This Is The First Ever Photo Taken Of Beirut!

The region’s history is quite remarkable, and we often find ourselves blown away by the richness of its profound stories. But sometimes pictures can speak a thousand words, so let’s talk about the first ever photo taken of Beirut.

Historian Charles Hayek recently posted a video on Instagram showcasing the picture, which dates back to 1840.

The rare photo shows a marvelous view of Beirut in 1840, overlooking the city’s buildings with the Amir Assaf mosque located in the center.

Who took this historical photo?

In 1940, the painter and photographer Frédéric Guillaume Verschaffelt, along with the French photographer Horace Vernet and his son Charles-Marie Bouton, visited Beirut during their voyage to the Ottoman Empire. They traveled from Egypt to Jerusalem, passing through Beirut and capturing rare photographs of the cities during that era. Although the original “daguerreotype” image was lost, a printed copy remains, which is considered the first and oldest photograph of Beirut.

During that era, the daguerreotype was the first type of photography available to the public. This technique involved using a sheet of copper plated with a thin layer of silver to produce highly detailed images without the need for a negative image.

What else has been photographed?

After Vernier and Verschaffelt, the photographer Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey also paid the region a visit. He was one of the early users of the daguerreotype camera and became famous for his remarkable photographs of the East. One of his notable works is a photograph of the Roman temples in the city of Baalbek.

Source: metmuseum.org collection of photographs

And because of these extraordinary and one-of-a-kind photographs, Lebanon played an important role in the history of photogrammetry and imaging. You can actually find the photos in the Division of Rare Books at Princeton University, according to Hayek.

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