The site had been previously surveyed by French orientalist and biblical scholar Ernest Renan who noted the presence of remnants of ancient ashlar masonry.

The discovery is credited however to American Presbyterian minister William King Eddy who first learned of the necropolis from Cherif Effendi's workman.

[8] Scholars studying funerary practices in Iron Age Phoenicia (c. 1200 – c. 500 BC) note the absence of ancient texts describing beliefs about life after death and funeral rituals.

[9] However, various finds provide information that Phoenicians, like other peoples of the ancient Near East, believed in life after death and the immortality of the soul.

[10][9] Archaeological finds complement the limited written records; in Iron Age Phoenicia, burial sites were usually located outside settlements.

In inhumation practices, the deceased was buried intact, laid directly on the floor, placed on a wooden plank or bench, or inside a coffin.

These include inhumations in underground vaults, rock-cut niches, and shaft and chamber tombs in Sarepta,[13] Ain al-Hilweh,[14] Ayaa,[15][16] Mgharet Abloun,[17] and the Temple of Eshmun.

[25] Surviving mortuary inscriptions invoke deities to assist with the procurement of blessings, and to conjure curses and calamities on whoever desecrated the tomb.

Greek influence on Phoenician culture, including religion and art, became more pronounced from the 5th century BC, even while Phoenicia was under Persian rule.

The first record of the discovery of an ancient necropolis in Sidon was made in 1816 by English explorer and Egyptologist William John Bankes.

[27][28] Bankes, who was the guest of British adventurer and archaeologist Hester Stanhope, visited the vast necropolis that was accidentally discovered in 1814, in Wadi Abu Ghiyas at the foot of the towns of Bramieh and Hlaliye, northeast of Sidon.

[c][28] On 20 February 1855, Antoine-Aimé Peretié, the chancellor of the French consulate in Beirut and amateur archaeologist was informed by treasure hunter Alphonse Durighello, of an archaeological find in a hollowed-out rocky mound that was known to locals as Magharet Abloun 'The Cavern of Apollo'.

[32] To perform digs in the site of the cavern, Durighello bought the exclusive right from the land owner, the then Mufti of Sidon Mustapha Effendi.

[29][30][33][34] At the beginning of 1887, Mehmed Cherif Effendi, the owner of a piece of land known as Ayaa, obtained a permit from the local authorities to exploit it as a quarry.

[35][36] At nightfall, Cherif's workman made his way to American Presbyterian minister William King Eddy's home, a Sidon resident, to inform him of the find.

[36][37] Eddy had informed the English Orientalist William Wright who wrote an article in The Times imploring the British Museum to "take immediate measures to secure these treasures and prevent their falling into the hands of the vandal Turk".

He escalated the matter to the Vali of Syria, Rashid Nashid Pasha, and the Governor of Beirut Nassouhi Bey, and entrusted the well to the care of Essad Effendi from the gendarmerie of Sidon.

[40][37] Hamdi Bey paid Mehmed Sherif Effendi, the owner of the land, 1500 Ottoman Liras at the behest of the Sultan.

[42] He had the vaults closed off to deter curious locals and looters, had guards stationed on site, and built tramway tracks that provided easy access to the necropolis to facilitate the retrieval of the sarcophagi.

[44] A group of people rode from Beirut to visit the site and see the collection, and one sarcophagus was found to contain a well-preserved human body floating in a fluid.

[46] Bechara Effendi is credited with discovering new burial chambers and with devising transport mechanisms and superintending the transit of the massive troves to a frigate bound for Constantinople's museum.

[49] On 17 August 1887, the Ottoman authorities announced that: Because the solidity and weight of the antiquities recently found in Sidon makes their entrance into and their protection within the Imperial Museum impossible, [it has been decided that] there is a need for a new hall.

[54][55] "On my return to Saida, I found that admirable necropolis from which were taken those magnificent sarcophagi which the Museum of Constantinople removed from Saïda three years ago, to have been annihilated!

That grandiose subterranean Museum, which earthquakes and the devastations of conquerors and centuries of barbarism had respected, has been effaced by the criminal stupidity of a miserable gardener of Saida.” The ancient city of Sidon (modern Saida) is a port city located 45 km (28 mi) south of Beirut on the Eastern Mediterranean.

The land where the necropolis was discovered sits at the bottom of the Hlaliyeh hill, at an altitude of 35 m (115 ft), and at a distance of 500 m (550 yd) from the sea.

[1] Three years after the extraction of the sarcophagi, the area was visited by Edmond Durighello, who noted that the tomb had not been protected and had been quarried for its rocks by local farmers.

On the eastern wall of the well, at a depth of 6 meters, three rows of well-cut ashlar blocks were laid to prevent the collapse of the shaft.

[50] On the eastern wall of the vestibule, lay the entrance to the first rock cut chamber dubbed Vault I by Hamdi Bey.

These openings were likely meant for accommodating large beams horizontally placed across the tomb, possibly to secure the sarcophagus lids using ropes.

[61] The south wall of the vestibule opens to Vault IV which was carved 2 m (6.6 ft) lower than the previous chambers and contained two sarcophagi.