BEIRUT: Workers excavating a commercial market in Baalbek, northeast of Beirut, on Tuesday found a mosaic dating back to the historic city’s Roman occupation between 60 B.C. and A.D. 300.
The two-meter-long artifact was uncovered under a municipality building by a team of workers from the Lebanese Organization for Studies and Training who were carrying out excavations to extend a drainage network.
A technical team from the Directorate General of Antiquities in Baalbek protected the colored mosaic with sand and special geotextile covering.
City Mayor Fouad Blog said: “Baalbek is one of the most important cities in Lebanon and, indeed, the world because of its archaeological monuments and riches dating back to the Phoenician, Roman, Greek, Byzantine, Arabic and Islamic eras.”
He called on state authorities “to give Baalbek more care and attention, and to meet our vision with a strategic plan to search for lost treasures, and highlight the cultural, human and civilizational value of the city.”
Baalbek was famous throughout the ages due to its location at the intersection of several major trading routes. The Romans built huge temples, the ruins of which are still perched on the edge of the city after an earthquake around 600 A.D. destroyed many landmarks. The Temple of Jupiter, one of the most imposing Roman sites, has only six of its original 54 columns remaining.
Dr. Jaafar Fadlallah, professor of archaeology, told Arab News: “The Lebanese should not be surprised by the antiquities that can be found in Baalbek. The extent of the ancient city is not known yet. No one knows where the graveyards of that era are located.”
He added: “The colored mosaic found on Tuesday indicates that the place was a huge hall within a Roman palace. Roman Baalbek was inhabited by many emperors, and it is rich with the distinctive architecture that surrounded the ancient temples.”
Fadlallah said that during the second half of the 20th century, the Department of Antiquities failed to stop people building on land that could be rich in antiquities.
During the civil war in the 1970s, people built on archaeological sites in violation of the law. Any excavation work “could reveal buried monuments,” he added.
Workers uncover Roman mosaic in Baalbek market
https://arab.news/wuyaa
Workers uncover Roman mosaic in Baalbek market
- The two-meter-long artifact was uncovered under a municipality building by a team of workers from the Lebanese Organization for Studies and Training
- The city’s mayor called on state authorities “to give Baalbek more care and attention”
Israel calls for pressure on Turkiye to stop attack on Kurds
JERUSALEM: Turkiye must face pressure from world powers to stop attacks on Kurds in northern Syria, a senior Israeli foreign ministry official said on Tuesday.
"The international community must call on Turkey to stop these aggressions and killing. The Kurds must be protected by the international community," foreign ministry director general Eden Bar Tal told reporters.
Palestinian health ministry says 2 killed in Israeli West Bank raids
- Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 820 Palestinians in the West Bank since the start of the war
Ramallah: The Palestinian ministry of health said Israeli forces killed two people on Tuesday in separate raids in the northern West Bank, while the military said it had targeted a “terrorist cell.”
One Palestinian was killed in the town of Tammun, and another in the village of Talouza, the Ramallah-based ministry said.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said its teams had transported the body of an 18-year-old from Tammun who was killed “as a result of shelling,” and that five other people were severely injured during the Israeli raid.
The body was taken to the Turkish Hospital in the nearby city of Tubas, where the director identified the deceased as Suleiman Qutaishat.
The Red Crescent said the other Palestinian was killed in an Israeli raid around the village of Talouza, near Nablus, and was 40 years old.
Residents in the area identified him as Jaafar Dababshe, who they said was shot dead by Israeli forces in front of his house.
The Israeli army when contacted did not offer details, but said on its Telegram channel: “An air force aircraft targeted an armed terrorist cell in the Tammun area” in the early hours of Tuesday.
Violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank has soared since the war in Gaza erupted on October 7, 2023 after Hamas’ attack on Israel.
Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 820 Palestinians in the West Bank since the start of the war, according to the Ramallah-based health ministry.
Palestinian attacks on Israelis have also killed at least 28 people in the West Bank in the same period, according to Israeli official figures.
On Monday, three Israelis were killed when gunmen opened fire on a bus and other vehicles in the West Bank, according to medics.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967.
International flights resume at Damascus airport
- Syria will receive two electricity-generating ships from Turkiye and Qatar to boost energy supplies hit by damage to infrastructure during President Bashar Assad’s rule
Damascus: International flights resumed at Syria’s main airport in Damascus on Tuesday for the first time since Islamist-led rebels toppled President Bashar Assad last month.
