Cre8mania staged a cool 3D mapping show on the National Museum of Beirut as part of La Nuit des Musées last Saturday. I personally missed the event but fortunately for us here’s a video to show how it looked like.
Make sure to watch it in high defintion.
A paper published in the American Journal of Human Genetics yesterday revealed that more than 90 percent of the genetic ancestry of modern Lebanese is derived from ancient Canaanites.
This revelation is quite intriguing now since historical records about the Canaanites are relatively limited. What we know about them from the Bible is that they were annihilated, and most facts about their community are written by their enemies (ancient Romans, Greeks and Israelites) while their origin and fate remain mysterious.
Researchers were able to sequence the Canaanite genome from the remains of five individuals buried in the ancient city of Sidon (Saida nowadays) around 4,000 years ago, and analysed the genetic relationship between the ancient Canaanites and modern Lebanese by sequencing the genome of 99 modern-day Lebanese.
It’s worth noting though that some historians consider the Phoenicians a sub-group of the Canaanites, but a study earlier in 2016 concluded that we are not related to them… I have no idea how can one interpret this.
Anyway, you can read more about this interesting study here and here.
Photo via National Geographic
We’re definitely lucky to have somebody like George Ghanem producing documentaries about the recent history of Lebanon for our generation. He has so far produced and contributed in several good documentaries about Lebanon and remarkable Lebanese politicians such as Koullouna Lil Watan, Zaman Rafic Al Hariri, Lady of the Palace and others.
His most recent work deals with Casino Du Liban and it aired last weekend on MTV in two episodes. Just like Ghanem’s previous documentaries this one was also quite enjoyable as it introduced us to how the casino was established and quickly became a point of attraction until the Lebanese civil war intensified which eventually led to closing it down in 1989 and then reopening it later in 1996. The documentary also of cited the challenges that faced every appointed general manager due to political interference.
I highly recommend you check it out if you missed it on TV. The two episodes are available on MTV Lebanon website in HD.
I’m a sucker for old photos and videos of Beirut and the below two videos I found on medmem.eu are an absolute gem!
The videos are both silent and were taken in 1921 during the French mandate. The first part shows several areas of Beirut like Saint George, Raouche, and The Grand Serail with brief descriptions in between the different scenes. It was quite interesting to learn from that part that a french aviation line used to connect Lebanon to Europe back then through seaplanes.
On the other hand, the second part focuses on education institutions at that time with scenes showing USJ univerity and Hotel Dieu hospital among others institutes. Towards the end of it you can also see the Patriarch during that time Elias Peter Hoayek sitting between some officials at College du Sacre-Coeur.
A group of scientists from the University of Otago and the Lebanese American University have recently succeeded at sequencing and analyzing the DNA obtained from the remaining of a 2500-year-old Phoenician called “The Young Man of Byrsa”. Their work is of good importance because we know less information about the Phoenicians than other populations, and this analysis will help uncover more about their culture and origins.
You can check the research details along with the results the scientists obtained here. What caught my attention the most though was the conclusion that modern Lebanese (47 of them to be precise) are not related to the Phoenicians! It is quite weird to be honest given how we pride ourselves with the Phoenicians being our ancestors, and the fact that they’re thought to have originated from here and expanded to the west.
I hope some other research soon reveals we also have no relation with the Arab world so we can dissociate ourselves from all the chaos around us!
photo via Modern Readers
During the early days of the French Mandate for Lebanon, Charles De Gualle who was still a commander back then was among the army units that were assigned to Beirut at that time. He used to serve at the Grand Serail and was looking for a place to stay with his family within a close proximity, so he rented the first floor of a house owned by Elias Wehbe in Mar Elias.
Over the years, and despite being owned by people of Al-Hoss family, the house has always been known as Charle De Gaulle’s place because of a marble plaque fixed above the door saying “Here lived commander Charles De Gaulle. November 1929 – January 1932”. I even sometimes refer to it the same way when providing directions for someone to a nearby place.
The house has been vacant for many years now and is poorly maintained, but I was quite surprised yesterday to come across a photo by Khaled Hamadeh on twitter showing that the plaque has been removed, which could possibly mean that there might be plans to demolish it and I really hope it isn’t the case.
With the current property prices in Beirut nowadays, I totally understand it might be unfair for the owners to be forbidden from bringing down the house to make way for a new building to earn some really good money, that’s why there should be a plan by the government or municipality to buy these old houses/building to either just preserve them or turn them into small museums. But then again, in a failed state it’s much easier said than done, so I really don’t want to be in the shoes of the current owners!
The second photo is taken by Ginane Bacho
Update:
The governor of Beirut Ziad Chbib posted on Facebook that the house owner removed the plaque because he was afraid that George Abdallah supporters might vandalize it. It is currently in the hands of the ISF and will be restored to its place, which simply means that the house is safe!
Last weekend I watched the comedy play “Beirut… Tarik el Jdideh” by Lebanese poet Yehia Jaber, and it’s by far one of the funniest plays I’ve watched.
Unlike other comedy plays, Tarik el Jdideh doesn’t make fun or disrespect the inhabitants of that area but rather uses black comedy to tell their stories since the beginning of the 20th century till today, while shedding light on the sectarian conflict between Sunni and Shia.
Throughout two hours, actor Ziad Itani (who performs alone by the way) gets you to know the people of Tarik el Jdideh by portraying their weddings, celebrations, funerals, and eid rituals, in addition to telling about real events that took place such as some incidents that happened during the Lebanese civil war and when the Syrians came later on. A significant part of the play also describes the clashes that used to happen between Al Ansar fans and those of Al Nejmeh and how it all started.
Tarik el Jdideh is highly recommended not just for being super entertaining, but also for the strong message it delivers at the end.
It’s currently showing at Metro Al Madina and will last till the end of March as their events schedule show. Tickets are for 25,000L.L and you may reserve by calling 76-309363.
Below are some short parts of the play as well as interviews with its writer Yehia Jaber and actor Ziad Itani by Now Lebanon.
On a day like this 30 years ago, a suicide bomber in a hijacked truck managed to bypass the barriers around the barracks and smashed right into the lobby of the main building before detonating his explosives.
The explosion was so big that it collapsed the building into rubble and killed 305 servicemen.
The video above is a short documentary told by two marine veterans who were serving in Beirut at that time, with footage and photos of the bombing.
How awesome is this ad? Najib and Nawwaf are just hilarious!
I just noticed Elnashra has published some classified communications between the interior miniter Marwan Charbel and prime minister Najib Mikati showing the data the Information Branch has requested following the assassination of General Wissam El Hassan.
In all of those documents the Information Branch is requesting the below types of data from the two mobile operators in Lebanon (Alfa and Touch), while there’s no mention of any ISP such as Cyberia, IDM, and the alike.
So unlike what has been circulating in the past few days, and judging from the content of these communications, the Information Branch is only interested in data logged by mobile operators and not ISPs. In addition, there was no explicit interest in obtaining Facebook credentials as the media was reporting.
Anyway I still find it disturbing to know that mobile operators might not be only keeping track of visited websites, but also of submitted information, e-mails, chat sessions, and even VoIP calls recordings! And it seems like they’re really doing so since the telecommunications minister never claimed those records do not exist and instead is just rejecting the Information Branch’s requests.
P.S: I found it weird that some communications were dated August 18th 2012, and got received by the office of the prime minister on the same day, even though they’re requesting data from the period starting September 13th 2012 and ending November 10th 2012. It’s like asking for data from the future!
