underneath

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3738-582: The biodiversity of the TCNR is threatened as shown by a strong decrease in the numbers of the caspian terrapin Mauremys caspica , the green toad Bufo viridis and the tree frog Hyla savigny . Also, since the 2000s, the North American camphorweed Heterotheca subaxillaris has invaded the TCNR as a neophyte from Haifa across the Blue Line. During the 2006 war, turtle breeding areas were affected when

3827-612: The bombardment had damaged frescoes in a Roman funerary cave at the Tyre Necropolis . Additional site degradation was also noted, including "the lack of maintenance, the decay of exposed structures due to lack of rainwater regulation and the decay of porous and soft stones". Since 2008, a Lebanese French team under the direction by Pierre-Louis Gatier of the University of Lyon has been conducting archaeological and topographical work. When international archeological missions in Syria came to

3916-432: The brothers Joseph and Elijah HaKohen ben Solomon Gaon, was elected gaon, to the exclusion of Joseph, who remained av beit din . Joseph died in 1053, and his brother Elijah became av beit din. Daniel ben Azariah died in 1062 after a long and serious illness, which he is said to have acknowledged as a punishment for the ill-treatment of his predecessors. Elijah now became gaon, filling the office down to 1084. After Jerusalem

4005-427: The causeway, rapidly creating an emerged sandy isthmus (or tombolo ), linking the island to the mainland. This sandy isthmus rapidly inflated during the centuries following the construction of the causeway. By early Imperial Roman times, monumental buildings had been built over most of its surface. Their layout implies that the isthmus was by then nearly as wide as today. Therefore, the isthmus had completely reshaped

4094-564: The chamber which Agnes reported was "simply indescribable". The Genizah fragments have now been archived in various libraries around the world. The Taylor -Schechter collection at Cambridge is the largest, by far, single collection, with nearly 193,000 fragments (137,000 shelf-marks). There are a further 43,000 fragments at the Jewish Theological Seminary Library . The John Rylands University Library in Manchester holds

4183-532: The city hosts three of the twelve Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon: Burj El Shimali , El Buss , and Rashidieh . Tyre juts out from the coast of the Mediterranean Sea , and is located about 80 km (50 mi) south of Beirut . It originally consisted of two distinct urban centres: Tyre itself, which was on an island just 500 to 700m offshore, and the associated settlement of Ushu on

4272-513: The culture and language of their contemporary society. The documents are invaluable as evidence for how colloquial Arabic of this period was spoken and understood. They also demonstrate that the Jewish creators of the documents were part of their contemporary society: they practiced the same trades as their Muslim and Christian neighbors, including farming; they bought, sold, and rented properties. The importance of these materials for reconstructing

4361-449: The discovery of 250 BCE to 500 CE harbour sediments behind this breakwater demonstrated the existence of a northern harbour repeatedly, if not permanently, throughout Antiquity under the modern harbour of Tyre. The location of the southern harbour is more elusive. Renan (1864–1874) envisioned it as an extensive structure now located offshore, south of the former island. Subsequent diving surveys identified submerged man-made structures on

4450-461: The early medieval period, despite difficulties in interpreting the currency units cited and other aspects of the data. They have invariably been cited in discussions of the medieval Islamic economy since the 1930s, when this aspect of the collection was researched, mostly by French scholars. Many of the items in Cairo Genizah are not a complete manuscript, but are instead a fragment of one or two leaves, many of which are damaged themselves. Similarly,

4539-467: The eastern coast of Tyre Island within 6–10 centuries after the construction of the causeway, spurring a radical transformation of the city. Tyre enjoys a reputation of having some of the cleanest beaches and waters of Lebanon. However, a UN HABITAT profile found that "seawater is also polluted due to wastewater discharge especially in the port area". There is still also considerable pollution by solid waste. The Tyre Coast Nature Reserve (TCNR)

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4628-573: The heart of the city, excluding the Natural and Coastal Reserve; Burj El Shimali to the East without unpopulated agricultural lands; Abbasiyet Sour to the North without agricultural lands and a dislocated village; and Ain Baal to the South-East, also without agricultural lands and dislocated villages. Tyre's urban area lies on a fertile coastal plain, which explains the fact that as of 2017 about 44% of its territory

4717-403: The lifetime of Hai ben Sherira , the last Babylonian gaon, is from a mention of Josiah Ḥaber being ordained at the "holy yeshiva of Palestine" in a document dated 1031. A postscript to a minor chronicle dating from 1046 says that Solomon ben Judah was then the "head of the Academy of Jerusalem". Three generations of the descendants of Solomon's predecessor, Solomon HaKohen ben Joseph, were heads of