A Syrian Airlines flight bound for Sharjah, in the United Arab Emirates, took off at around 11:45 am, marking the first international commercial flight from the airport since December 8.
Syria to receive electricity-generating ships from Qatar and Turkiye
Syria will receive two electricity-generating ships from Turkiye and Qatar to boost energy supplies hit by damage to infrastructure during President Bashar Assad’s rule, state news agency SANA quoted an official as saying on Tuesday.
Khaled Abu Dai, director general of the General Establishment for Electricity Transmission and Distribution, told SANA the ships would provide a total of 800 megawatts of electricity but did not say over what period.
“The extent of damage to the generation and transformation stations and electrical connection lines during the period of the former regime is very large, we are seeking to rehabilitate (them) in order to transmit energy,” Abu Dai said.
He did not say when Syria would receive the two ships.
The United States on Monday issued a sanctions exemption for transactions with governing institutions in Syria for six months after the end of Assad’s rule to try to increase the flow of humanitarian assistance.
The exemption allows some energy transactions and personal remittances to Syria until July 7. The action did not remove any sanctions.
Syria suffers from severe power shortages, with state-supplied electricity available just two or three hours a day in most areas. The caretaker government says it aims within two months to provide electricity up to eight hours a day.
France says fate of citizens held in Iran worsening
PARIS: The situation of three French citizens held in Iran is worsening with some being detained in conditions similar to torture, France’s foreign minister said on Tuesday, adding that future ties and sanctions lifting would depend on their fate.
“The situation of our compatriots held hostage in Iran is simply unacceptable; they have been unjustly detained for several years, in undignified conditions that, for some, fall within the definition of torture under international law,” Jean-Noel Barrot told a conference of French ambassadors.
“I say to the Iranian authorities: our hostages must be released. Our bilateral relations and the future of sanctions depend on it.”
US transfers 11 Guantanamo detainees to Yemen after more than two decades without charge
- President George W. Bush’s administration turned Guantanamo into a detention site for the mostly Muslim men taken into custody around the world in what the US called its “war on terror.”
WASHINGTON: The Pentagon said Monday it had transferred 11 Yemeni men to Oman this week after holding them for more than two decades without charge at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The transfer was the latest and biggest push by the Biden administration in its final weeks to clear Guantanamo of the last remaining detainees there who were never charged with a crime.
The latest release brings the total number of men detained at Guantanamo to 15. That’s the fewest since 2002, when President George W. Bush’s administration turned Guantanamo into a detention site for the mostly Muslim men taken into custody around the world in what the US called its “war on terror.” The US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and military and covert operations elsewhere followed the Sept. 11, 2001, Al-Qaeda attacks.
The men in the latest transfer included Shaqawi al Hajj, who had undergone repeated hunger strikes and hospitalizations at Guantanamo to protest his 21 years in prison, preceded by two years of detention and torture in CIA custody, according to the US-based Center for Constitutional Rights.
Rights groups and some lawmakers have pushed successive US administrations to close Guantanamo or, failing that, release all those detainees never charged with a crime. Guantanamo held about 800 detainees at its peak.
The Biden administration and administrations before it said they were working on lining up suitable countries willing to take those never-charged detainees. Many of those stuck at Guantanamo were from Yemen, a country split by war, with its capital held by the Iranian-allied Houthi militant group.
The sultanate of Oman, on the eastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula, did not acknowledge taking in the prisoners early Tuesday. Officials in the country did not respond to questions from The Associated Press. The key Western ally has taken in some 30 prisoners in the past since the founding of the prison.
However, those prisoners have since been released in circumstances unexplained by Oman. Two Afghans once held by Oman returned to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan in February. One Yemeni died in Oman after being told he and 27 others would be repatriated to Yemen, the British activist group CAGE International said.
“Faced with little choice, 26 of the men and their families returned to Yemen after being pressured by the Omani government, which offered each $70,000 as compensation,” the group said. It wasn’t immediately clear what happened to the 28th prisoner.
The transfer announced Monday leaves six never-charged men still being held at Guantanamo, two convicted and sentenced inmates, and seven others charged with the 2001 attacks, the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, and 2002 bombings in Bali, Indonesia.
