Stelae of Nahr el-Kalb
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33.955530°N 35.596696°E / 33.955530; 35.596696 The commemorative stelae of Nahr el-Kalb are a group of over 20 inscriptions and rock reliefs carved into the limestone rocks around the estuary of the Nahr al-Kalb (Dog River) in Lebanon, just north of Beirut.
Commemorative stelae of Nahr el-Kalb | |
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Material | Limestone |
Writing | Egyptian hieroglyphs, Assyrian cuneiform, Latin, Greek, Arabic, French and English |
Created | c.1500 BC – AD 1946 |
Present location | in situ |
The inscriptions include three Egyptian hieroglyphic stelae from pharaohs including Ramesses II,[1] six cuneiform inscriptions[1] from Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian kings including Esarhaddon[1] and Nebuchadnezzar II,[1] Roman and Greek inscriptions,[1] Arabic inscriptions from the Egyptian Mamluk sultan Barquq[2] and the Druze prince Fakhr-al-Din II,[3] a memorial to Napoleon III's 1860 intervention in Lebanon[4] and a dedication to the 1943 independence of Lebanon from France.[4] As such, the site has been said to summarise all of Lebanon's history in one place.[5]
The earliest European to identify the site was the 17th-century traveller Henry Maundrell in 1697,[6][7] and Franz Heinrich Weissbach [de] was the first editor of the inscriptions in 1922.[1]
In 2005, the stelae at the river were listed in the UNESCO Memory of the World initiative.[5]