4806-545: The list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 1984. The historian Ernest Renan noted that "One can call Tyre a city of ruins, built out of ruins". Today, Tyre is the fifth largest city in Lebanon after Beirut , Tripoli , Sidon , and Baalbek . It is the capital of the Tyre District in the South Governorate . There were approximately 200,000 inhabitants in the Tyre urban area in 2016, including many refugees , as

4895-667: The middle of the 9th century, information about the Geonim is listed in the Seder Olam Zutta , which links all the geonim to Mar-Zutra III (and thereby to the Davidic line ). Fragments found in the Cairo Geniza contradict the list, claiming that a member of the priestly family headed the academy in Tiberias in the middle of the 8th century. Evidence of the academy in Palestine existing during

4984-402: The northeastern outskirts of Tyre. The city of Tyre appears in many biblical traditions: A multi-ring structured region on Europa , the smallest of the four Galilean moons orbiting Jupiter , is named after Tyre, the legendary birthplace of princess Europa. Originally called "Tyre Macula ", it is some 140 kilometers in diameter (about the size of the island of Hawaii ) and thought to be

5073-413: The northern harbour area of Tyre. In 2003, Randa Berri, president of the National Association for the Preservation of South Lebanon's Archaeology and Heritage and wife of Nabih Berri , veteran leader of the Amal Movement and longtime Speaker of the Parliament of Lebanon, patronized a plan to renovate Khan Sour / Khan Al Askaar, the former Ma'ani palace, and convert it into a museum. As of 2019, nothing

5162-426: The number of documents added were fewer between 1266 and circa 1500, when most of the Jewish community had moved north to the city of Cairo proper, and saw a rise around 1500 when the local community was increased by refugees from Spain . It was they who brought to Cairo several documents that shed a new light on the history of Khazaria and Kievan Rus' , namely, the Khazar Correspondence , the Schechter Letter , and

5251-440: The old tannaic tombs, a large concourse of people attending the burial. Shortly after Abiathar entered office, David ben Daniel, a descendant of the Babylonian exilarchs, was proclaimed exilarch in Egypt. Ben Daniel succeeded in having his authority recognized by the communities along the Palestinian and Phoenician coasts, Tyre alone retaining its independence for a time. But when this city again came under Egyptian rule in 1089,

5340-412: The original hands of the authors), the Genizah gives a detailed picture of the economic and cultural life of the Mediterranean region, especially during the 10th to 13th centuries. Manuscripts from the Cairo Geniza are now dispersed among a number of libraries, including the Cambridge University Library , the Jewish Theological Seminary of America , the John Rylands Library , the Bodleian Library ,

5429-439: The pages of a single manuscript often became separated. It is not uncommon to find the pages of one manuscript housed in three or four different modern libraries. On the other hand, non-literary writings often lost their value with the passage of time, and were left in the Genizah while still more or less intact. The materials comprise a vast number of texts, including many parts of Jewish religious writings and even fragments from

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5518-486: The presence of archaeological remains at proposed construction sites. The sites have not been investigated. Despite the relocation of a proposed traffic interchange, the lack of precise site boundaries confuses the issue of site preservation. A 2018 study of Mediterranean world heritage sites found that Tyre's City site has "the highest risk of coastal erosion under current climatic conditions, in addition to 'moderate' risk from extreme sea levels." Further coastal inspection

5607-439: The priests there, the city was founded 2300 years earlier (around 2750 BCE), as a walled place upon the mainland, now known as Paleotyre (Old Tyre). The Phoenician Tyrians' international trade network was based on its two harbours which are mentioned by ancient writers (Arrian, Anabasis, 2, 24; Strabo, Geography, 16,2,23). The northern harbour opened toward the Phoenician city of Sidon and has been therefore referred to as

5696-439: The rabbinic institute and bore the title of "gaon." Solomon HaKohen ben Joseph reigned for approximately six months during the year 1025. A work of one of the geonim of Palestine, the Megillat Abiathar of Abiathar ben Elijah ha-Cohen , which was discovered by Schechter in the Cairo Genizah and gives a very clear account of this episode in the history of the Jews of Palestine. During the 11th century, daily prayers were offered at

5785-413: The results, she suggested that the Al Mobarakee Tower may actually date back to Hellenistic times. All those works stopped though soon after the 1975 beginning of the Civil War and many records were lost. In 1984, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) declared Tyre a World Heritage Site in an attempt to halt the damage being done to the archaeological sites by

5874-425: The rubble. Its unusual design suggests that this was the site of the Cathedral of Paulinus which had been inaugurated in 315 CE. In 1997, the first Phoenician cremation cemetery was uncovered in the al-Bass site , near the Roman necropolis. Meanwhile, Honor Frost mentored local Lebanese archaeologists to conduct further underwater investigations, which in 2001 confirmed the existence of a human-made structure within

