Until 1950, the seaward end of Martyr’s Square was blocked by the vaguely school house-esque sandstone bulk of the Petit Serail. So named to distinguish it from its larger sibling, the former Ottoman Army barracks-turned-prime ministerial residence on the rise above the city centre, the Little Serail led a rather short life.
Finished in 1884, it was meant to replace the Mansour Assaf Palace as the residence of the Ottoman Governor of the Vilayet of Beirut. Unlike the palace, which had stood inside the city walls, the Petit Serail was built outside, in what is now Martyrs' Square, in place of a caravanserai that had stood near one of the city gates, the Bab as-Saraya, for several hundred years.
Ostensibly, the governor’s new residence was meant to reflect Beirut's transformation, a process that even then showed little respect for the past. As the Ottomans enthusiastically razed the narrow cobblestone streets of the Old City to create a polished, modern Mediterranean metropolis, the 16th Century Mansour Assaf Palace was demolished to make way for a new street, running from the St. Georges Maronite Cathedral down to what would become Weygand Street. Ironically, the street no longer exists, either. It was replaced post-war by the open-air archaeological park that will eventually become the Garden of Forgiveness but until 1975, it was where the Sursock Souk was held.
The new Serail was the work of Manouk Avedissian, an Armenian architect also known as Bechara Effendi Avedissian, chief engineer of the Vilayet of Damascus. Avedissian began work on it in 1881 but what he couldn’t know at the time was that the governor would quickly abandon the Petit Serail for the more defensible confines of the Grand Serail on the bluff above town and that the residence he was so carefully constructing would become a telegraph office.
By 1939, the Serail’s destruction was already being discussed. Plans drawn up under the French Mandate called for the expansion of Martyr’s Square through the creation of a series of terraces that would open views over the sea. This did not happen and when the Serail was pulled down in 1950, it was to make space for two new buildings; the Regent Hotel and the Rivoli Cinema. In all, a building the city had been forced to mortgage property and raise new taxes to finish, had stood for barely 66 years and had served its intended function for less than a decade.
As for the bear who built it - for in addition to being known as al-Muhandess or the Engineer, Avedissian was also known as el-Dob or the Bear - the Serail wasn't Bechara Effendi's only contribution to Beirut. He was responsible for the old arts and crafts school in Sanayeh, which is now the National Library and Archive as well as the Imperial Ottoman Bank, a long-gone building that was one of the first sights greeting voyagers arriving at the port.
In 1887, shortly after finishing the Serail, Avedissian was called on to help with the excavation of the recently discovered Royal Necropolis outside Sidon. Applying his knowledge of engineering to the dig, he’s credited with working out a more efficient way to transport the heavier finds and for discovering a cluster of burial chambers that contained the most impressive tombs found to date in Lebanon. Some of the sarcophagi unearthed can be seen at Beirut's National Museum but the three most striking finds - the Tabnit, the Mourners and the Alexander sarcophagi - were immediately shipped off to Istanbul.
The Alexander Sarcophagus was probably made for a governor of Babylon but it gets its name for the exquisitely carved battle scenes featuring the Two-Horned One decorating its length. The level of craftsmanship is exquisite, which is why it is considered the greatest treasure of the Istanbul Archaeology Museum today.
The Tabnit, a much older black basalt sarcophagus carved in the Egyptian style, is less visually impressive than the Alexander but its discovery created a sensation. When it was cracked open, the sarcophagus revealed the body of a 6th Century BC king of Sidon called Tabnit, still afloat in his embalming fluids. Apparently, those fluids had done their job extremely well, for the king was reported as being completely preserved, flesh and all.
But don't take my word for it. Visiting shortly after as head of the University of Pennsylvania's expedition to Babylonia (1888-1890), William Pepper M.D., LL.D., wrote: “At Sidon, I naturally visited the spot where the famous sarcophagi were found, and was interested to hear that when the sarcophagus of Tabnit, the Phoenician king, was opened, it was found to be filled with a liquid, in which lay the body as fresh as though buried the day before. Only the nose, which projected above the liquid, was black and withered."
"Unfortunately," the good Doctor Pepper continued, "the workmen, supposing the liquid to be water which had leaked in, poured it off before they could be stopped, and the body quickly became corrupt.”
As though a spell had been broken, Tabnit immediately began to decay and by the time his sarcophagus arrived in Istanbul, there was nothing left of him but bones. These sit in a glass case next to the massive basalt sarcophagus that was supposed to carry the King to Eternity and which for almost two and half thousand years, kept him looking as fresh as the day he died.
