I've found the City State of Tyre a fascinating subject as it was in reality a small place, and island that at the time was maybe 300 yards off the shore of the Land of Canaan but was massively powerful due to it's creation of Purple Dye as well as trade in general around the Mediterrianian. Tyre also alternantly aligned itself with, and against ancient Israel, which led to: Which I found interesting as well because at the time, how would such a thing happen? Tyre was a kind of walled City out on an Island. So let's take a look at what ancient Tyre (as well as Sidon) looked like: Eh, it is crude: Alexander reduced Tyre after they would only accept nominal loyalty. Modern "Tyre" http://arch.designcommunity.com/topic-24545-15.html A fascinating discussion on the ruins of "Tyre", the OP used Google Satellite and found all manner of buildings to the South of Ancient Tyres' location. As for Tyre itself, the peninsula on the top of the photo "is" Tyre, or where Tyre was, the space between the mainland and the island was filled in with silt through the centuries, but it is also completely probable that Tyre was in fact much larger as those building that are under the sea stretch for a couple of hundred yards.
When I was in the Holy Land a few years ago I was struck by the huge number of sites which "everyone" knows have something of great interest there yet no one has gotten around to doing a full blown excavation. That is especially true in the occupied territories where the Palastinian Aunthority has not had the stability, money, and perhaps the inclination to authorize digs. There is much history and culture to unearth.
The discussion on the Archeology Forum is fascinating OhioP, countries in the region actually cover over sites to keep out treasure hunters. What makes Tyre interesting to me is the submerged portion has not be excavated by weekenders, who know what went down when that portion sank beneath the waves? Also read that the purple dye that made Tyre wealthy required 19,000 sea snails to create a single ounce.
