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He further calls on the Egyptian commissioner Pakhanate, who had been ordered to visit him, to bear witness that he was "defending" Zemar and its fields for the king. That Pakhanate was friendly to Ebed-Asherah may be gathered from a despatch of Rib-Hadad, in which he accuses that officer of refusing to send any troops to the relief of Gebal, and of looking on while Zemar fell.

"When I awoke, I betook myself to my father, and on the way, near Gebal, I found a brass shield, such as I had seen in my dream. Then I advised my father and my brother Reuben to bid the sons of Hamor circumcise themselves, for I was quivering with rage on account of the abominable deed they had done.

The ancients of Gebal, and their wise men, were thy calkers; All the ships of the sea, with their mariners, were in thee, That they might occupy thy merchandise. Persia, and Lud, and Phut were in thine army, thy men of war; They hanged the shield and helmet in thee; They set forth thy comeliness.

This latter was a personal enemy of Rib-Hadad the governor of Gebal, whose letters to Khu-n-Aten form a considerable portion of the Tel el-Amarna collection. The authority of Rib-Hadad originally extended over the greater part of Phoenicia, and included the strong fortress of Zemar or Simyra in the mountains.

El was the special god of Gebal or Byblus, and was worshipped also with peculiar rites at Carthage. He was reckoned the son of Uranus and the father of Beltis, to whom he delivered over as her especial charge the city of Byblus. Numerous tales were told of him.

Abi-milki, the Tyrian prefect, once informs the king, “Fire hath devoured the city of Ugarit; one half of it hath it destroyed and not the other.” Finally, a certain Yapakhi-Addi, after an unsuccessful attempt to get provisions into Rib-Addi’s city Simyra, reproachfully informs Yanhamu that Aziru has extended his dominions from Gebal to Ugarit.

Arka, called Irqat in the Tel el-Amarna tablets, and now known as Tel 'Arqa, was one of the inland cities of Phoenicia, in the mountains between the Orontes and the sea. It was at the time an important Phoenician fortress, "perched like a bird upon the rock," and was under the control of the governor of Gebal.

When it was a mere question of hundreds in the field against hundreds, the appearance of a company, or of a few troops, restored peace for a time, but serious and aggravated hostilities between masses of rebels could not always be checked by such small numbers, and it was a severe blow to the prestige of the Shirtani when they were defeated at Gebal by the Sutu.

Tyre, Sidon, Gebal, Aradus, Simyra, Sarepta, Berytus, and perhaps Arka, appear in the inscriptions of Thothmes III, and in the "Travels of a Mohar," without an indication of the pre-eminence, much less the supremacy, of any one of them.

Sometimes an Egyptian Resident was appointed by the side of the native king; this was the case, for example, at Sidon and Hazor. Where, however, the city was of strategical or political importance it was incorporated into the Egyptian empire, and placed under the immediate control of an Egyptian governor, as at Megiddo, Gaza, Gebal, Gezer, and Tyre.