Yanouh, Byblos

Yanouh (Arabic: يانوح) is a village and municipality in the Byblos District of the Keserwan-Jbeil Governorate, Lebanon. It is located 94 kilometers north of Beirut. Yanouh's inhabitants are predominantly Maronite Catholics. Its average elevation is 1,120 meters above sea level and its total land area is 147 hectares. Yanouh stands on the slopes of Joubbat El Mnaitra, five miles east of Qartaba, on the right bank high up in the ravine carved out by the Adonis River, now known as Nahr Ibrahim.

Yanouh, once a Phoenician center, is half-way between Byblos and Heliopolis (Baalbek), around 20 km as the crow flies from the Mediterranean Sea.

Yanouh is known for its 2nd century CE Roman temple, its Byzantine basilica and medieval chapel. In 750 AD, at the time of the fifth Maronite patriarch, John Maron II, then installed in Yanouh, the Roman temple was converted into a church consecrated to Saint George. Between 750 and 1277, twenty-three successors of Patriarch John Maroun resided there; under the Crusades, the number of Yanouh's inhabitants had risen to 3500, while the churches numbered more than thirty-five. Yanouh is also notable for its Hellenistic cult building containing the earliest Aramaic inscription found in Lebanon.