JEBEIL, Jubeil, or Djeba.il , an ancient town of Syria, is pleasantly situated on a slight eminence near the sea, about 20 miles north of Beyrout. It is surrounded by a wall, a mile and a half in circumference, with square towers at the angles, which along with the old castle at the south-east corner are attributed to the crusaders. In the gardens and vineyards that surround the town lie numerous broken granite columns,—these, with the number of ruined houses within the walls, testifying to its former importance. The stele of Jehawmelek, king of Gebal, found here is one of the most important of Phoenician monuments. The small port is almost choked * up with sand and ruins. The place has dwindled to a village of some 600 inhabitants....
Jebeil is the Phoenician Gebal and the Byblos of the Greeks. Its inhabitants were renowned as stone-cutters (1 Kings v. 18, margin) and as shipbuilders (Ezekiel xxvii. 9); while Arrian (ii. 20, 1) represents Enylus, king of Byblos, as joining Alexander with a fleet, after that monarch had captured the city. Philo of Byblos makes it the most ancient city of Phoenicia, founded by Kronos, t.c., the Moloch (Melek) who appears from the stele of Jehawmelek to have been with Baaltis ( 1 jqj ∏⅛I3) the chief deity of the city. Baaltis on this stele has the characteristics of Isis-Hathor. Compare the legend that the ark with the corpse of Osiris was cast ashore at Byblos, and there found by Isis (Plut., Mor., 357). The orgies of Adonis in the temple of Baaltis (Aphrodite Byblia) are described by Pseudo·-Lucian, De Dea Syr., cap. vi. The river Adonis is the Ibrahim river, which flows near the town. The crusaders, after failing before it in 1099, captured “Giblet” in 1103, but lost it again to Saladin in 1189. Under Mahometan rule it has gradually decayed. See Renan, Miss, de Phen. ; Movers, Phönizier, ii. 1, 107: Bädeker-Socin’s Handbook.
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