It has become a good tradition that every year in August and September we welcome in Lebanon a Polish archeological mission of the University of Warsaw, headed by Dr Tomasz Waliszewski. Our archeologists, who in recent years, in co-operation with the Lebanese General Direction of Antiquities made a number of valuable discoveries in the village of Chhîm this season, have started new promising projects.

Excavation works have concentrated in Jiyé, a sea–shore village close to Saida which – according to our archeologists – played a role of an important center of pottery production in the beginning of Christianity. The diggings include exploring of the Byzantine basilica foundations in Jiyé.  

Other members of the mission have been engaged in preservation and protecting works of ancient wall-paintings of a basilica in the village of Kaftoun.
 

On the occasion of the arrival of Polish archeological mission in Lebanon the Ambassador of Poland in Beirut Mr. Waldemar Markiewicz and the Chief of the Lebanese General Direction of Antiquities Mr. Frédérik Husseini organized a cocktail party at the Polish Embassy premises.
 

The event attracted Polish, Lebanese and French archeologists, representatives of cultural institutions, as well as diplomatic corps accredited in Lebanon.

[news archive]