Tyre, << tyr, >> was an ancient Phoenician seaport. Until the late 300’s B.C., it stood on a small island off the coast of what is now southern Lebanon. Tyre was a great city and an important shipping port from as early as 1350 B.C. It handled goods from Mesopotamia and Arabia. The people of Tyre were known as accomplished navigators and sailors and for their cultural and intellectual activities.
Egypt controlled most of the Mediterranean coast, including Tyre, before about 1100 B.C. Tyrians carried on trade for the Egyptians with the peoples of Asia Minor and the Aegean Sea. Tyre enjoyed its greatest prosperity from 1100 to 573 B.C. Part of that time, Assyria, and then Babylonia, ruled Tyre. Tyre founded some colonies, including Carthage on North Africa’s Mediterranean coast.
In 573 B.C., the Babylonians crushed a Tyrian revolt after laying siege to the city for 13 years. Badly weakened, Tyre fell to the Persians in 538 B.C. In 332 B.C., Alexander the Great conquered the city. He built a road from the mainland to the island, creating a peninsula upon which present-day Tyre, also called Sur, stands. In 64 B.C., Tyre became part of the Roman Empire. In the A.D. 300’s, it became part of the Byzantine (East Roman) Empire. Christian crusaders occupied the city from A.D. 1124 until the Mamluks of Egypt captured it in 1291 (see Mamluks ).
