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Tyre or Şūr (Latin Tyrus), ancient city-state and Mediterranean Sea port of Phoenicia, in what is now southern Lebanon. The site is now occupied by the fishing village of Şūr, located 72 km (45 mi) south of Beirut. Ancient Tyre occupied both an offshore island and part of the mainland. A 4th-century-bc causeway built to connect the two parts eventually accumulated a sand cover, creating the peninsula on which Şūr sits today.
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Ancient and Medieval Tyre
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Tyre was founded as a colony of Sidon by the 14th century bc, when it was mentioned in the Amarna Letters, Babylonian clay tablets discovered in the Nile Valley in Egypt. The wealth and talents of its people are recorded in the Bible, which recounts how Tyre’s King Hiram assisted Israel’s King Solomon in the construction of the Temple in Jerusalem. A leading Phoenician trading center for centuries, Tyre gained fame for its Tyrian purple dye (produced from the shells of the murex sea snail), its glassware, and regional products such as cedar, perfume, jewelry, and wine. Tyrians founded the colony of Carthage in northwest Africa in the late 9th century bc.
From its fortified island bastion, Tyre repulsed several major assaults, including a 13-year siege by Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II in the 6th century bc. The city finally fell, in 332 bc, to Macedonian conqueror Alexander the Great, who constructed the causeway connecting the island to the shore as part of his seven-month siege. Angered by Tyre’s stubborn resistance, Alexander reportedly slaughtered a quarter of the city’s inhabitants and sold the rest into slavery. In the subsequent centuries, control over Tyre passed from the Seleucids to the Egyptians to the Romans (later, Byzantines), who developed the city into a major commercial center once more. It fell to Arab Muslims in the 7th century ad, then to European Crusaders in 1124. Egyptian Mamluks destroyed Tyre in 1291 as they drove the Crusaders out of the region for good. Although adequate for the small ships of antiquity, Tyre’s harbors became almost useless after medieval times, and the city never recovered.
Present-day Şūr features an open-air archaeological museum. Since 1947 extensive excavations have unearthed a fine monumental arch, Roman bath, large 2nd-century-ad Roman hippodrome, and many Byzantine mosaics. A Byzantine necropolis has yielded numerous sarcophagi, several of which are on display in the Beirut National Museum. Caught up in the crosscurrents of the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990), Şūr suffered from Israeli invasions—one-third of the town was destroyed in 1982 bombings and shelling—and in subsequent fighting between the warring parties. In July 2006 the town was once again targeted by Israeli air strikes. Several people were killed in the bombings—which caused severe damage to Şūr’s buildings and infrastructure—during the Israel-Lebanon conflict. Most of Şūr’s inhabitants are Shia Muslims, but there are also populations of Sunni Muslims and Christians. Population is estimated to be about 20,000.
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