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Arwad
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Archaeological Landmark:
Arwad includes a lot of historical and archaeological landmarks which the
tourists and students seek for an entertainment and study. This made the
General Office of Ruins and Museums assigning it as an archaeological area. It
is difficult to make digs in it in order to uncover its contents because of
its narrowness, density of buildings, and deluged parts. Despite of that, some
scientists had visited it and made studies such as Earnest Rynan / 1860 /,
Doso, and Honor Frost. The globe-Trotter, like Carnilos Vandic and Maria
Harry, had written about it. It includes:www.tartoos.com
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The Port:
It is in the eastern side of the
island, divided into two parts by a row of huge rocks. They are about (4 – 6
m3). The granitic columns are distributed everywhere. At its front, there is a
memorial which was built by the French navy in / 1916 /. It consists of a
granitic column crowned by Corinthian crown.
The
northern part of the port is called the Al-Shamalieh (north) port, or Alhabous
cavity. It is the biggest. Whereas, the southern is called Al-Quoblieh
(south) port.
www.tartoos.com
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The Sea Wall:
The aim of building the wall is to defend the
island from the sea tide and the attacks of the enemies. The evidences refer
that it is from the Hellenistic era, but the institutions refer to an older
era. It is noticed that the wall was built at the sea edge. Its stones take
the shape of the letter (U). This is one of the Hellenistic characteristics.
But there are some stones from the Persian era. Whereas, in the western side,
it consists of walls engraved in the rocks. The first wall consists of huge
rocks (about 15 – 20 tons). At another parts, the walls are completely built
of the engraved stones. By this, a smooth area is formed between the city and
the wall. It is full of engraved stones which are paved as bases of buildings
which can't be built before smoothing this area. They could be the remains of
warehouses because Arwad was a port through out the ages. So, the
identification of the building date must depend on the building stages which
aren't controversial. The first bases which were built over the smooth area
define the date of building the wall. On this basis, Honor Frost says:" that
needs on accurate land survey followed by the restyling of the area
architecturally and make an archeological comparison."
www.tartoos.com
Some people say that the wall is from the Mameluke era which began
in / 1302 / on the island. Some others say that it is Phoenician. But the
agreed matter is that the wall had been built in different eras. A large part
of it was destroyed by the natural factors, especially the waves, the passage
of time and the marine raids.
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