The commemorative stelae of Nahr el-Kalb are a group of over 20 inscriptions and

rock relief A rock relief or rock-cut relief is a relief, relief sculpture carved on solid or "living rock" such as a cliff, rather than a detached piece of stone. They are a category of rock art, and sometimes found as part of, or in conjunction ...

s carved into the

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

rocks around the

estuary An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime enviro ...

of the

Nahr al-Kalb The Nahr al-Kalb (, meaning ''Dog River'') is a river in Lebanon. It runs for from a spring in Jeita near the Jeita Grotto to the Mediterranean Sea. Historical significance The Nahr al-Kalb is the ancient Lycus River. The river mouth is reno ...

(Dog River) in

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 ...

, just 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 ...

. The inscriptions include three

Egyptian hieroglyphic Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs ( ) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined Ideogram, ideographic, logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with more than 1,000 distinct char ...

stelae A stele ( ) or stela ( )The plural in English is sometimes stelai ( ) based on direct transliteration of the Greek, sometimes stelae or stelæ ( ) based on the inflection of Greek nouns in Latin, and sometimes anglicized to steles ( ) or stela ...

from pharaohs including

Ramesses II Ramesses II (sometimes written Ramses or Rameses) (; , , ; ), commonly known as Ramesses the Great, was an Pharaoh, Egyptian pharaoh. He was the third ruler of the Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt, Nineteenth Dynasty. Along with Thutmose III of th ...

, six

cuneiform 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 ...

inscriptions from

Neo-Assyrian The Neo-Assyrian Empire was the fourth and penultimate stage of ancient Assyrian history. Beginning with the accession of Adad-nirari II in 911 BC, the Neo-Assyrian Empire grew to dominate the ancient Near East and parts of South Caucasus, Nort ...

and

Neo-Babylonian The Neo-Babylonian Empire or Second Babylonian Empire, historically known as the Chaldean Empire, was the last polity ruled by monarchs native to ancient Mesopotamia. Beginning with the coronation of Nabopolassar as the King of Babylon in 626 BC ...

kings including

Esarhaddon Esarhaddon, also spelled Essarhaddon, Assarhaddon and Ashurhaddon (, also , meaning " Ashur has given me a brother"; Biblical Hebrew: ''ʾĒsar-Ḥaddōn'') was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 681 to 669 BC. The third king of the S ...

and

Nebuchadnezzar II Nebuchadnezzar II, also Nebuchadrezzar II, meaning "Nabu, watch over my heir", was the second king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, ruling from the death of his father Nabopolassar in 605 BC to his own death in 562 BC. Often titled Nebuchadnezzar ...

, Roman, Latin and Greek inscriptions,

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

inscriptions from the Egyptian Mamluk sultan

Barquq Al-Malik Az-Zahir Sayf ad-Din Barquq (; born ) was the first Sultan of the Circassians, Circassian Mamluk Burji dynasty of Mamluk Sultanate (Cairo), Egypt ruling from 1382 to 1389 and 1390 to 1399. Born to a Christianity, Christian father in Cir ...

Britannica Al Kalb River
/ref> and the

Druze The Druze ( ; , ' or ', , '), who Endonym and exonym, call themselves al-Muwaḥḥidūn (), are an Arabs, Arab Eastern esotericism, esoteric Religious denomination, religious group from West Asia who adhere to the Druze faith, an Abrahamic ...

prince

Fakhr-al-Din II Fakhr al-Din Ma'n (; 6 August 1572 13 April 1635), commonly known as Fakhr al-Din II or Fakhreddine II (), was the paramount Druze emir of Mount Lebanon from the Ma'n dynasty, an Ottoman governor of Sidon-Beirut and Safed, and the strongman ...

, a memorial to

Napoleon III Napoleon III (Charles-Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was President of France from 1848 to 1852 and then Emperor of the French from 1852 until his deposition in 1870. He was the first president, second emperor, and last ...

's 1860 intervention in LebanonCommemorative stela of Nahr el-Kalb at Livius.org
/ref> and a dedication to the 1943 independence of Lebanon from France. As such, the site has been said to summarise all of Lebanon's history in one place. The earliest European to identify the site was the 17th-century traveller

Henry Maundrell Henry Maundrell (1665–1701) was an academic at Oxford University and later a Church of England clergyman, who served from 20 December 1695 as chaplain to the Levant Company in Syria. His ''Journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem at Easter A.D. 1697'' ...

in 1697, and was the first editor of the inscriptions in 1922. In 2005, the stelae at the river were listed in the

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...

