The Cedar of Lebanon — Sacred Tree of the Phoenicians

Solomon's Temple was built with Lebanese cedar. So was the roof of the Temple of Karnak in Egypt. So were the great ships of the ancient Mediterranean, because cedar was the finest shipbuilding wood in the known world — resistant to rot, aromatic enough to repel insects, tall enough to provide single-trunk masts for the galleys that ruled the sea. The Phoenicians controlled the cedar forests of Lebanon and traded that timber to every civilization that needed to build something meant to last. The cedar tree appears on the Lebanese flag today. It was already a symbol of national identity three thousand years before Lebanon was a nation.

These signs carry the cedar tree in its ancient form, the Phoenician trade ship with cedar mast, and the fragrant wood that built the ancient world's most sacred structures.