The fossils of Lebanon

Lebanon's "stone fishes" are among the most beautiful fossils in the world, and bear witness to a period one hundred million years in the past.

Long before it became an independent country, travelers had already made Lebanon famous for the stones that bear impressions of fishes and crustaceans, now displayed in so many museums or carefully preserved in private collections. And for many years, questions concerning the fossilization of these marine animals and their presence on mountain tops far from any present-day shores have remained unanswered.

This publication is the fruit of a cooperative endeavor by Mireille Gayet, a paleoichthyologist and honorary research director at the CNRS, who has studied many groups of fossil fishes in order to understand and reconstruct their history, and Pierre Abi Saad, a Lebanese archeologist and a passionate collector of his country's fossil fishes. His remarkable collection is brought to life here by the skills of Olivier Gaudant, a photographer and computer graphics artist.

The abundance of illustrations, the clarity of the descriptions, and the accuracy of the information ensure that this book is at once a wonderful storehouse of illustrations, a valuable scientific study, and an amazing ramble through the Land of Cedars. It is a description of a national heritage that is sure to fascinate every amateur or scientific student - or anyone interested in fossils.