Cedars of God Bsharri

The Cedars of God, located in the Kadisha Valley of Bsharre, Lebanon, are one of the last vestiges of the extensive forests of the Lebanon cedar that anciently thrived across Mount Lebanon

The Cedars of God, located in the Kadisha Valley of Bsharre, Lebanon, are one of the last vestiges of the extensive forests of the Lebanon cedar that anciently thrived across Mount Lebanon.

All early modern travelers' accounts of the wild cedars appear to refer to the ones in Bsharri; the Christian monks of the monasteries in the Kadisha Valley venerated the trees for centuries.

The earliest documented references of the Cedars of God are found in Psalms of King David eg. "104:16". These references provide support to claims of the creation story's proximity to the Cedars forest, firstly the planting of Cedars with God’s hands and secondly the name of an adjacent village in the Kadisha Valley known as Edhen. The Phoenicians, Israelites, Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Romans, Arabs, and Turks used Lebanese timber. The Egyptians valued their timber for shipbuilding, and in the Ottoman Empire their timber was used to construct railways.