This lovely mountain resort town is perched above the eastern end of
the beautiful Kadisha Gorge and at the foothills of the Cedars of Lebanon.
It is the brith place of Lebanon's most famous author
Khalil Gibran. It has a small museum which pays tribute to him.
Beiteddine palace was built over a period of thirty years by Emir Bechir Chehab II.
It's architecture reflects the typical oriental architecture of the 19th century Ottoman Era.
It is remarkable for its glamorous
arcades, multicolored mosaic floors, reception rooms, harems, hammams
and even by its guest house "Diyafa" where passing guests were lodged
(French poet Lamartine stayed once there).
Detail of the Sarcophagus of Ahiram, king of Byblos, seated
on a cherub throne, before an offering table, 13th century B.C (National Museum of Beirut).
Around 1200 B.C. the scribes of Byblos developed an alphabetic phonetic script, the precursor of our modern
alphabet. By 800 B.C., it had traveled to Greece, changing forever the way man communicated.
Located in the Beqaa Valley of Lebanon, Baalbek is an ancient city
that has been designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site. Originally
Canaanite (3rd century BC), the Assyrians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines,
and Arabs successively occupied Ba'albek and left their imprints on the
place, often modifying what existed previously.
www.kaftoun.com
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Origin of the Semaan Family
Source: Wikipedia online encyclopediaExtracts
Many Christian as well as Muslim families of Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and Palestine trace their roots to the Ghassanid dynasty, including the … Semaan (of Kaftoun)…
Who are the Ghassanids?
The Ghassanids were a group of South Arabian Christian tribes that emigrated in the early 3rd century from Yemen to the Hauran in southern Syria, Jordan and the Holy Land. The term Ghassa-n refers to the kingdom of the Ghassanids.It is said that the Ghassanids came from the city of Ma'rib in Yemen. There was a dam in this city, one year the dam was carried away by the ensuing flood. Thus the people there had to leave. The inhabitants emigrated and became scattered far and wide. The emigrants were from the southern Arab tribe of Azd of the Kahlan branch of Qahtani tribes.
The king Jafna bin ‘Amr emigrated with his family and retinue north and settled in Hauran where the Ghassanid state was founded. There it is assumed that the Ghassanids adopted the religion of Christianity. The capital was at Jabiyah in the Golan Heights. Geographically, it occupied much of Syria, Mount Hermon, Jordan and Israel, and its authority extended via tribal alliances with other Azdi tribes all the way to the northern Hijaz as far south as Yathrib.
The Ghassanids prospered economically and engaged in much religious and public building; they also patronised the arts and at one time entertained the poets.
The Ghassanids remained a Byzantine vassal state until its rulers were overthrown by the Muslims in the 7th century, following the Battle of Yarmuk in 636 AD.
Most of the Ghassanids remained Christians and stayed in the Levant.
