Syria · 2nd millennium BCE
Arwad
Arwad
The island that never knelt
An island city north of the Lebanese coast, still speaking the same letters. The Assyrian annals name it among the harbors that paid in ships rather than in chains.
An island that did not kneel
Sidon Sea Castle — later fortress on a Phoenician island-harbor. Arwad was another.
Arwad paid in hulls, not chains (photograph: Sidon island-castle, same coast type)
Wikimedia Commons · Sidon Sea Castle
Gad Yaton: The island kept its counsel. The letters are the same.
Hulls, not chains
Arwad sat off the Syrian shore as Tyre sat off the Lebanese: a rock, a harbor, a lord of the city. The Assyrian kings boast of coastal rulers who kissed the feet. What the annals omit is the bargain. This island paid in timber, metal, and ships. It kept its letters and its gods.
The photograph on this page is a sister island-harbor on the same coast — Sidon’s later castle on Phoenician rock. Arwad was another that did not kneel.
Gad Yaton: the rock in the water kept its own counsel. Hulls, not chains.