Moukhtara

This article is about the Lebanese town. For the capital of the Zanj Rebels, see Zanj Rebellion.

Moukhtara (Arabic: المختارة) is a small town in the Chouf District of the Mount Lebanon Governorate of Lebanon. The town's inhabitants are divided between Druze and Maronites. It is the hometown of Walid Jumblatt, the leader of Lebanon's Progressive Socialist Party.

Moukhtara

Arabic: المختارة
The Jumblatt family palace in Moukhtara, 1861
Shown within Lebanon
Location	30 miles from Beirut, Lebanon
Region	Chouf District, Mount Lebanon Governorate
Coordinates	33.658863°N 35.613877°E / 33.658863; 35.613877
Part of	Settlement
History
Material	tools, flint, bone, ceramics
Periods	PPNB, Neolithic
Site notes
Excavation dates	1963
Archaeologists	J. Cauvin
Condition	ruins
Public access	Yes

History

It is also an ancient archaeological site, excavated in 1963 by Jacques Cauvin who found an abundance of flint tools. Examinations were conducted on 378 artifacts with finds including daggers, arrowheads, sickles, axes, chisels, picks and awls traced to the Neolithic horizon.^[1] James Mellaart suggested that Heavy Neolithic tools and weapons found at the site were "not associated with pottery, and possibly earlier than the Pottery Neolithic of Byblos."^[2]

Literature

• Cauvin, J., "The Neolithic Moukhtara (South Lebanon)," L'Anthropologie, 67, 1963, p. 489-511. (1963)
• Cauvin, J. et Cauvin, M.-C., Des ateliers campigniens au Liban, in Mélanges R. Vaufrey, La préhistoire, problèmes et tendances. Paris, Éditions du CNRS, p. 103-116. (1968)