The wine-dark web

Cities that taught the sea.

Not an empire of governors. A chain of harbors from Byblos to the Atlantic, speaking one script, praying to one lord of the city.

Eastern Mediterranean

Lebanon · c. 2750 BCE

Tyre

Ṣūr

Island of purple

An island that taught the Mediterranean how to be a city. Hiram of Tyre built with Solomon — cedar, bronze, the pillars Jachin and Boaz. Menander of Ephesus kept the king-list from the city’s own chronicles. Melqart, Lord of the City, sailed west in every colony. Alexander spent seven months to take it. He had to build a causeway. The island became a peninsula. The people did not become his.

The connection →