Arvad

Arvad (modern Arwad island) was a Phoenician city-state built on a small rocky island about three kilometers off the coast of northern Syria, roughly 200 km north of Tyre. It is named among the descendants of Canaan in the Table of Nations as a "son" of Canaan (Genesis 10:18, 1 Chronicles 1:16), reflecting the ancient genealogical understanding that the Phoenician maritime cities were one extended people. Ezekiel's great lament for the fall of Tyre singles out Arvad twice: "the inhabitants of Arvad and Helech were upon your walls, men of Arvad were upon your towers round about" (Ezekiel 27:8, 11), depicting Arvad as supplying Tyre with both rowers and warrior-defenders. As an island fortress with no fresh water source of its own, Arvad's survival depended on rainwater cisterns and a famous freshwater spring that welled up from the seabed offshore — a marvel that Strabo and Pliny later described in detail.