Dekwaneh (or Dekweneh; ) is a suburb north of

Beirut Beirut ( ; ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, just under half of Lebanon's population, which makes it the List of largest cities in the Levant region by populatio ...

in the

Matn District Matn (, '), sometimes spelled Metn (or preceded by the article El, as in El Matn), is a district (''qadaa'') in the Mount Lebanon Governorate of Lebanon, east of the Lebanon's capital Beirut. The district capital is Jdeideh (followed to Jdeideh, ...

of the

Mount Lebanon Governorate Mount Lebanon Governorate () is one of the nine governorates of Lebanon, of which it is the most populous. Its capital is Baabda. Other notable towns and cities include Aley, Bikfaya, and Beit Mery. This governorate is named after the mount ...

Lebanon Lebanon, officially the Republic of Lebanon, is a country in the Levant region of West Asia. Situated at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian Peninsula, it is bordered by Syria to the north and east, Israel to the south ...

. The population is predominantly

Maronite Christian Lebanese Maronite Christians (; ) refers to Lebanese people who are members of the Maronite Church in Lebanon, the largest Christian body in the country. The Lebanese Maronite population is concentrated mainly in Mount Lebanon and East Beir ...

. Tel al-Zaatar, an

UNRWA The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA, pronounced ) is a UN agency that supports the relief and human development of Palestinian refugees. UNRWA's mandate encompasses Palestinians who fl ...

administered

Palestinian Palestinians () are an Arab ethnonational group native to the Levantine region of Palestine. *: "Palestine was part of the first wave of conquest following Muhammad's death in 632 CE; Jerusalem fell to the Caliph Umar in 638. The indigenous p ...

refugee camp housing approximately 50,000-60,000 refugees, and the site of the Tel al-Zaatar massacre were located on the outskirts of the town.

Archaeology

Dekwaneh I is about northwest of Mar Roucos monastery, in the gullies of (now deforested) pinewood slopes on the west side of a ridge. Material was found by Raoul Describes, who mentioned rock-shelters in the area that were destroyed by quarrying for

quicklime Calcium oxide (formula: Ca O), commonly known as quicklime or burnt lime, is a widely used chemical compound. It is a white, caustic, alkaline, crystalline solid at room temperature. The broadly used term '' lime'' connotes calcium-containin ...

.Describes, Raoul., Quelques ateliers paléolithiques des environs de Beyrouth, Mélanges de l'Université Saint-Joseph: Volume VII, 1921. Further collections were found by Auguste Bergy and Peter Wescombe. Some of the

flint Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Historically, flint was widely used to make stone tools and start ...

tools recovered were determined to be

Acheulean Acheulean (; also Acheulian and Mode II), from the French after the type site of Saint-Acheul, is an archaeological industry of stone tool manufacture characterized by the distinctive oval and pear-shaped "hand axes" associated with ''Homo ...

as well as a large amount of waste and bifaces from the

Middle Paleolithic The Middle Paleolithic (or Middle Palaeolithic) is the second subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age as it is understood in Europe, Africa and Asia. The term Middle Stone Age is used as an equivalent or a synonym for the Middle P ...

that suggested it was a factory site at that time. Dekwaneh II material comes from various locations around the area, most notably the ravine below the monastery. Flint tools were also found here by Bergy and Describes which included the

Qaraoun culture The Qaraoun culture is a culture of the Lebanese Stone Age around Qaraoun in the Beqaa Valley. The Gigantolithic or Heavy Neolithic flint tool industry of this culture was recognized as a particular Neolithic variant of the Lebanese highland ...

Heavy Neolithic Heavy Neolithic (alternatively, Gigantolithic) is a style of large stone and flint tools (or industry) associated primarily with the Qaraoun culture in the Beqaa Valley, Lebanon, dating to the Epipaleolithic or early Pre-Pottery Neolithic at ...

forms such as massive

axe An axe (; sometimes spelled ax in American English; American and British English spelling differences#Miscellaneous spelling differences, see spelling differences) is an implement that has been used for thousands of years to shape, split, a ...

s, picks, scrapers and

rabot Rabot may refer to: Geography * Rabot, Tajikistan, a city in Tajikistan *Rabot Island, island near Antarctica * Rabot Glacier, glacier in Antarctica * Rabot Point, a high rocky point in James Ross Island, Antarctica People with the surname *Charl ...

s. Other early

Neolithic The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...

tools were found along with some Middle Paleolithic material including an Emireh point and tortoise cores. Along with material from Dekwaneh I, finds from the locations are stored in the

Museum of Lebanese Prehistory The Museum of Lebanese Prehistory (, ) is a museum of prehistory and archaeology in Beirut, Lebanon. History The museum is the first museum of prehistory in the Middle East and was opened in June 2000 to commemorate the 125th anniversary of Sain ...

LGBT rights Rights affecting lesbian, Gay men, gay, Bisexuality, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people vary greatly by country or jurisdiction—encompassing everything from the legal recognition of same-sex marriage to the Capital punishmen ...

Dekwaneh gained notoriety in the press and social media when, on Monday 22 April 2013, the mayor, Antoine Chakhtoura, ordered Lebanese security forces to raid and shut down a gay-friendly nightclub called Ghost. A number of Syrian gay men and a Lebanese

transgender A transgender (often shortened to trans) person has a gender identity different from that typically associated with the sex they were sex assignment, assigned at birth. The opposite of ''transgender'' is ''cisgender'', which describes perso ...

woman were arrested during the raid and taken to municipal headquarters where it is reported that they were harassed and forced to undress. According to reports, the transgender woman was also photographed naked.

Image gallery

File:General Wessin Street, Dekwaneh, Lebanon.jpg, General Elias Wessin (Wazen) Street in Dekwaneh, Lebanon. File:Dekouané chapelle Saint-Joseph 01.jpg, St. Joseph chapel File:Dekouané chapelle Saint-Joseph 02.jpg, Statue of the

Immaculate Conception The Immaculate Conception is the doctrine that the Virgin Mary was free of original sin from the moment of her conception. It is one of the four Mariology, Marian dogmas of the Catholic Church. Debated by medieval theologians, it was not def ...

Airfield

Remains of a former airfield can be found in Tal El Zaatar. Only a small section of runway exist with Northern section along Mar Roukoz has been reused for commercial warehouses.

References

External links

Dekwaneh - Deir Mar Roukoz - Dahr El Hossein
Localiban {{Archaeological sites in Lebanon Populated places in Matn District Maronite Christian communities in Lebanon Archaeological sites in Lebanon Paleolithic Heavy Neolithic sites