BIBLOS. — One of the oldest cities of Phoenicia, called in Greek Βόβλος, Assyr. Gubal (in the letters of el-'Amārnah: Gubla), Egypt. Kbn (from the Twelfth Dynasty onward Kpn), Hebr. Gēbhāl (Ez. 27:9), today Gebejl, situated on the Mediterranean coast, approximately 40 km north of Beirut. According to Philo of B., the city was presented by Ba'al-Kronos himself to the goddess Ba'altis (Ba'ala). B. owed its importance chiefly to its commerce with Egypt, attested by Egyptian texts from the Fourth Dynasty onward (ca. 2600 B.C.), and particularly active during the period of the Sixth Dynasty (ca. 2300 B.C.): archaeological excavations at B. have uncovered gifts sent by Kings Pepi I and II of this dynasty to the temples of B.
Various kinds of wood were exported from B., while Egypt imported papyrus there. B. thus became the center of the trade in this material, and for this reason the Greeks called a book written on papyrus βόβλος or βίβλος. These commercial relations, interrupted for almost four centuries, were then resumed under the Twelfth Dynasty (ca. 2065–1788 B.C.); indeed, for a time the city seems to have been subject to an Egyptian governor, whose tomb was discovered in the royal necropolis not far from the sea. Suspended again during the period of the Hyksos (ca. 1750–1580 B.C.), commerce revived briefly under the powerful Eighteenth Dynasty (1580–1350 B.C.). But in the first half of the fourteenth century the city was taken by the Habiru, and from then onward dependence on Egypt seems to have almost ceased, except during the time of Ramses II (1292–26 B.C.). The statues of Šelonk I (945–24 B.C.) and Osorkon I (924–895 B.C.), discovered in the excavations, nevertheless prove that commercial relations were still maintained.
Having subsequently been made tributary to the Assyrians under Theglathphalasar IV (745–727 B.C.), B. passed in the sixth century to the Persians,
in the fourth century to the Seleucids, and, “liberated” under Pompey, thereafter became part of the Roman Empire. After Constantine it became the seat of a bishop. Passing under Muslim rule in the seventh century, during the period of the Crusades it experienced a brief Christian revival (episcopal see, cathedral of St. John), only to pass definitively into the hands of the Muslims. Today Ġebejl is a village of approximately 1,500 inhabitants, the seat of a bishop, patriarchal vicar of the patriarch of the Maronites.
The Old Testament mentions B. only three times: Ios. 13:5 (a doubtful text) mentions it as the northern boundary of the Promised Land; in I Reg. 5:18, the Gebalites appear as workers (woodcutters and masons) in the construction of Solomon’s Temple; in Ez. 27:9, the elders and skilled men of B. are said to be the craftsmen who repaired the breaches in the ship of Tyre.
B. was above all renowned for its pagan cults. The proper deity of B. was Ba'ālath Gēbhal (“lady of Gēbhal,” Egyptian nbt hbnj, Akkadian bēlit tu gubla), of whom a large temple has been discovered (or two temples?).
Ba'ālat was also worshiped in Egypt, where she was identified with the goddess Hathor. In an inscription of the thirteenth century B.C., King Jehimilk of B. implores the protection of “Ba'ālamēm and Ba'āl of B. and all the holy gods of B.” Ba'ālamēm is probably the 'Eljōn mentioned by Philo of B.; no other information is available about Ba'āl of B.; he seems to have been of secondary rank, inferior to the goddess Ba'ālat. Moreover, as Lucian recounts (De dea Syria, 6–8), B. was a center of the cult of Adonis (v.), who was said to have been killed by a boar in the territory of B. itself.
The archaeological excavations conducted by P. Montet (1921–1924) and by Dunand (from 1925 onward) have brought to light, besides the aforementioned temple, nine tombs of the kings of B., belonging partly to the period of the Twelfth Dynasty (nineteenth and eighteenth centuries B.C.) and partly to the subsequent centuries; the most recent is that of Ahiram, from the thirteenth century (according to others, from the end of the twelfth century), important because of the inscription on the sarcophagus.