It was a place of great commerce, sending to the East by land and to the West by the sea. This is shown to have been the case in several of the prophets.
It was not conquered by the Israelites, and is first spoken of when its king Hiram sent to David cedar trees with carpenters and masons to build David a house 2 Sam.
He also materially assisted Solomon by sending timber and workmen for the temple 1 Kings 1 And Hiram king of Tyre sent his servants unto Solomon; for he had heard that they had anointed him king in the room of his father: for Hiram was ever a lover of David.
The seamen of Tyre also aided in navigating the ships of Solomon. God was known in the palaces of Jerusalem—the god of this world in Tyre, there could be gratified the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh , and the pride of life.
Hence the destruction of Tyre Ezek. Tyre was to be forgotten seventy years Isa. Isaiah It is not clear to what time this refers. Nebuchadnezzar besieged Tyre for thirteen years.
Tyre was built partly on the main land and partly on an island. This may possibly refer to the fact that Tyre forwarded cedar trees from Lebanon for the building of the second temple Ezra 7 They gave money also unto the masons, and to the carpenters; and meat, and drink, and oil, unto them of Zidon, and to them of Tyre, to bring cedar trees from Lebanon to the sea of Joppa, according to the grant that they had of Cyrus king of Persia.
Ezra , but we must look to a day yet future for the fulfillment of the prophecy compare Psa. These remains were much more considerable in the time of Benjamin of Tudela, in the latter part of the 12th century, who mentions that towers, markets, streets, and halls might be observed at the bottom of the sea p. Insular Tyre was much improved by king Hiram, who in this respect was the Augustus of the city.
He added to it one of the islands lying to the N. This island, the outline of which can no longer be traced, previously contained a temple of Baal, or, according to the Greek way of speaking, of the Olympian Jupiter. Apion, i. It was by the space thus gained, as well as by substructions on the eastern side of the island, that Hiram was enabled to enlarge and beautify Tyre, and to form an extensive public place, which the Greeks called Eurychorus.
The artificial ground which Hiram formed for this purpose may still be traced by the loose rubbish of which it consists. The frequent earthquakes with which Tyre has been visited Sen.
The powerful navies of Tyre were received and sheltered in two roadsteads and two harbours, one on the N. The northern, or Sidonian roadstead, so called because it looked towards Sidon Arrian, ii. The harbour which adjoined it was formed by a natural inlet on the NE. On the N. Portions of these walls may still be traced.
The eastern side of the harbour was enclosed by two ledges of with the assistance of walls, having a passage between them about feet wide, which formed the mouth of the harbour. In case of need this entrance could be closed with a boom or chain.
At present this harbour is almost choked with sand, and only a small basin, of about 40 yards in diameter, can be traced Shaw, Travels, vol. The southern roadstead was called the Egyptian, from its lying towards that country, and is described by Straho l. If, however, the researches of Bertou may be relied upon Topogr. The wall is said to be covered with 2 or 3 fathoms of water, whilst within it the depth is from 6 to 8 fathoms. Bertou admits, however, that this wall has never been carefully examined; and if it had existed in ancient times, it is impossible to conceive how so stupendous a work should have escaped the notice of all the writers of antiquity.
According to the same authority, the whole southern part of the island was occupied by a cothon, or dock, separated from the roadstead by a wall, the remains of which are still visible. This harbour, like the northern one, could be closed with a boom; whence Chariton vii. At present, however, there is nothing to serve for a harbour, and even the roadstead is not secure in all winds. Shaw, ii. The northern and southern harbours were connected together by means of a canal, so that ships could pass from one to the other.
This canal may still be traced by the loose sand with which it is filled. We have already adverted to the sieges sustained by Tyre at the hands of Shalmaneser, Nebuchadnezzar, Alexander, and Antigonus. That by Alexander was so remarkable, and had so much influence on the topography of Tyre, that we reserved the details of it for this place, as they may be collected from the narratives of Arrian Anab.
Curtius iv. The insular situation of Tyre, the height and strength of its walls, and the command which it possessed of the sea, seemed to render it impregnable; and hence the Tyrians, when summoned by Alexander to surrender, prepared for an obstinate resistance. The only method which occurred to the mind of that conqueror of overcoming the difficulties presented to his arms by the site of Tyre, was to connect it with the mainland by means of a mole.
The materials for such a structure were at hand in abundance. The deserted buildings of Palae-Tyrus afforded plenty of stone, the mountains of Lebanon an inexhaustible supply of timber. For a certain distance, the mole, which was feet in breadth, proceeded rapidly and successfully, though Alexander's workmen were often harassed by parties of Tyrian troops, who landed in boats, as well as by the Arabs of the Syrian desert.
But as the work approached the island, the difficulties increased in a progressive ratio. Not only was it threatened with destruction from the depth and force of the current, often increased to violence by a southerly wind, but the workmen were also exposed to the missiles of the Tyrian slingers and bowmen, aimed both from vessels and from the battlements of the city. To guard themselves from these attacks, the Macedonians erected two lofty wooden towers at the extremity of the mole, and covered them with hides as a protection against fire.
