Tell el-Burak - 2,600-Year-Old Phoenician Wine Press

How to Complete

4 steps curated by Wine Memories

1. 🍷 1

   Stand Where 4,500 Liters of Phoenician Wine Was Born

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   You are standing at the only known intact Phoenician wine press — the FIRST industrial winemaking installation ever found in ancient Phoenicia, published in Antiquity in September 2020. The rectangular treading basin (3.2 x 3.5 meters) at Tell el-Burak archaeological site (9km south of Sidon, GPS: 33.5312, 35.3766) filled a 4,500-liter collection vat below — that's 6,000 bottles of wine per season, destined for Phoenician trading ships. Walk the perimeter and touch the preserved plaster floor gently. The Phoenicians mixed crushed ceramic fragments from broken amphorae into this lime plaster — the EARLIEST known hydraulic lime plaster on Earth, a technology that spread through Phoenician colonies to Sicily, then to Rome, where it built an empire.

   🔄 BACKUP: The site is an active archaeological dig — access is not always possible without arrangement. Contact AUB's Department of History and Archaeology (aub.edu.lb/archaeology) to arrange a visit or inquire about open dig days. From the coastal road, the exterior of the tell is visible at any time.

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2. 📜 2

   Decode Why an Entire Village Lived to Ship Wine

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   Between 725 and 650 BC, four mudbrick houses stood on this mound, and their occupants kept donkeys and cattle that spiked precisely during peak winemaking seasons. This wasn't a farming village that made wine on the side — this was an entire village engineered for one purpose: producing wine at industrial scale and loading it onto Phoenician ships at Sidon harbor, 9km north. Climb to the top of the tell (GPS: 33.5312, 35.3766) for the context view. Look north toward Sidon, south toward Sarafand — you are standing precisely between these two great Phoenician cities. Imagine amphora after amphora of wine, loaded on pack animals, carried to Sidon's harbor, transferred to cedar-hulled merchant ships, dispersed across the Mediterranean world. You are seeing the infrastructure of civilization itself.

   🔄 BACKUP: If site access is restricted, the Sidon Museum (GPS: 33.5614, 35.3676) holds Phoenician artifacts from the South Lebanon coast. Ask specifically about the Tell el-Burak finds.

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3. ⛰️ 3

   Watch Fire Transform Sand at Lebanon's Last Glass Workshop

   adventure $

   The Phoenicians didn't just trade wine — they invented glass blowing, and the Khalifeh family are the last practitioners of this tradition in Lebanon. The Khalifeh Blown Glass Workshop (Sarafand Main Street, 5km south of Tell el-Burak, phone +961 3 906 091) operates a furnace in a courtyard under pomegranate and orange trees, melting recycled glass just as the Phoenicians recycled broken amphorae into hydraulic plaster. James Pritchard's Penn Museum excavations here (1969–1974) uncovered kilns and workshops that supplied glass vessels across the Iron Age Mediterranean. Watch the demonstration, browse the workshop, and purchase a hand-blown piece for €10–25. Hold the finished glass and think: Phoenicians blew vessels just like this, filled them with wine pressed 5km north at Tell el-Burak, and shipped them to the edge of the known world.

   🔄 BACKUP: If the workshop is closed, the seafront of Sarafand rewards exploration — this is ancient Zarephath where the biblical prophet Elijah found refuge. 'Arise, get thee to Zarephath' (1 Kings 17:9).

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4. 🍷 4

   Toast the Phoenicians from a Crusader Castle on the Sea

   wine $

   Stand on the battlements of Sidon Sea Castle (GPS: 33.5670, 35.3711, entry roughly 4,000 LBP under $3 USD), face south, and look toward the coast where Tell el-Burak's conical mound rises from the plain — you can see it. The Phoenicians built Sidon into the greatest trading port in the ancient Mediterranean precisely because of that coastline. Open a bottle of Lebanese wine from the Bekaa Valley — the grapes are Vitis vinifera, the same species that filled the 4,500-liter vat at Tell el-Burak. Lebanon's winemaking history spans 7,000 years, and the tradition is unbroken. Pick up Lebanese wine from any Sidon grocery before climbing to the battlements, or share glasses of arak at a café in the old souk. Toast: 'To the winemakers of Tell el-Burak, who built the Mediterranean world one amphora at a time.'

   🔄 BACKUP: If the Sea Castle is closed, the Sidon old souk and Khan al-Franj (17th-century caravanserai) are immediately adjacent. Walk the old port waterfront for the sea view south toward Tell el-Burak.

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Insider Tips

• ✦

  Contact AUB Archaeological Museum for current site access status

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  Located between Sidon and Tyre - combine with other coastal sites

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  Best visited with an archaeological guide who can explain the significance