The Phoenicians of Beirut

Beirut, ancient Berytus, was a Phoenician port that in these centuries answered to the Achaemenid kings of Persia. Its dead were recovered in salvage excavations as the modern city rebuilt itself, and their genomes place them in an unbroken line from the Bronze Age Levant: the Iron Age Beirutis are genetically continuous with the Canaanites before them. Two of the men carry the paternal lineage J1a. The same study went on to show that six centuries of Roman rule after them left essentially no genetic signature in Lebanon. These eight are Persian-period Phoenicians of Beirut, the merchants and sailors of a city that traded across the whole Mediterranean.

The genome-wide data behind this entry was published in A Genetic History of the Near East from an aDNA Time Course Sampling Eight Points in the Past 4,000 Years.

Every Ancestry Map includes the free Notable Matches lens: your coordinates are compared to every sequenced member of every catalog entry, and the distance to the closest member is reported, a Euclidean distance in the same 25-dimensional space the Distance lens uses. Because these are a small group of real individuals, not a population average, distances naturally run larger than population distances. That is expected, not a poor result. And one thing is never claimed: a small distance means similar ancestry composition, not that the Phoenicians of Beirut are your ancestor. See how it looks in the live demo or read about Ancestry Map, the full Global25 report.

• 01

  Who were the Phoenicians of Beirut?

  The Phoenicians of Beirut (c. 550-300 BCE, Beirut, Lebanon) are one of the Iconic discoveries entries in our Notable Matches catalog, represented by 8 sequenced ancient genomes published in the study "A Genetic History of the Near East from an aDNA Time Course Sampling Eight Points in the Past 4,000 Years".

• 02

  What does "matching" the Phoenicians of Beirut mean?

  Your Global25 coordinates are compared to the entry's sequenced members and the distance to the closest one is reported, a Euclidean distance in the same 25-dimensional reference space the Distance lens uses. A notable entry is one person or one small burial group, not a population average, so distances naturally run larger than population distances.

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  Are they my ancestor?

  No, and no DNA test can show that. A small distance means your genome sits near theirs in a shared reference space: similar ancestry composition, not descent. Ancestrify never claims a notable individual is your ancestor or relative.

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  How do I see my own distance to the Phoenicians of Beirut?

  Notable Matches is a free lens on every Ancestry Map, never sold separately. Order Ancestry Map, our Global25 analysis (29.99 EUR), and your report ranks your coordinates against the full catalog, with a portrait, dossier and map for every entry. The public demo shows the lens with example data.

The catalog holds every published entry across three tiers. Browse the full Notable Matches directory. Nearby entries:

• The Punic Town of Kerkouanec. 600-250 BCE

• The Thraciansc. 800-100 BCE

• The Gauls of the Aisnec. 500-400 BCE

• The Carthaginiansc. 600-146 BCE

• The Pazyryk Horse-Lordsc. 500-300 BCE

• The Greeks of Ambraciac. 550-150 BCE

• The Pastoral Neolithic Herders of East Africac. 1300 BCE-500 CE

• The Shell-Mound Builders of Jabuticabeirac. 750-200 BCE

• The Vergina Royal Tombsc. 400-350 BCE

• The Soldiers of Himera480 BCE

• The Dauniansc. 630-340 BCE

• The Etruscansc. 800-100 BCE