Memory of the World UNESCO's Memory of the World (MoW) Programme is an international initiative to safeguard the documentary heritage of humanity against collective amnesia, neglect, decay over time and climatic conditions, as well as deliberate destruction. It ca ...

initiative.

Description

Past generals and conquerors have traditionally built

monument A monument is a type of structure that was explicitly created to commemorate a person or event, or which has become relevant to a social group as a part of their remembrance of historic times or cultural heritage, due to its artistic, historical ...

s at the mouth of the Nahr al-Kalb.

Ramses II Ramesses II (sometimes written Ramses or Rameses) (; , , ; ), commonly known as Ramesses the Great, was an Pharaoh, Egyptian pharaoh. He was the third ruler of the Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt, Nineteenth Dynasty. Along with Thutmose III of th ...

Nebuchadnezzar Nebuchadnezzar II, also Nebuchadrezzar II, meaning "Nabu, watch over my heir", was the second king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, ruling from the death of his father Nabopolassar in 605 BC to his own death in 562 BC. Often titled Nebuchadnezzar ...

Caracalla Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (born Lucius Septimius Bassianus, 4 April 188 – 8 April 217), better known by his nickname Caracalla (; ), was Roman emperor from 198 to 217 AD, first serving as nominal co-emperor under his father and then r ...

, and even armies from modern-day

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

and

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-west coast of continental Europe, consisting of the countries England, Scotland, and Wales. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the List of European ...

have engaged in this practice. The inscriptions are carved on a strategic location commanding the North-South coastal road along the

Eastern Mediterranean The Eastern Mediterranean is a loosely delimited region comprising the easternmost portion of the Mediterranean Sea, and well as the adjoining land—often defined as the countries around the Levantine Sea. It includes the southern half of Turkey ...

. The earliest inscription is that of

, and relates to the

New Kingdom of Egypt The New Kingdom, also called the Egyptian Empire, refers to ancient Egypt between the 16th century BC and the 11th century BC. This period of History of ancient Egypt, ancient Egyptian history covers the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt, Eighteenth, ...

's control of the region. The earliest Egyptian incursions into the region were many centuries earlier, as recorded by the

Autobiography of Weni The Autobiography of Weni is a tomb inscription from Ancient Egypt, which is significant to Egyptology studies. Weni the Elder, or Uni, was a court official of the 6th Dynasty of Ancient Egypt. The location of the Tomb of Weni was lost as a re ...

(c. 2280 BC) and the Sebek-khu Stele (c. 1860 BC). The earliest European to identify the site was the 17th-century traveller

in 1697, who wrote of the river crossing:

To accommodate the passage, you have a path of above two yards breadth cut along its side, at a great height above the water; being the work of the emperor Antoninus... The memory of which good work is perpetuated by an inscription, engraven on a table plained in the side of the natural rock, not far from the entrance into the way... In passing this way, we observed, in the sides of the rock above us, several tables of figures carved; which seemed to promise something of antiquity... as if the old way had gone in that region, before Antoninus cut the other more convenient passage a little lower. In several places hereabouts, we saw strange antique figures of men, carved in the natural rock, and in bigness equal to the life. Close by each figure was a large table, plained in the side of the rock, and bordered round with mouldings. Both the effigies and the tables appeared to have been anciently inscribed all over: but the characters are now so defaced, that nothing but the footsteps of them were visible; only there was one of the figures that had both its lineaments and its inscriptions entire.

Other famous figures who have passed by the area but did not leave any inscriptions behind include

Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon (; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), most commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia (ancient kingdom), Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip ...

and

Saladin Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub ( – 4 March 1193), commonly known as Saladin, was the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty. Hailing from a Kurdish family, he was the first sultan of both Egypt and Syria. An important figure of the Third Crusade, h ...

Inscriptions

Egyptian inscriptions

Three

inscriptions are known, all of which bear the

cartouche upalt=A stone face carved with coloured hieroglyphics. Two cartouches - ovoid shapes with hieroglyphics inside - are visible at the bottom., Birth and throne cartouches of Pharaoh KV17.html" ;"title="Seti I, from KV17">Seti I, from KV17 at the ...

. This was first identified by

Karl Richard Lepsius Karl Richard Lepsius (; 23 December 181010 July 1884) was a German people, Prussian Egyptology, Egyptologist, Linguistics, linguist and modern archaeology, modern archaeologist. He is widely known for his opus magnum ''Denkmäler aus Ägypten ...

