Hélène Sader gathers and synthesizes the archaeological and textual evidence from excavations conducted during the past fifty years at Tyre and its far-flung settlements. By incorporating the results obtained from western Tyrian sites rich in metals, Sader confirms that Tyre and its colonies, which stretched to the Atlantic coast of Spain, held incredible wealth. In addition to her analysis of the material remains, soundings, and surveys, Sader includes a thorough discussion of the main Tyrian gods and the practice of cremation introduced at the beginning of the Iron Age. More than seventy-five images and maps illuminate the development of Tyre and its cultural heritage. The result is a more complex picture of the history of Tyre than that known from its description in the Hebrew Bible, ancient Near Eastern sources, and classical histories. Tyre emerges from the shadows of myth as the main protagonist of the Phoenician maritime expansion.

Hélène Sader is Professor of Archaeology at the American University of Beirut and has directed excavations of Phoenician settlements at Beirut and Tell el-Burak. Sader is the author of Les états araméens de Syrie depuis leur fondation jusqu’à leur transformation en provinces assyriennes (1987), Iron Age Funerary Stelae from Lebanon (2005), and The History and Archaeology of Phoenicia (2019).