Where were Tyre and Sidon?

Question

Accepted Answer

Tyre and Sidon were the two chief cities of Phoenicia, on the coast of today's Lebanon. Sidon, now Saida, lies about 40 km south of Beirut; Tyre, now Sour, about 35 km further south in a straight line. Tyre is about 55 km north-west of Capernaum and 165 km north of Jerusalem; Sidon is about 200 km from Jerusalem. Tyre was built on an island just off the shore, Sidon on a headland sheltered by islets that made two harbours. In the Gospels the two names go together: Jesus "departed into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon", where a Syrophoenician woman begged him to heal her daughter, and people from around the two cities came to hear him. He held them up against the towns of Galilee: "if the mighty works, which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes." Earlier, Hiram king of Tyre sent cedar and craftsmen for Solomon's Temple, since "there is not among us any that can skill to hew timber like unto the Sidonians", and Elijah lodged with a widow at Zarephath, a town of Sidon. Paul spent seven days with the disciples at Tyre on his last journey to Jerusalem and was allowed to visit friends at Sidon on his way to Rome. Herodotus was told that Tyre was founded about 2750 BC, and both cities appear in the Amarna letters of the fourteenth century BC. Tyrians founded Carthage, by tradition in 814 BC. Tyre paid tribute to Assyria but kept its island; Nebuchadnezzar besieged it for thirteen years, usually dated to the 580s and 570s BC, and in 332 BC Alexander took it after seven months by building a causeway from the mainland, so that Tyre has been joined to the shore ever since. Sidon was destroyed by Esarhaddon in 677 BC, became the leading Phoenician city under the Persians, and opened its gates to Alexander in 333 BC. Under Rome both minted their own coins and were known for glass and purple dye.