. At least one of these is thought to have been placed during the Pharaoh's first campaign in the Levant, and set the

as the border between

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

's province of

Canaan CanaanThe current scholarly edition of the Septuagint, Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus Testamentum graece iuxta LXX interprets. 2. ed. / recogn. et emendavit Robert Hanhart. Stuttgart : D ...

and the possessions of the

Hittites The Hittites () were an Anatolian peoples, Anatolian Proto-Indo-Europeans, Indo-European people who formed one of the first major civilizations of the Bronze Age in West Asia. Possibly originating from beyond the Black Sea, they settled in mo ...

. Scholars such as Edward Robinson connected the Ramses II inscriptions to

Sesostris Sesostris () is the name of a king of ancient Egypt who, according to Herodotus, led a military expedition into parts of Europe. Tales of Sesostris are probably based on the life of Senusret I, Senusret III and perhaps other Pharaohs such as Sho ...

, the Egyptian Pharaoh mentioned by

Herodotus Herodotus (; BC) was a Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus (now Bodrum, Turkey), under Persian control in the 5th century BC, and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria, Italy. He wrote the '' Histori ...

, in reference to Herodotus's note that "The pillars which Sesostris of Egypt set up in the various countries are for the most part no longer to be seen extant; but in Syria Palestine I myself saw them existing with the inscription upon them which I have mentioned and the emblem." Nahr al-Kalb Northern Egyptian inscription drawing as of 1845

Nahr al-Kalb Northern Egyptian inscription drawing as of 1845

Currently, only two Egyptian hieroglyphic inscriptions remain; the third (shown on the left) was remodified by

when he visited the site, with the original text wiped out and written over in French. The two other inscriptions, however, are so damaged that only the outlines of

smiting an unknown enemy, presumably a Hittite, can be seen, along with an Egyptian god standing beside him. In one stelae, a god with a round disk on his head,

Horus Horus (), also known as Heru, Har, Her, or Hor () in Egyptian language, Ancient Egyptian, is one of the most significant ancient Egyptian deities who served many functions, most notably as the god of kingship, healing, protection, the sun, and t ...

, stands next to

and in the other stelae,

Amun-Re Amun was a major ancient Egyptian deity who appears as a member of the Hermopolitan Ogdoad. Amun was attested from the Old Kingdom together with his wife Amunet. His oracle in Siwa Oasis, located in Western Egypt near the Libyan Desert, rema ...

stands beside

. The inscriptions written from top to bottom on both the left and right side of the stelae in the image on the right are exact copies of each other, with both being translated as follows: ''ḥr.w'' ''kꜢ-nḫt mri.y Mꜣꜥ.t''

Horus Name The Horus name is the oldest known and used crest of ancient Egyptian rulers. It belongs to the " great five names" of an Egyptian pharaoh. However, modern Egyptologists and linguists are starting to prefer the more neutral term "serekh name". T ...

: The Strong Bull, Beloved of

Maat Maat or Maʽat ( Egyptian: ''mꜣꜥt'' /ˈmuʀʕat/, Coptic: ⲙⲉⲓ) comprised the ancient Egyptian concepts of truth, balance, order, harmony, law, morality, and justice. Maat was also the goddess who personified these concepts, and regul ...

, ''nsw.bꞽ.ty nb tꜣ.wy Wsr-Mꜣꜥt-Rꜥ.w stp n(.y) Rꜥ.w'' King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Lord of the Two Lands, User-maat-re (

), chosen of Ra, ''sꜣ Rꜥ.w nb ḫꜥ.w Rꜥ.w-msꞽ-s mrꞽ.y Ꞽmn.w ḏꞽ ꜥnḫ mꞽ Rꜥ.w'' Son of Ra, Lord of Appearances:

Mery Amun (Beloved of

Amun Amun was a major ancient Egyptian deity who appears as a member of the Hermopolitan Ogdoad. Amun was attested from the Old Kingdom together with his wife Amunet. His oracle in Siwa Oasis, located in Western Egypt near the Libyan Desert, r ...

), given life like Ra.