5963-504: The seafloor within 150 m of the former island. Antoine Poidebard, who was the first to have them explored by divers in 1939, saw in these structures former breakwaters enclosing a harbour with two entrances. The geographic area enclosed within these structures is therefore often referred to as the “Southern Harbour”. These structures have also been interpreted as a polder-like area protecting an urban district (El-Amouri et al., 2005; Frost, 1971; Renan, 1864–1874). A Phoenician-style breakwater

6052-470: The site where an asteroid or comet impacted Europa's ice crust. The asteroid 209 Dido is named after the legendary Tyrian-Carthaginian princess. It is a very large main-belt asteroid , classified as a C-type asteroid which is probably composed of carbonaceous materials. 209 Dido was discovered in 1879 by C. H. F. Peters . The first cinema in Tyre opened in the late 1930s when a café owner established makeshift film screenings. Hamid Istanbouli –

6141-630: The social and economic history for the period between 950 and 1250 cannot be overemphasized. Judaic scholar Shelomo Dov Goitein created an index for this time period which covers about 35,000 individuals. This included about 350 "prominent people," among them Maimonides and his son Abraham , 200 "better known families", and mentions of 450 professions and 450 goods. He identified material from Egypt, Israel , Lebanon , Syria (but not Damascus or Aleppo ), Tunisia , Sicily , and even covering trade with India . Cities mentioned range from Samarkand in Central Asia to Seville and Sijilmasa , Morocco to

6230-426: The synagogue and in the Basatin cemetery east of Old Cairo. Modern Cairo Geniza manuscript collections include some old documents that collectors bought in Egypt in the latter half of the nineteenth century. The first European to note the collection was apparently Simon van Gelderen (a great-uncle of Heinrich Heine ), who visited the Ben Ezra synagogue and reported about the Cairo Genizah in 1752 or 1753. In 1864

6319-491: The third highest office. A letter in the "Mittheilungen aus der Sammlung der Papyrus Erzherzog Rainer" addresses Solomon ben Judah, "the first gaon of Palestine." This letter clearly shows the same close connection between the Jews of Egypt and those of Palestine as is indicated in the Megillat Abiathar . Solomon ben Judah was succeeded at his death by Daniel ben Azariah , a scion of the house of exilarchs who had gone from Babylon to Palestine and had formerly done much injury to

6408-608: The time of the First Crusade , Abiathar sent a letter to the community of Constantinople . It is dated from the Tripolis of Phoenicia , where the academy may have been removed. Abiathar was succeeded by his brother Solomon. An undated anonymous letter dwells on the controversies and difficulties the academy had to contend with. The next generation of Solomon HaKohen ben Joseph's descendants dwelt in Egypt. In 1031 Masliah ben Solomon ha-Cohen ,

6497-610: The town was originally built. The predominant form in Classical Greek was Týros ( Τύρος ), which was first seen in the works of Herodotus but may have been adopted considerably earlier. It gave rise to Latin Tyrus , which entered English during the Middle English period as Tyre . The demonym for Tyre is Tyrian , and the inhabitants are Tyrians . Tyre has a Hot-summer mediterranean climate (classified as Csa under

6586-582: The traveler and scholar Jacob Saphir visited the synagogue and explored the Genizah for two days; while he did not identify any specific item of significance he suggested that possibly valuable items might be in store. In 1896, the Scottish scholars and twin sisters Agnes S. Lewis and Margaret D. Gibson returned from Egypt with fragments from the Genizah they considered to be of interest, and showed them to Solomon Schechter "their irrepressibly curious rabbinical friend" at Cambridge. Schechter, already aware of

6675-509: The west; from Aden north to Constantinople ; Europe not only is represented by the Mediterranean port cities of Narbonne , Marseilles , Genoa and Venice , but even Kiev and Rouen are occasionally mentioned. In particular the various records of payments to labourers for building maintenance and the like form by far the largest collection of records of day wages in the Islamic world for

6764-406: The “Sidonian Harbour” by 19th and 20th century scholars, but it was referred to as the "Port of Astronoe" during Late Antiquity. The southern harbour opened toward Egypt and was referred to as the “Egyptian Harbour”. The location of the two harbours has been the subject of speculations since the 17th Century. The submarine excavation of a large, 4-6th Century BCE breakwater north of the city, and

6853-469: Was an academy that had seceded from the authority of the Eretz Yisrael rabbinic Leadership Institute at the time of the Egyptian exilarch David ben Daniel. It is unknown what office Maṣliaḥ occupied at Fustat, although he retained his title of gaon. A daughter of Maṣliaḥ presented to the academy a book by Samuel ben Hofni , which she had inherited from her grandfather, the gaon Solomon ben Elijah. In 1112,

