Lebanon's cultural code has been formed for thousands of years. Just as the trunks of the Lebanese cedars slowly gain their volume, so the pattern of local traditions was created. The ancient Phoenicians, the Arameans, the Greeks, the Romans, the Persians, the Arabs, and the French wove their ideas of peace into this pattern. Here the deeds for the glory of the gods were performed and the might of empires grew. It was here that the cradle of civilization was found, the city of Byblos, the oldest continuously inhabited city on earth. It was here, on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, that the Phoenician traders invented the world's first alphabet, and from the wood of the cedar that grew in this land Noah, according to legend, built the ark.