The soldiers placed on these towers occasioned the Tyrians considerable annoyance. At length, however, the latter succeeded in setting fire to the towers by means of a fire-ship filled with combustibles; and afterwards, making a sortie in their boats, pulled up the stakes which protected the mole, and destroyed the machines which the fire had not reached.
To complete the discomfiture of the Macedonians, a great storm arose and carried away the whole of the work which had been thus loosened. This misfortune, which would have damped the ardour of an ordinary man, only incited Alexander to renew his efforts with greater vigour and on a surer plan. He ordered a new mole to be constructed, broader than the former one; and in order to obviate the danger of destruction by the waves, he caused it to incline towards the SW.
At the same time he collected a large fleet from Sidon, whither he went in person, from Soli, Mallus, and other places; for, with the exception of Tyre, all Phoenicia was already in the hands of Alexander. He then made an incursion into Coelesyria, and chased away the Arabs who annoyed his workmen employed in cutting timber in Antilibanus.
When he again returned to Tyre with his fleet, which he had joined at Sidon, the new mole had already made great progress. It was formed of whole trees with their branches, covered with layers of stone, on which other trees were heaped. The Tyrian divers, indeed, sometimes succeeded in loosening the structure by pulling out the trees; but, in spite of these efforts, the work proceeded steadily towards completion.
The large fleet which Alexander had assembled struck terror into the Tyrians, who now confined themselves to defensive measures. They sent away the old men, women, and children to Carthage, and closed the mouths of their harbours with a line of triremes.
It is unnecessary to recount all the incidents which followed, and we shall therefore confine ourselves to the most important. Alexander had caused a number of new machines to be prepared, under the direction of the ablest engineers of Phoenicia and Cyprus. Some of these were planted on the mole, which now very nearly approached the city; others were placed on board large vessels, in order to batter the walls on other sides. Various were the devices resorted to by the Tyrians to frustrate these attempts.
They cut the cables of the vessels bearing the battering rams, and thus sent them adrift; but this mode of defence was met by the use of iron mooring chains. To deaden the blows of the battering engines, leathern bags filled with sea-weed were suspended from the walls, whilst on their summit were erected large wheel-like machines filled with soft materials, which being set in rapid motion, either averted or intercepted the missiles hurled by the Macedonians. A second wall also was commenced within the first.
On the other hand, the Macedonians, having now carried the mole as far as the island, erected towers upon it equal in height to the walls of the town, from which bridges were projected towards the battlements, in order to take the city by escalade. Yet, after all the labour bestowed upon the mole, Tyre was not captured by means of it. The Tyrians annoyed the soldiers who manned the towers by throwing out grappling hooks attached to lines, and thus dragging them down. Nets were employed to entangle the hands of the assailants; masses of red-hot metal were hurled amongst them, and quantities of heated sand, which, getting between the interstices of the armour, caused intolerable pain.
The Jewish author Flavius Josephus already understood the problem: although he loved the Bible, he realized that non-Jews might reasonably ask questions about its reliability. Therefore, when Josephus wrote his Jewish Antiquities , he supported the Biblical account with quotes from one Menander of Ephesus , who claimed to have studied Tyrian sources. This appears to have been a real religious revolution. The problem is still with us today.
It is far from clear how much the author s of Samuel and Kings knew about the Early Iron age - this is the debate about minimalism and maximalism - and we cannot establish how reliable Menander of Ephesus was. So, we do not really know how important king Hiram was. It is likely that he was, like king Solomon, a really existing person, but some of his deeds may be legendary.
The colonization movement was stimulated by external pressure. From the northeast, Tyre and the other Phoenician cities were threatened by the Assyrians. In order to buy them off, Tyre needed to obtain precious articles from the west.
Of course, its prosperity made the city attractive to attack, but the island could not be captured. This created a situation in which Tyre flourished, expanded its influence to the western colonies, but was often watched its possessions on the land being looted and pillaged. An Assyrian king would boast that he had defeated Tyre, and after some time, more peaceful conditions arose, allowing Assyro-Tyrian trade to flourish.
So, in both war and peace, Assyria benefitted from Tyre's trade network. According to the text published as ANET 3 , he reached the Mediterranean, and accepted tribute from the coastal cities, including Tyre, where the people understood that they had to pay or face their land being looted.
Probably, the Tyrian guest was king Ithoba'al I, whose reign was, according to Menander of Ephesus, also remembered for a great famine. The Bible mentions him as the father of Jezebel, the wife of king Ahab of Israel. This verse note [ 1 Kings This would be a necessary precondition is Tyre was indeed, as Menander of Ephesus states, the mother city of Bathrun and the unidentified Libyan city of Auza text.
A coalition, led by Damascus but not including Ithoba'al of Tyre , came close to victory at Qarqar , but in , the Assyrians were sufficiently in control of the situation to isolate Damascus, and demand tribute from Israel, Sidon, and Tyre.
Although the tributes must have been quite heavy, Tyre was capable of founding Carthage, and although story text says that there was a conflict between the colonists and the government, relations soon improved - if the story about the refugees is not a piece of fiction.
The Tell al-Rimah Stela and the Nimrud Slab record tributes paid at the beginning of the eighth century.
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