Lebanon's ancient port city of Byblos is the focus of a new exhibition, opened by French President Emmanuel Macron at the Arab World Institute in Paris on Monday. The retrospective is made up of nearly 400 artefacts that trace the history of one of the world’s oldest continuously inhabited cities.
Running until August 23, Byblos: Lebanon’s Millennial City charts the development of the Unesco World Heritage Site from circa 8900BC, when it emerged as a key Mediterranean port linking the Levant with Egypt, Greece and Mesopotamia.
It is also the first major exhibition under the leadership of Anne-Claire Legendre, the institute’s first female president, appointed last month following the resignation of Jack Lang.
Speaking at the opening alongside Lebanon’s culture minister Ghassan Salame, Macron said: “Being here today is first and foremost a mark of esteem, respect and friendship, to congratulate all those who made this possible. This exhibition that we have just walked through is absolutely magnificent.”
The exhibition also features recently uncovered archaeological material, including the southern gate of the ancient city and an intact Bronze Age necropolis, presented publicly for the first time.
Legendre said mounting the exhibition required transporting works out of Beirut under difficult conditions. “We had to bring back the treasures of Lebanon under bombs, in particularly difficult circumstances,” she said. “An exhibition carried out with a great deal of determination, a great deal of courage and great trust between the teams, in a particularly complicated context.”
She added that the exhibition “marks both the millennial history of Lebanon, and reminds us how much it is our duty to preserve this history and to protect this heritage from any erasure”.
Salame said the project is part of an effort to safeguard Lebanon’s cultural heritage despite ongoing instability. “Preserving such a rich heritage does not consist only in protecting stones. It is about keeping a spirit alive,” he said. “What is threatened can still be saved.”
Macron’s visit comes weeks after French police searched the Arab World Institute as part of an investigation into its former head, Lang, over alleged links to financier Jeffrey Epstein. Lang, who led the institute from 2013 until his resignation last month, has denied any wrongdoing.
