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Kamid el-Loz, also spelled Kamid al-Lawz, is located in West Bekaa, Lebanon. The settlement has a population numbering several thousand, mostly
Sunni Sunni Islam is the largest branch of Islam and the largest religious denomination in the world. It holds that Muhammad did not appoint any successor and that his closest companion Abu Bakr () rightfully succeeded him as the caliph of the Mu ...
, people and is also a site of archaeological excavations.


History

In 1838,
Eli Smith Eli Smith (September 13, 1801 – January 11, 1857) was an American Protestant missionary and scholar. Biography Smith was born in Northford, Connecticut, to Eli and Polly (née Whitney) Smith. He graduated from Yale College in 1821 and from A ...
noted ''Kamid el-Lauz'' as a
Sunni Muslim Sunni Islam is the largest branch of Islam and the largest religious denomination in the world. It holds that Muhammad did not appoint any successor and that his closest companion Abu Bakr () rightfully succeeded him as the caliph of the Musli ...
village in the
Beqaa Valley The Beqaa Valley (, ; Bekaa, Biqâ, Becaa) is a fertile valley in eastern Lebanon and its most important farming region. Industry, especially the country's agricultural industry, also flourishes in Beqaa. The region broadly corresponds to th ...
. The ancient name of the site is thought to be Kumidi.Jens Kamlah
The Significance of the Bronze Age Temples at Kamid el-Loz (Lebanon) for the Research on Phoenician Temple Cult
Rivista di studi fenici XL, 2, 2012


Archaeology

Kamid el-Loz was the site of major German archaeological excavations between 1963 and 1981. One of the most important sites in Lebanon where archaeologists found and recorded many spectacular buildings, which are very important to the history of the region.
Paleolithic The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic ( years ago) ( ), also called the Old Stone Age (), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone tools, and which represents almost the entire period of human prehist ...
material was found alongside
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 ...
on through to the late
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 ...
period, becoming a human settlement during the
Bronze Age The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...
and continuing until the
Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...
era, a German team from the
University of Freiburg The University of Freiburg (colloquially ), officially the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg (), is a public university, public research university located in Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The university was founded in 1 ...
has conducted more recent excavations and studies.


Cuneiform tablets

Probably the most important finds were documents written in
cuneiform script Cuneiform is a Logogram, logo-Syllabary, syllabic writing system that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Near East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. Cuneiform script ...
on clay tablets dated to the 14th century BC. The village of Kamed el-Loz lies on top of settlements built in the
Achaemenid The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire, also known as the Persian Empire or First Persian Empire (; , , ), was an Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid dynasty in 550 BC. Based in modern-day Iran, it was the large ...
,
Hellenistic In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the R ...
and
Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...
periods. The site has been determined to be the city of Kumidi in the Amarna letters. It was used as a residence to
Egyptian ''Egyptian'' describes something of, from, or related to Egypt. Egyptian or Egyptians may refer to: Nations and ethnic groups * Egyptians, a national group in North Africa ** Egyptian culture, a complex and stable culture with thousands of year ...
officials to oversee the southern
Levant The Levant ( ) is the subregion that borders the Eastern Mediterranean, Eastern Mediterranean sea to the west, and forms the core of West Asia and the political term, Middle East, ''Middle East''. In its narrowest sense, which is in use toda ...
ine kings for the
pharaoh Pharaoh (, ; Egyptian language, Egyptian: ''wikt:pr ꜥꜣ, pr ꜥꜣ''; Meroitic language, Meroitic: 𐦲𐦤𐦧, ; Biblical Hebrew: ''Parʿō'') was the title of the monarch of ancient Egypt from the First Dynasty of Egypt, First Dynasty ( ...
. South of the village we find a
necropolis A necropolis (: necropolises, necropoles, necropoleis, necropoli) is a large, designed cemetery with elaborate tomb monuments. The name stems from the Ancient Greek ''nekropolis'' (). The term usually implies a separate burial site at a distan ...
or burial place that also dates to this era. Just outside Kamed El-Loz is a large
Umayyad The Umayyad Caliphate or Umayyad Empire (, ; ) was the second caliphate established after the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and was ruled by the Umayyad dynasty. Uthman ibn Affan, the third of the Rashidun caliphs, was also a membe ...
quarry visible from the road. Rock-cut tombs can be seen here, as well as
Aramaic Aramaic (; ) is a Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient region of Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia, the southern Levant, Sinai, southeastern Anatolia, and Eastern Arabia, where it has been continually written a ...
inscriptions. The quarry provided stones for the eighth-century city of Anjar and was worked by
Eastern Christians Eastern Christianity comprises Christian traditions and church families that originally developed during classical and late antiquity in the Eastern Mediterranean region or locations further east, south or north. The term does not describe a ...
from Iraq who were brought to the Beqaa for this purpose. The archaeological site of Kamid Loz I is located north-east of the village of Kamid el-Loz and north-northeast of
Joub Jannine Joub Jannine ( / ALA-LC: ''Jub Jannīn'') is a city located in the Beqaa Valley in Lebanon. Joub Jannine serves as the capital of West Beqaa and it is the center of the Western Beqaa District, hosting the Grand Serail, Serail, which is a main go ...
. The site showed a direct transition from
Paleolithic The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic ( years ago) ( ), also called the Old Stone Age (), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone tools, and which represents almost the entire period of human prehist ...
material which was mixed with
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 ...
s from an aceramic, vigorous culture, little recorded in the
archaeological record The archaeological record is the body of physical (not written) evidence about the past. It is one of the core concepts in archaeology, the academic discipline concerned with documenting and interpreting the archaeological record. Archaeological t ...
called 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 ...
inhabiting the area at the start of the
Neolithic Revolution The Neolithic Revolution, also known as the First Agricultural Revolution, was the wide-scale transition of many human cultures during the Neolithic period in Afro-Eurasia from a lifestyle of hunter-gatherer, hunting and gathering to one of a ...
.
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 ...
flints from this culture collected here included scrapers, picks and
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 along with a large amount of debris.


