Mostly Roman on the surface
The title promises Phoenician architecture, but most of what a visitor can walk among at Tyre dates from the Roman and Byzantine periods, roughly the first to the seventh centuries CE. The Phoenician city, which had its great days in the first millennium BCE, lies below and around these remains and is much harder to see. Tyre’s old centre was on an island that later merged with the mainland, and the modern town of Sour covers much of the same ground, which limits how much can be excavated. Parts of the ancient city are inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage list.
The archaeological areas are usually described as two main zones, Al-Mina on the former island’s edge and Al-Bass a short distance away.
Al-Mina: the city centre
At Al-Mina, excavation has exposed parts of the Roman and Byzantine city. The main features include a paved colonnaded street, rows of columns that once lined the road, and public areas that probably formed an agora or marketplace. Visitors can see sections of the street with columns that have been re-erected. Colonnaded streets were a standard feature of eastern cities under Rome, and the same pattern appears at places such as the Gerasa colonnaded street in Jordan.
Al-Bass: necropolis, arch and hippodrome
The second area, Al-Bass, is the larger and in some ways the more impressive. It includes:
- A Roman and Byzantine necropolis. A large cemetery with stone sarcophagi, many with carved decoration, tombs built above ground and underground burial chambers. It was in use for a long period and includes some of the most substantial funerary monuments in Lebanon.
- A monumental road and arch. A long paved road lined with columns approached the city, with a triumphal arch at one end. The arch is a restored landmark, and the road leads toward the burial grounds. Roman cities typically placed cemeteries along roads outside their boundaries.
- An aqueduct. Sections of a Roman-era water channel reached the city from springs on the mainland.
- The hippodrome. This is the monument most people remember. Built in the Roman period, probably in the second century CE, it is among the largest and best preserved structures of its kind in the Roman world. Descriptions often give a length of around 480 metres and a capacity of about 20,000 spectators, but such numbers are estimates and vary between sources. It was designed for chariot racing, a popular spectacle across the empire, with a long track around a central spine and tiered seating along the sides.
The Tyre hippodrome retained much of its stone seating and shows how the arena was built, partly by cutting into and building up the ground, with banks of seats carried on vaults. Scholars note that it also had a long working life, since racing continued under Byzantine rule.
What lies beneath
Phoenician Tyre is present, but mostly out of sight. A few lines of evidence are worth noting.
- Burials. Excavations at Al-Bass uncovered earlier burials from the Phoenician period beneath the Roman cemetery, including cremations in jars, dating to the early first millennium BCE, although the exact range is still discussed. These were published as evidence of how the earlier city used the same ground.
- The harbours. The ancient harbours were important to Tyre’s economy. Surveys of the sea floor have located structures and quay walls near the old shore. Underwater work is slow, and the date of some features is still discussed.
- Buried settlement layers. The ancient island sits beneath later houses, streets and a medieval town. Tyre was an important Crusader city until it fell in 1291, and later building altered the area.
The Phoenician city is described in ancient texts as a place of tall houses and magnificent temples, such as the shrine of Melqart associated with King Hiram of Tyre. None of those buildings has been securely identified on the ground.
Why the site is fragile
Tyre has faced several pressures. Modern development has built over much of the old city, groundwater makes digging difficult, and conflict in Lebanon in recent decades has affected the area, including damage and looting concerns. Heritage organisations have worked to protect the key monuments, but there is a limit to what can be excavated without removing the later buildings above. As a result, visitors today see Roman Tyre, while the Phoenician city remains a subject for careful survey and cautious interpretation.