Phoenician sanctuary of Kharayeb

The Phoenician sanctuary of Kharayeb (Arabic: معبد الخرايب الفينيقي) is a historic temple in the hinterland of Tyre, Southern Lebanon, that was excavated in three stages. In 1946, Maurice Chehab, head of Lebanon's Directorate General of Antiquities, led the first mission that revealed a Hellenistic period temple and thousands of clay figurines dating from the sixth-to-first centuries BC. Excavations in 1969 by the Lebanese archaeologist Brahim Kaoukabani and in 2009 by the Government of Italy yielded evidence of cultic practices, and produced a detailed reconstruction of the sanctuary's architecture. The sanctuary originated in the sixth century BC with the establishment of rural agricultural centers near the growing city of Tyre. Initially, a temple was likely constructed from perishable materials. Only fragments of stone cultic statues survive from this phase. Around three centuries later during the Hellenistic period, a larger building fronted by a paved courtyard leading into a square hall and a smaller rectangular room., replaced the original structure. The interior was embellished with stucco, a central mosaic flooring and gem-like, glass-paste wall decorations. The exterior had a cavetto cornice, a lintel with a sun disk and two uraei—representations of a sacred snake used as a symbol of sovereignty and divinity in Ancient Egypt—and the entrance was flanked by two stand

Archaeological site data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).