Book
The Hills of Adonis
First published 1968
Colin Thubron spends four months travelling about five hundred miles through Lebanon, much of it on foot. He moves between coastal cities, mountain settlements, valleys and ancient sites while looking for the religious and cultural layers behind the classical story of Adonis. Encounters with villagers and religious communities sit beside temples, tombs and landscapes associated with the older gods of the Levant.
The journey reveals a country in which Phoenician, Greek, Roman, Christian and Islamic inheritances remain unusually close together. Thubron is interested less in reconstructing a single lost cult than in the way ancient myths survive through place names, ritual, architecture and memory. The result combines travel narrative with an inquiry into Lebanon’s long history of cultural exchange and the coexistence of distinct communities within a small and complex landscape.
Historical Periods
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