Sidon ( ; , Ṣīḏōn) known locally as Sayda or Saida ( Ṣaydā), is the third-largest city in Lebanon. It is located in the South Governorate, of which it is the capital, on the Mediterranean coast. Tyre to the south and Lebanese capital Beirut to the north are both about away. Sidon has a population of about 80,000 within city limits, while its metropolitan area has more than a quarter-million inhabitants. Name The Phoenician name Ṣīdūn (, ) probably meant "fishery" or "fishing town". It is mentioned in Papyrus Anastasi I as Djedouna. It appears in Biblical Hebrew as Ṣīḏōn () and in Syriac as Ṣidon (). This was Hellenised as Sidṓn (), which was Latinised as . The name appears in Classical Arabic as Ṣaydūn () and in Modern Arabic as Ṣaydā (). As a Roman colony, it was notionally refounded and given the formal name to honour its imperial sponsor. In the Book of Genesis, Sidon was the first-born son of Canaan, who was a son of Ham, thereby making Sidon a great-grandson of Noah. During the crusades, Sidon was known in Latin as and in French as , Sayette or Sagette. History In the years before Christianity, Sidon had many conquerors: Assyrians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, and finally Romans. Herod the Great visited Sidon. Both Jesus and Saint Paul are said to have visited it, too (see Biblical Sidon below). The city was eventually conquered by the Arabs and then by the Ottoman Turks. Prehistory Sidon has been inhabited since very early in prehistory. The archaeological site of Sidon II shows a lithic assemblage dating to the Acheulean, whilst finds at Sidon III include a Heavy Neolithic assemblage suggested to date just prior to the invention of pottery. Late Bronze Around 1350 BC, Sidon was part of the Egyptian Empire and ruled by Zimredda of Sidon. During the Amarna Period, Egypt went into decline, leading to uprising and turmoil in the Levant. There was rivalry between Lebanese coastal city-states fighting for dominance, with Abimilku of Tyre in the south, and Rib-Hadda of Byblos in the north. Byblos became significantly weakened as the dominant city on the Lebanese coast. Further north, the Akkar Plain rebelled and became the kingdom of Amurru with Hittite support. The Mitanni Empire, an ally of the Egyptians, had dominated Syria but now fell apart due to the military campaigns of Suppiluliuma I of