Byblos, cite sacree ([8.sup.e]-[4.sup.e] s. av. J.-C.).

• Author: Reymond, Eric D.
• Position: Book review

Byblos, cite sacree ([8.sup.e]-[4.sup.e] s. av. J.-C.). By J. ELAYI. Supplements a Transeuphratene, vol. 15. Paris: GABALDA, 2009. Pp. 275, plates.

The author of the work under review, J. Elayi, will be known to anyone who has studied the Phoenicians even cursorily. She is the author of numerous books on the Phoenicians, which books sometimes deal in depth with a single city (like Sidon or Beirut) and sometimes with the economy and numismatics of the Phoenician cities collectively. More recently, she has written a monograph on Abd'astart I (or Straton) of Sidon that claims the distinction of being the only book that focuses exclusively on a single Phoenician monarch. The present work, as the title aptly describes, concerns the city of Byblos, specifically its history during the period of time when its political powers had waned and when it was occupied successively by the Assyrians, Babylonians, and the Persians. The book takes as its basic goal the exploration of why Byblos, so powerful during the second millennium B.C.E., became so much weaker, especially in comparison to the neighboring cities Sidon and Tyre, during the middle of the first millennium.

The book is organized in the following manner. The first chapter investigates the sources available for writing such a history as this, which the author admits are few and of diverse types. The second addresses the territorial limits of the city. The third and fourth chapters treat the political history of Byblos from the time of Tiglath-pileser III to the advent of Alexander the Great, while the fifth and sixth chapters address, respectively, the city's slow decline and its strategic evolution from the second haft of the 400S B.C.E. until 333.

What makes writing a history of the Phoenicians, and even more a history of a particular Phoenician city or individual, so difficult is the limited amount of information that derives unambiguously from the Phoenicians themselves. In Elayi's book the extant Byblian inscriptions dating to the time period examined are presented in transliteration and translated in the appendix; they number twenty-seven, over half of which contain little more than one or two names. In her brief analysis of these varied inscriptions, she sometimes presents suggestions for better interpretations or readings. For example, in addressing lines 9-11 of the Yehawmilk [KAI 10] inscription (the pertinent portions of which read: wttn / [1w hrbt b] 'It gbl hn l'n '1nm wl'n 'rs z...