The sea enables the exchange of goods, people, and ideas over long distances. Without sea trade, the modern world is inconceivable. However, international trade must have originated somewhere, sometime. The Lebanese port of Byblos, modern Jbeil just north of Beirut, appears to have played a crucial role.
Cedars and ships
The fact that sea trade started in Byblos is largely due to the ways its inhabitants parlayed the high demand for cedar wood - a product that can only be transported by sea - into a durable historical prominence. Merchants from Byblos were present when the first pharaohs ruled in ancient Egypt between 3250 and 3000 BC. These pharaohs ordered the construction of monumental temples and tombs, which required huge wooden planks and beams. However, the trees from which these could be made did not grow along the Nile. They had to be imported from the mountains along the eastern Mediterranean shore, the Levant, especially the high
