Byblos, 37 km north of Beirut, is one of the top contenders for the "oldest continuously inhabited city" award. Although its beginnings are lost in time, modern scholars say the site of Byblos goes back at least 7000 years. Some time after 1200 BC, it was the Greeks, who gave the name "Phoenicia", referring to coastal area. Because of the importance of this commercial center in the papyrus trade, they called the city "Byblos".

With its own kings, culture and flourishing trade, Long before Greece and Rome, this ancient town was a powerful, independent city state.

It has been continuously occupied by many civilizations for seven thousand years which are Phoenician, Egyptian, Persian, Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Arab and Turk. Therefore, we can find the largest amount of archaeogical treasures dating from many Ages. Many temples have been devastated and new ones were built on the ruins. Among them was the "Temple of the Obelisks", so called because of huge amount of obelisks stone found within, and many precious objects were discovered kept in seal potter jars and hidden under the floors.

This is one of the richest archaeological areas in Lebanon. Under the domination of the Egyptian Pharaohs in the 3rd and 2nd millennium BC, Byblos was a commercial and religious capital of the Phoenician coast. The earliest form of the Phoenician alphabet found to date is the inscription on the sarcophagus of King Ahiram of Byblos which is now in the Lebanese National Museum.