6942-535: Was conducted in 2019, leading to a new hypothesis about the local relative sea level rise and to discovery of yet unreported submerged coastal structures. Like many of the cities in the Levant and in Lebanon , the architecture since the Lebanese Civil War in the 1970s has been of poor quality, which tend to threaten the cultural heritage in the built environment before the war. Meanwhile, historical buildings from

7031-580: Was decreed in 1998 by the Ministry of Public Works . It is 3.5 km (2.2 mi) long and covers over 380 hectares (940 acres). The TCNR is within the best preserved stretch of sandy coastline in southern Lebanon and divided into two section zones: a 1.8 km sand lined beach, 1.8 km long and 500 meters wide-ranging from the Tyre Rest House in the north to the Rashidieh Refugee Camp in the South, and

7120-500: Was done by a French team under the leadership of Denyse Le Lasseur in 1921. It was followed by another mission between 1934 and 1936 that included aerial surveys and diving expeditions. It was led by the Jesuit missionary Antoine Poidebard , a pioneer of aerial archaeology . Large-scale excavations started in 1946 under the leadership of Emir Maurice Chéhab (1904–1994), "the father of modern Lebanese archaeology" who for decades headed

7209-452: Was done in that regard and the ruins have kept on crumbling. The hostilities of the 2006 Lebanon War put the ancient structures of Tyre at risk. This prompted UNESCO 's Director-General to launch a "Heritage Alert" for the site. Following the cessation of hostilities in September 2006, a visit by conservation experts to Lebanon observed no direct damage to the ancient city of Tyre. However,

7298-529: Was followed in the 1870s by Johannes Nepemuk Sepp. His most notable work was excavating at the cathedral in an attempt to find the bones of Frederick Barbarossa . More work was undertaken in 1903 by the Greek archaeologist Theodore Makridi , curator of the Imperial Museum at Constantinople . Important findings like fragments of marble sarcophagi were sent to the Ottoman capital. An archaeological survey of Tyre

7387-468: Was forced to move to Tyre, Lebanon in 1071; authority was later transferred to Fustat , Egypt . The Palestinian Academy had probably ceased to exist before the Christians conquered Palestine . The tradition of the Palestinian gaonate seems to have survived at Damascus , for Benjamin of Tudela (c. 1170) says that the teachers of Damascus were considered as the "scholastic heads of the Land of Israel." Before

7476-653: Was of Aaronite origin and that Abiathar claimed Ezra as his ancestor. Cairo Geniza The Cairo Geniza , alternatively spelled the Cairo Genizah , is a collection of some 400,000 Jewish manuscript fragments and Fatimid administrative documents that were kept in the genizah or storeroom of the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Fustat or Old Cairo , Egypt . These manuscripts span the entire period of Middle-Eastern, North African, and Andalusian Jewish history between

7565-620: Was published by Blackwell in 1958, with a second edition in 1959. Jewish bankers in Old Cairo used a double-entry bookkeeping system which predated any known usage of such a form in Italy, and whose records remain from the 11th century AD, found amongst the Cairo Geniza. The Cairo Genizah Collections at the University of Pennsylvania and at the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary

7654-478: Was recently found within this area, but excavation is needed to confirm its age ascription. Harbour sediments found behind the structure suggest that the breakwater was part of the Egyptian harbour. Harbour sediments found near Hiram's Tower, further north, mark an early location of the Sidonian Harbour. The development of Tyre was profoundly affected by the construction of a causeway built by Alexander

7743-502: Was taken by the Seljuq Turks in 1071, the gaonate was removed from Jerusalem, apparently to Tyre. In 1082, Elijah Gaon of Palestine called a large convocation at Tyre. On this occasion, he designated his son Abiathar as his successor to the gaonate and his other son, Solomon, as av beit din. In 1084, Elijah held a council at Haifa . He died shortly thereafter and was buried in Galilee , near

7832-616: Was to remove the contents periodically and bury them in a cemetery. Many of these documents were written in the Aramaic language using the Hebrew alphabet . As the Jews considered Hebrew to be the language of God, and the Hebrew script to be the literal writing of God, the texts could not be destroyed even long after they had served their purpose. The Jews who wrote the materials in the Genizah were familiar with

7921-578: Was used for intra-urban agriculture, while built-up land constituted over 40%. In terms of geomorphology and seismicity , Tyre is close to the Roum Fault and the Yammouneh Fault . Though it has suffered a number of devastating earthquakes over the millennia , the threat level is considered to be low in most places and moderate in a few others. However, a tsunami following an earthquake and subsequent landslides and floods pose major natural risks to

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