See also

*
List of cities of the ancient Near East The earliest cities in history were in the ancient Near East, an area covering roughly that of the modern Middle East: its history began in the 4th millennium BC and ended, depending on the interpretation of the term, either with the conquest by ...


References


Bibliography

*


Further reading

* Penner, Silvia, Kāmid el-Lōz 19. Die Keramik der Spätbronzezeit: Tempelanlagen T3 bis T1, Palastanlagen P5 bis P1/2, Königsgrab ("Schatzhaus") und "Königliche Werkstatt", Saarbrücker Beiträge zur Altertumskunde 63, Bonn: R. Habelt, 2006. , , 2006. * Huehnergard, John, “A Byblos Letter, Probably from Kamid el-Loz”, ZA 86, pp. 97–113, 1996. * Lilyquist, Christine, “Objects Attributable to Kāmid el-Lōz and Comments on the Date of Objects in the ‘Schatzhaus’”, in Adler, W. (ed.), Kāmid el-Lōz 11 – Das ‘Schatzhaus’ im Palastbereich: Die Befunde des Königsgrabes, Saarbrücker Beiträge zur Altertumskunde 47, Bonn: Habelt, pp. 207–220, 1994. * Lilyquist, Christine, “Stone Vessels at Kāmid el-Lōz, Lebanon: Egyptian, Egyptianizing or Non-Egyptian? A Question at Sites from the Sudan to Iraq to the Greek Mainland”, in Hachmann, R. (ed.), Kāmid el-Lōz 16 – ‘Schatzhaus’-Studien, Saarbrücker Beiträge zur Altertumskunde 59, Bonn: Habelt, pp. 133–73, 1996. * Maurer, Alfred Werner., “Reise in den Orient zur Grabung Kamid el-Loz, Lebanon 1973”, Philologus Verlag Basel(ch)2006. * Hachmann, Rolf., “Kāmid el-Lōz und die Amarna-Zeit oder vom Sinn und Unsinn der Kulturgeschichte und ihrer Erforschung” Saarbrücken 1972. * Hachmann, Rolf, “Der Palast eines syrischen Kleinkönigs der späten Bronzezeit in Kāmid el-Lōz” in: D. Papenfuss u. V. M. Strocka (Hrsg.): Palast und Hütte. Beiträge zum Bauen und Wohnen im Altertum von Archäologen, Vor- und Frühgeschichtlern. Mainz: pp. 21–41, 1982. * Hachmann, Rolf (Hrsg.), “Frühe Phöniker im Libanon – 20 Jahre Ausgrabung in Kāmid el-Lōz” Institut für Vor- und Frühgeschichte und Vorderasiatische Archäologie der Universität des Saarlandes, Saarbrücken 1983, u. (Museumsausgabe).


External links


Kamed El Laouz
Localiban

Informationen zu den Grabungen 1963–1981.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kamid Al Lawz Populated places in Western Beqaa District Sunni Muslim communities in Lebanon Beqaa Valley Great Rift Valley Archaeological sites in Lebanon Amarna letters locations Phoenician cities