Thirty kilometres along the coast north from Beirut,
a hollow among the hills shelters gardens through
which a river winds down to a pebbly beach hidden
by the houses ranged along the one and only street
of the village of Okaybe.
This is the modest mouth of a river once renowned,
Nahr Ebrahim, a name which is believed to have been
changed to Ibrahim after a legendary character and
which has Akkadian and Syriac Semitic roots. Ebr meant
tomb, from which other meanings were derived, so the
name can be understood to have meant the River of
Lamentations or the Valley of Weeping or the Weepers.
The river is famous for having been at the heart of
the ancient kingdom surrounding the city of Byblos
ten kilometres further north. What is most impressive
is that once one has passed beyond the hills at the
mouth, one sees the river surging down from the distant
deep and wild ravines that it dug for itself during
its tempestuous youth many hundreds of thousands of
years ago.
There it is, violent and ungovernable, rushing from
its abundant source at Afqa, 1800 metres above sea
level, down to the shoreline barely 20 kilometres
away. It leaps over the rocks that it has scoured
and polished, passing between vertical cliffs soaring
hundreds of metres, to which clings a luxurious growth
of plane trees, evergreen oaks and other rich greenery.
Overhead at Mashnaqa and at Shir El Meidan the impressive
remains of a Roman temple and a citadel built on foundations
more ancient still dominate the scene, giving a view
over the astounding gorge.
The fact is that this river was soon the subject of
many legends. Its source at Afqa where it pours forth
from a two-hundred-metre high rock was thought to
be sacred and was consecrated to the Goddess of Fertility
Astarte, or Ishtar or Aphrodite or Venus as she was
variously named. The ruins may be seen there of a
most ancient temple. Every year the people of Byblos
celebrated the death and resurrection of the young
god Adonis, whom a savage boar had killed in the forest
wilderness and whom his sister or betrothed mourned
inconsolably. It was said that each springtime, as
the snows melted on high, the reddened waters of the
river were the blood of the god while the red anemones
represented his return to life.
Today, the challenge of this river has been accepted
and it has been brought under control. Electric power
stations have captured its surging waters and market
gardens bring forth their produce wherever level ground
extends along its banks. It has become the joyous
servant of the people of the valley, at the same time
offering sightseers and lovers of nature shaded retreats
through which its tumultuous forces tumble and roar.
There is one particularly Arcadian spot, El Janeh
or El Firdous (Paradise), where this river gives generously
of itself above its pebbles through the reeds and
verdant shrubbery.
One may enjoy the shade of the remains of the pillars
of the Roman aqueduct that crossed the torrent to
convey its waters to the city of Byblos, but one must
not forget to go first up and then down the elegant
Arab bridge only a short walk from the shore.
- River Nahr Ibrahim - Janneh: >> View
Movie << (2003-07-01)
- River Nahr Ibrahim - Shouwen: >> View
Movie << (2011-04-15)
- River Nahr Ibrahim - Shouwen 2: >> View
Movie << (2015-07-01)
