The Lion's Gate and the Persian Wall in Byblos opening the doors of digital representation to the cultural heritage of a resilient city in Lebanon

Abstract

Byblos, modern Jbeil, is a northern Lebanese city considered as one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities since Neolithic times, designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1984. Thus, the archaeological area, strictly surrounded by city boundaries, is the result of several civilizations that came over the centuries producing many layers of architectural buildings now in precarious state of conservation. The recent nomination of Byblos as one of the "100 Resilient Cities", a project pioneered by the Rockefeller Foundation, fostered some new intents aimed at the preservation of the urban space and the archaeological site. In order to support a possible valorization strategy, the Lion's Gate at the Persian Wall has been chosen as a case study to experiment how digital photogrammetric modeling of meaningful remains can improve dissemination of cultural legacy to remote visitors and transfer knowledge to town planners. This paper presents the preliminary research, which is supposed to be integrated by some more detailed surveys in the near future, in order to populate a shared web repository in which scholars, tourists and planners will find useful information on the archaeological park.

The Value of Natural Stones to Gain in the Cultural and Geological Diversity of Our Global Heritage

“…Stones from Africa, Oceania, and other Asian areas, such as China and the Near and Middle East, remain unacknowledged in recognized scientific networks, even if European, Arabic, and Chinese architectural styles all emerged from long ancient civilizations. The stone-built heritage in countries such as Turkey [27,28], from which both Pavonazzetto marble and Urfa Limestone are published and described as candidates, have not yet been considered as important heritage stones in heritage; the heritage of Lebanon [29,30], Syria [31], Iraq [32], Israel [33], Jordan, [34], Palestine (where natural stone played an important role in the architecture of old cities in the mountain region, such as Jerusalem, Hebron, Bethlehem, and Nablus) [35,36], Saudi Arabia, other nations of the Arabian Peninsula [37], and Iran [38] is also as important as the heritage of the so-called occidental world. Unfortunately, some of these unrepresented areas are very unstable, with political conflicts (e.g., Syria, Iraq, and Palestine), natural hazards, such as earthquakes (e.g., Turkey), and anthropic hazards, such as wars and accidents (e.g., Taliban wars in Afghanistan, a gas explosion in Lebanon), frequently affecting communities.…”