Assyrian and Babylonian inscriptions

Six

Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian inscriptions are known. The Esarhaddon stele refers to

's seizure of Memphis from Egyptian Pharaoh

Taharqa Taharqa, also spelled Taharka or Taharqo, Akkadian: ''Tar-qu-ú'', , Manetho's ''Tarakos'', Strabo's ''Tearco''), was a pharaoh of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt and qore (king) of the Kingdom of Kush (present day Sudan) from 690 to 664 BC. ...

in 671 BC. The passage is badly damaged, but is understood to include reference to the cities of

Ashkelon Ashkelon ( ; , ; ) or Ashqelon, is a coastal city in the Southern District (Israel), Southern District of Israel on the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean coast, south of Tel Aviv, and north of the border with the Gaza Strip. The modern city i ...

and Tyre, as well as

and 22

vassal A vassal or liege subject is a person regarded as having a mutual obligation to a lord or monarch, in the context of the feudal system in medieval Europe. While the subordinate party is called a vassal, the dominant party is called a suzerain ...

kings. One inscription is attributed to

. A

plaster cast A plaster cast is a copy made in plaster of another 3-dimensional form. The original from which the cast is taken may be a sculpture, building, a face, a pregnant belly, a fossil or other remains such as fresh or fossilised footprints – ...

of one of the Assyrian inscriptions became the first relic of the ancient Assyrian empire to be brought to the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

, having been prepared by Joseph Bonomi the Younger in 1834.

Classical antiquity inscriptions

A number of

Greco-Roman The Greco-Roman world , also Greco-Roman civilization, Greco-Roman culture or Greco-Latin culture (spelled Græco-Roman or Graeco-Roman in British English), as understood by modern scholars and writers, includes the geographical regions and co ...

inscriptions were carved at the site. The most significant of these is attributed to the

Legio III Gallica Legio III Gallica ( Third Legion "Gallic") was a Roman legion, legion of the Imperial Roman army. The cognomen ''Gallica'' suggests that its earliest recruits came from veterans of the Gaul, Gallic legions of Julius Caesar, a supposition suppo ...

of Roman Emperor

(211–217 AD), who was of

Punic The Punic people, usually known as the Carthaginians (and sometimes as Western Phoenicians), were a Semitic people who migrated from Phoenicia to the Western Mediterranean during the Early Iron Age. In modern scholarship, the term ''Punic'' ...

and

Syrian Syrians () are the majority inhabitants of Syria, indigenous to the Levant, most of whom have Arabic, especially its Levantine and Mesopotamian dialects, as a mother tongue. The cultural and linguistic heritage of the Syrian people is a blend ...

descent and whose official name was "Marcus Aurelius Septimius Bassianus Antoninus". The inscription is related to the road his forces built at the site. The inscription includes the words "Lyco Flumen", which provided scholars such as Edward Robinson to conclude that the Nahr el-Kalb was the ancient Lycus river. Two of the inscriptions are in Greek, one of which still can be read as commemorating road or engineering work left by Proclus, Byzantine governor of Phoenicia in 382 AD in the

4th century in Lebanon This article lists historical events that occurred between 301–400 in modern-day Lebanon or regarding Lebanese people, its people. Administration While sometime before 328, when it is mentioned in the ''Laterculus Veronensis'', Constantine the ...

under

Theodosius I Theodosius I ( ; 11 January 347 – 17 January 395), also known as Theodosius the Great, was Roman emperor from 379 to 395. He won two civil wars and was instrumental in establishing the Nicene Creed as the orthodox doctrine for Nicene C ...

(379–395 AD). Marcus' cousin, Roman emperor

Septimius Severus Lucius Septimius Severus (; ; 11 April 145 – 4 February 211) was Roman emperor from 193 to 211. He was born in Leptis Magna (present-day Al-Khums, Libya) in the Roman province of Africa. As a young man he advanced through cursus honorum, the ...

, also left some Latin inscriptions describing the great glories of his infantry.

Islamic inscriptions

Two

inscriptions are known. The earliest was dedicated to the Mamluk sultan

(1382–1399). An inscription dedicated to Emir of Lebanon

(1572–1635) was noted by

in 1697, but by the 19th century this inscription was no longer legible.

Colonial inscriptions

The first colonial memorial is dedicated to

's 1860–61 intervention in Lebanon. Two inscriptions (1919 and 1930) mark the

Pursuit to Haritan The Pursuit to Haritan occurred between 29 September and 26 October 1918 when the XXI Corps and Desert Mounted Corps of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force (EEF) pursued the retreating remnants of the Yildirim Army Group advanced north from Damascus ...

