[4] 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.

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.

[2][5] The families native to Yanouh are Ghanem, Ephrem, Bahout, Bardawil, Beaini, Hawat, Dagher, Souaid, Assaker, Maroun, Nohra, Zaaiter and Zeid.

The earliest remains at Tell el Kharayeb (“Hill of Ruins”) in Yanouh date back to the third millennium BCE; these include a town of about 150 metres (490 ft) in diameter, surrounded by a defensive wall and a lower urban quarter extending towards the south of the site.

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.

[2] Yanouh is situated at Joubbat El Mneitra, 5 km east of Qartaba, on the right bank of the upper valley of the Adonis river.