Haret ech Cheikh (also Haret-Ech-Cheikh), is a

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality' ...

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, ...

in 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 ...

near Bouchriyeh.

Archaeology

The archaeological site at Haret Ech Cheikh is east of the road between

Dekwaneh Dekwaneh (or Dekweneh; ) is a suburb north of Beirut in the Matn District of the Mount Lebanon Governorate, Lebanon. The population is predominantly Maronite Christian. Tel al-Zaatar, an UNRWA administered Palestinian refugee camp housing approx ...

and Jdeideh, about above sea level, on the top of a wooded hill. It was discovered by Paul Bovier-Lapierre and Raoul Describes who suggested it may be a ''

high place High places (, singular ''bamā'') are simple hilltop installations with instruments of religion: platforms, altars, standing stones, and cairns are common. Along with open courtyard shrines and sacred trees or groves, they were some of the mos ...

''.Tallon, Maurice, Les Monuments Megalithiques de Syrie et du Liban. MUSJ, vol. 35, 1958. The hilltop has several outcrops of sandstone slabs suggested to be

megalithic A megalith is a large Rock (geology), stone that has been used to construct a prehistoric structure or monument, either alone or together with other stones. More than 35,000 megalithic structures have been identified across Europe, ranging ...

building foundation or enclosure. The suggested foundations have big stones at the corners that were not securely determined to be

prehistoric Prehistory, also called pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the first known use of stone tools by hominins million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use o ...

. Materials collected from the site were

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 ...

Chalcolithic The Chalcolithic ( ) (also called the Copper Age and Eneolithic) was an archaeological period characterized by the increasing use of smelted copper. It followed the Neolithic and preceded the Bronze Age. It occurred at different periods in di ...

in form and was possibly mixed with that of the adjacent site of Ain Cheikh.

Lorraine Copeland Lorraine Copeland (born Elizabeth Lorraine Adie, 1921April 2013) was a British archaeologist specialising in the Palaeolithic period of the Near East. She was a secret agent with the Special Operations Executive during World War II. Early life ...

and

Peter Wescombe Peter Wescombe (4 January 1932 – 25 November 2014) was a British diplomat, amateur archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record cons ...

collected some fresh, unpatinated flint tools from a position west of the hilltop enclosure where a large amount of factory waste was also found. All material is 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 ...

, marked with the label "Ain Cheikh". A grandiose villa dominates land covering part of the hill.

References

External links

www.geographic.org - entry on Haret ech Cheikh
Populated places in Matn District Archaeological sites in Lebanon Chalcolithic sites of Asia Neolithic settlements Neolithic sites of Asia {{Lebanon-geo-stub