Jaj Cedars — Virtual Tour
High in the Jbeil District, Jaj Cedars emerge from a landscape dominated by rock.
Here, the trees do not form a vast continuous forest. They rise from deeply sculpted limestone terrain, sometimes standing alone on rocky outcrops. The setting is very different from Bsharri, Tannourine or the Shouf.
Created in 2014, the Jaj Cedars Nature Reserve now protects this distinctive landscape and its ancient cedar trees within an area shaped by extensive karst formations.
Explore Jaj Cedars in 360°
This 360° view takes you into the heart of Jaj’s mineral landscape, where cedar trees cling to the rocky slopes.
Here, tree and stone are inseparable: an open, fragmented terrain in which each cedar seems to occupy its own piece of mountain.
Jaj, the mountain behind Byblos
Jaj belongs directly to the historic hinterland of Byblos.
A UNESCO publication on Byblos and its surrounding territory explicitly refers to cedar timber being transported from the forests of Jaj to the port of Byblos, before being exported towards Palestine or Egypt.
That connection adds another layer to the landscape we see today.
The surviving trees are not an untouched image of the ancient forest. The mountains have changed, forests have become fragmented, and the ways people use this territory have evolved.
Yet Jaj still reveals an essential part of the story of Byblos. The city did not only look towards the sea. It also depended on the mountains, their resources and the routes that connected the interior with the coast.
At Jaj, that relationship between territory, material and movement can still be read in the landscape.
Photo Gallery — The cedars of Jaj
For the wider story connecting these mountain forests with Byblos: Byblos and the Cedar — from the mountains to the Mediterranean.
Sources and references
UNESCO World Heritage Centre — Partnerships for World Heritage Cities: Culture as a Vector for Sustainable Urban Development, World Heritage Papers 9.
The publication refers to the transport of cedar timber from the mountains of Jaj to the port of Byblos, before its export towards Palestine or Egypt.
Ghanem, Diala & Doumit, Jean — “Karst libanais et géomatique : application à la réserve naturelle de Arz Jaj (Byblos-Liban)”, Karstologia, no. 78, 2021.
Study of the natural environment of the reserve, created in 2014, its ancient cedar trees and its karst landscape.
Photographs by Melkan Bassil
Editorial note
Visit Byblos aims to provide documented content based on identified sources. Some information may nevertheless evolve as research advances and new discoveries are made. Documented corrections or additional information are welcome.
Explore Lebanon’s other cedar forests and discover, step by step, the landscapes in which the cedar has endured through the centuries. Jaj, Tannourine, Bsharri and the Shouf: each panorama reveals a different relationship between the tree, the rock and the mountains.
Move along the line to discover another virtual tour.