, when the Allied forces took Damascus, Homs and Aleppo in October 1918 towards the end of

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

. The first inscription is dedicated to Harry Chauvel's

Desert Mounted Corps The Desert Mounted Corps was an army corps of the British Army during the First World War, of three mounted divisions renamed in August 1917 by General Edmund Allenby, from Desert Column. These divisions which served in the Sinai and Palestine ...

, and the second to the

Australian Australian(s) may refer to: Australia * Australia, a country * Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia ** European Australians ** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists ** Aboriginal Aus ...

, New Zealand, Indian, and French contingents, as well as the Sharifian Army of

Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca Hussein bin Ali al-Hashimi ( ; 1 May 18544 June 1931) was an Arab leader from the Banu Qatadah branch of the Banu Hashim clan who was the Sharif and Emir of Mecca from 1908 and, after proclaiming the Great Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Em ...

. In October 1918, an inscription was carved to mark the British and French occupation of Beirut and Tripoli, during the

Occupied Enemy Territory Administration The Occupied Enemy Territory Administration (OETA) was a joint British, French and Arab military administration over the Levantine provinceswhich had been part of the Ottoman Empire for four centuriesbetween 1918 and 1920, set up on 23 October ...

. The next inscription was left by French troops under General Gouraud, of the French Fourth Army, who took Damascus in July 1920 in the

Battle of Maysalun The Battle of Maysalun (), also known as the Battle of Maysalun Pass or the Battle of Khan Maysalun (), was a four-hour battle fought between the forces of the Arab Kingdom of Syria and the French Army of the Levant on 24 July 1920 near Khan M ...

. General Gouraud proclaimed the establishment of the State of

Greater Lebanon The State of Greater Lebanon (; ), informally known as French Lebanon, was a state declared on 1 September 1920, which became the Lebanese Republic (; ) in May 1926, and is the predecessor of modern Lebanon. The state was declared on 1 Septembe ...

on 1 September 1920. In 1942, the Allied forces "cut in the face of the cliff an inscription commemorating the freeing of Syria and the Lebanons" from

Vichy France Vichy France (; 10 July 1940 – 9 August 1944), officially the French State ('), was a French rump state headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain during World War II, established as a result of the French capitulation after the Battle of France, ...

Lebanese inscription

In 1946, a monument was erected in celebration of the independence of Lebanon from France, which came in 1943. In 2000, Lebanese demonstrators, including supporters of ex-general and current politician Emile Lahoud, erected a monument to mark the departure of Israeli troops from Lebanon.

UNESCO Memory of the World

In 2005, the

stela A stele ( ) or stela ( )The plural in English is sometimes stelai ( ) based on direct transliteration of the Greek, sometimes stelae or stelæ ( ) based on the inflection of Greek nouns in Latin, and sometimes anglicized to steles ( ) or stela ...

e were accepted by

into the

international register. The application stated that the stelae "sum up the entire history of Lebanon, from High Antiquity to the present, evoking clearly the successive advances of the Pharaonic, Assyro-Babylonian, Greek, Roman, Arab, French and British armies which braved all the obstacles surrounding this difficult and very steep crossing point to carve commemorative stelae on the rocks." During the

2024 Israeli invasion of Lebanon On 1 October 2024, Israel invaded Southern Lebanon, marking the sixth Israeli–Lebanese conflict, Israeli invasion of Lebanon since 1978. The invasion took place after nearly 12 months of Israel–Hezbollah conflict (2023–present), conflict ...

gave enhanced protection to 34 cultural sites in Lebanon including the Nahr el-Kalb archaeological site to safeguard it from

damage Damage is any change in a thing, often a physical object, that degrades it away from its initial state. It can broadly be defined as "changes introduced into a system that adversely affect its current or future performance".Farrar, C.R., Sohn, H., ...

Gallery

Notes

References

* * * * *. Also available wit
full map here
* * * * Anne-Marie Maila-Afeiche, (ed.) ( 2009), ''Le Site de Nahr el-Kalb'', BAAL (

Bulletin d'Archéologie et d'Architecture Libanaises The National Museum of Beirut (, ''Matḥaf Bayrūt al-waṭanī'') is the principal museum of archaeology in Lebanon. The collection begun after World War I, and the museum was officially opened in 1942. The museum has collections totaling about ...

), Hors Serie V, Beirut, Lebanon: Ministère de la culture, Direction Générale des Antiquités {{Authority control Archaeological sites in Lebanon Ramesses II Neo-Assyrian Empire Inscriptions of Lebanon Nahr el-Kalb Ancient Near East steles World Heritage Tentative List