Eight thousand year old Byblos, or Jbeil as the Lebanese call it is the oldest continually inhabited city in the world. The remnants of civilizations are stacked upon one another. Canaan, Phoenecian, Roman, Christian, Persian, French. . .it is hard for me the casual tourist to separate them.

The Egyptians are the ones who gave the name Byblos for the sums of papyrus that were exported from here. The Greeks called it Jbeil meaning 'pottery.' I walk the ancient ground imagining vessels of wine and smelling the cedars loaded onto ships. I imagine the burying of the dead among the ruins.

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