The British Museum excavation at Sidon: The Middle Bronze Age
Claude Doumet Serhal

The city-state of Sidon, 20 km south of the Lebanese capital, Beirut, was one of the most important ancient Canaanite and Phoenician coastal cities. However, like other places in modern Lebanon, most of what we knew of its history until now came from contemporary Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian and Greek records. In 1998 permission was granted by the Lebanese Department of Antiquities for a British team to begin excavations on the site of the ancient city. Immediately above the Early Bronze Age deposits was a substantial layer of sterile sand. In this sand 25 Middle Bronze Age burials were discovered as well as an animal bone deposit with a Minoan cup dating late in the MM II A. Some of the material uncovered show links between Sidon and the surrounding region as well as contacts with the wider Mediterranean.