Sidon

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Coordinates: 35°23′53″E / 33.56056°N 35.39806°E / 33.56056; 35.39806

Sidon
صيدا Ṣaydā
View of the new city from the Sea Castle. Part of the Sea Castle in front.

Sidon

Location in Lebanon
Coordinates: 35°23′53″E / 33.56056°N 35.39806°E / 33.56056; 35.39806
Country  Lebanon
Governorate South Governorate
District Sidon District
Area
 - City 3.03396 sq mi (7.86 km²)
Population
 - Density 22,970/sq mi (8,767/km²)
 - Metro 200,000
Time zone EET (UTC+2)
 - Summer (DST) +3 (UTC)

Sidon,or Saïda, (Arabic: صيدا‎, Ṣaydā; Phoenician: , Ṣydwn; Greek: Σιδών; Latin: Sidon; Hebrew: צידון‎, Ṣīḏōn, Turkish: Sayda) is the third-largest city in Lebanon. It is located in the South Governorate of Lebanon, on the Mediterranean coast, about 40 km (25 mi) north of Tyre and 40 km (25 mi) south of the capital Beirut. Its name means a fishery. It is a city of 200,000 inhabitants mainly of the Muslim Sunni, Shiite, and Christian Greek Catholic and Maronite.

History

Sidon has been inhabited since 4000 BC and perhaps as early as Neolithic times (6000 - 4000 B.C.). It was one of the most important Phoenician cities, and may have been the oldest. From here, and other ports, a great Mediterranean commercial empire was founded. Homer praised the skill of its craftsmen in producing glass and purple dyes. It was also from here that a colonizing party went to found the city of Tyre. Tyre also grew into a great city, and in subsequent years there was competition between the two, each claiming to be the metropolis ('Mother City') of Phoenicia. Glass manufacturing, Sidon's most important enterprise in the Phoenician era, was conducted on a vast scale, and the production of purple dye was almost as important. The small shell of the Murex trunculus was broken in order to extract the pigment that was so rare it became the mark of royalty.

In 1855 AD, the sarcophagus of King Eshmun’azar II was discovered. From a Phoenician inscription on its lid, it appears that he was a "king of the Sidonians," probably in the 5th century BC, and that his mother was a priestess of ‘Ashtart, "the goddess of the Sidonians." In this inscription the gods Eshmun and Ba‘al Sidon 'Lord of Sidon' (who may or may not be the same) are mentioned as chief gods of the Sidonians. ‘Ashtart is entitled ‘Ashtart-Shem-Ba‘al '‘Ashtart the name of the Lord', a title also found in an Ugaritic text.

In the years before Jesus, Sidon had many conquerors: Assyrians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks, and finally Romans. Herod the Great visited Sidon. Both Jesus and Saint Paul are said to have visited it too (see Biblical Sidon below). The city was eventually conquered by the Arabs and then by the Ottoman Turks.

Like other Phoenician city-states, Sidon suffered from a succession of conquerors. At the end of the Persian era in 351 BC, it was invaded by the emperor Artaxerxes III and then by Alexander the Great in 333 BC when the Hellenistic era of Sidon began. Under the successors of Alexander, it enjoyed relative freedom and organized games and competitions in which the greatest athletes of the region participated. In the Necropolis of Sidon, important finds such as the Alexander Sarcophagus, the Lycian tomb and the Sarcophagus of the Crying Women were discovered, which are now on display at the Istanbul Archaeology Museum in Istanbul.[1]

When Sidon fell under Roman domination, it continued to mint its own silver coins. The Romans also built a theater and other major monuments in the city. In the reign of Elagabalus a Roman colonia was established there, and it was given the name of Colonia Aurelia Pia Sidon. During the Byzantine period, when the great earthquake of 551 AD destroyed most of the cities of Phoenicia, Beirut's School of Law took refuge in Sidon. The town continued quietly for the next century, until it was conquered by the Arabs in 636 AD.

