Yanouh () 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. Its Phoenician temple is a monument to the same religion as that of Apheca, but the later Roman temple was dedicated to Diana, the Roman goddess of the hunt and daughter of the god Jupiter. 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. History The first Tell el Kharayeb (“Hill of Ruins”) remains in Yanouh date back to the third millennium BCE; these include a town of about in diameter, surrounded by a defensive wall and a lower urban quarter extending towards the south of the site. Surrounding the hill are a number of rectangular underground tombs with walls built of carefully hewn parallelepiped blocks. From the 12th to the 4th century BCE the site witnessed significant agricultural and domestic development as manifested by archaeological artifacts found on site. Remnants of sandstone building from the second half of the 2nd century BCE were uncovered along with an Aramaic inscription belonging to the same Hellenistic period. The inscription is notable for being the earliest known Aramaic writing to be found on Lebanese soil; it mentions a “House of God” and was dated to around 110-109 BCE. Yanouh became an important Roman site and saw the construction of a great temple dedicated to Diana, the Roman goddess of the hunt and daughter