Ancient Warrior Grave Unearthed In Lebanese Port (Sidon)

ABC News ^ | 9-16-2002

[blam]

Mon, Sep 16 2002 12:39 AM AEST

Ancient warrior grave unearthed in Lebanese port

Archaeologists have unearthed several Bronze Age graves, including that of an ancient warrior interred with his axe, in the southern Lebanese port city of Sidon.

Excavation team director Claude Doumet Serhal said the excavations are "among the most important archaeological projects in Lebanon as they are taking place in the centre of the city of modern Sidon."

He also said the warrior's grave dated back to the Middle Bronze Age, around the second millennium BC, and included an unusually well preserved bronze duck-bill axe with a wooden handle.

The team from the British Museum also discovered four Middle Bronze Age children buried in jars, two of them with Egyptian scarabs.

The archaeologists, in their fourth season of excavations at Sidon, said a Byzantine grave marker with an engraved cross showed that the city was still occupied in modern times.

They said they also found a Phoenician inscription on a piece of pottery, the first such inscription found in Sidon from the ancient seafarers.

The archaeologists said the Sidon dig was the first urban excavation in Lebanon since the city of Beirut was excavated in the 1990s.

Archaeologists digging in central Beirut, during rebuilding after the country's 15 year civil war, unearthed traces of successive civilisations going back 5,000 years.

[LostTribe]

>the warrior's grave dated back to the Middle Bronze Age, around the second millennium BC,

A relative perhaps, or a bad guy?

[Verginius Rufus]

It's too bad the news story is not more precise. The second millennium lasted 1000 years--surely they can pinpoint the date of the graves more exactly. The scarab may be datable within narrow limits. The Middle Bronze Age should be from about 1950 to 1550 B.C. They don't say whether the Phoenician text was in cuneiform, hieroglyphics, or alphabetic.

[SunkenCiv]

This oldie never got a ping.

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[Henchman]

Most likely a Celt.

[razorback-bert]

[SunkenCiv]

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[SunkenCiv]

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[Larry Lucido]

Next.....on “Deadliest Warrior”......

[SunkenCiv]

There can be only one.

[Larry Lucido]

LOL! True.

[Larry Lucido]

I miss the old blam.

Please come back.

[SunkenCiv]

This topic was posted 9/15/2002, thanks blam.

• 4,000-year-old Canaanite warrior found in Sidon dig[Lebanon] [08/07/2008]