On December 4, 1110 Sidon was sacked in the First Crusade by King Baldwin of Jerusalem and King Sigurd of Norway. It then became the centre of the Lordship of Sidon, an important seigneury in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. During the Crusades it was sacked several times: it was finally destroyed by the Saracens in 1249. In 1260 it was again destroyed by the Mongols. The remains of the original walls are still visible.

After Sidon came under Ottoman Turkish rule in the seventeenth century, it regained a great deal of its earlier commercial importance. After World War I it became part of the French Mandate of Lebanon. During World War II the city, together with the rest of Lebanon, was captured by British forces fighting against the Vichy French, and following the war it became a major city of independent Lebanon.

Following the Palestinian exodus in 1948, a considerable number of Palestinian refugees arrived in Sidon, as in other Lebanese cities, and were settled at the large refugee camps of Ein el-Hilweh and Mieh Mieh. At first these consisted of enormous rows of tents, but gradually houses were constructed. The refugee camps constituted de-facto neighborhoods of Sidon, but had a separate legal and political status which made them into a kind of enclaves. At the same time, the remaining Jews of the city fled, and the Jewish cemetery fell into disrepair, threatened by coastal erosion.

Sidon today

Although Saida in 1900 was a small fishing town of 10,000 inhabitants, studies in 2000 showed a population of 65,000 in the city and around 200,000 in the metropolitan area. The little level land around the city is used for cultivation of some wheat, vegetables and fruits, especially citrus and bananas. The fishing in the city remains active with a newly opened fishery that sells fresh fish by bidding every morning. The ancient basin is transformed into a fishing port while a small quay was constructed to receive small commercial vessels.

A state-of-the-art stadium was inaugurated in 2000 for the Asian Football Confederation's Cup 2000.

The Makab

Near the southern entrace to the city lies a 'rubbish mountain' called the Makab, a 600,000 cubic meter heap that reaches the height of a four-storey building. Originally created to dispose of the remains of buildings destroyed in Israeli airstrikes during the 1982 invasion, it is now the main dump for the city. Growing out of the sea, it has become an environmental hazard, with medical waste and plastic bags polluting nearby fishing grounds.[2][3][4][5]

Old City

The historical core of Saida is a Mamluk-era old city that extends between the Sea Castle and the St. Louis Castle. Located on a promontory jutting into the sea, this walled medieval city is very well-preserved and is still inhabited today. The old City resembles a vaulted maze with narrow alleyways and winding streets. Arched pathways connect the different neighborhoods of the city. On street level, numerous souvenir shops and mini-markets could be found with old-

fashioned bakeries making crunchy whole-wheat bread, called "Kaak". A lot of the alleys take the name of their residents' occupations like the "Carpenters' Alley" and the "Tailors' Alley". Several mosques dating back to the Umayyad Era are still preserved and are open to the public. A number of TV series and Music Videos have been filmed inside the Old city of Saida. Being of great historical and architectural significance, the Old City went through a lot of renovations and there is still of restoring to be done.

Administrative Divisions

The city of Saida is administrated by the Municipality of Saida. The municipality is constituted of a council of 21 members including the City Mayor and his Deputy. It has administrative and financial independence but remains under the control and supervision of the central government, specifically the Ministry of Interior. The municipality's jurisdiction is limited to a region of 786 hectares in area and 5 meters in elevation, while each of the city's suburbs is administrated by its own independent municipal council. Saida is the center of the Governorate of South Lebanon, and hosts the seat of the Governor of Southern Lebanon. The city is also the center of the Saida District and the Union of Saida and Zahrani Municipalities (founded in 1978 and contains 15 municipalities). Saida hosts the southern regional headquarters of a series of governmental facilities like the Central Bank of Lebanon, Electricite du Liban, Central Telecommunications Station...etc. It is also the home of the Justice Palace of South Lebanon in its new headquarters on East Boulevard (the old headquarters were an old Ottoman serial that is currently occupied by the LSF and is planned to be transformed into a cultural center by the municipality).