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Young World
Conquer with sand
COMPILED BY ROHINI RAMAKRISHNAN
Changing sea levels and shifting sands helped Alexander the Great conquer the ancient island city of Tyre in one of his most famous military victories, new research shows. In 332 B.C. the Greek military commander invaded the island just off the coast of modern-day Lebanon, then part of ancient Phoenicia. New geological findings and computer models show that the growth of agriculture on the island caused sediment runoff, which spurred the formation of a long, thin submerged
sandbar between Tyre and the mainland. Alexander and his men cunningly exploited this sandbar, the findings suggest, to build a 0.6-mile (1-kilometer) raised path, or causeway, out of wood and stone. Alexander’s army marched from Macedonia to Egypt around 2,350 years ago, conquering every major city in turn. But capturing the naturally protected Tyre posed a huge military problem. “Building a bridge out to sea was a real challenge at this time,” said Nick Marriner of the University of Aix-Marseille in France, lead author of the study.
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