Streets of dealers selling what came out of Beirut's houses when they were emptied, sold, or shelled.
Basta el-Tahta is a district of narrow streets south-west of downtown lined with antique and second-hand dealers, and it is one of the more interesting hours in Beirut.
What is there
Furniture — a great deal of it, in the Levantine and French-influenced styles of the late Ottoman and mandate periods. Inlaid mother-of-pearl, carved walnut, marble-topped consoles, and the mirrors and chandeliers that hung in the triple-arched halls of houses that have since been demolished.
Damascene and Aleppine woodwork — panelling, doors, and painted ceilings taken from houses in Syria and Lebanon.
Brass and copper — trays, coffee pots, mortars, lamps.
Glass — including Hebron and Lebanese blown glass.
Textiles, carpets, silver, jewellery, coins, clocks, photographs and postcards of Beirut before the war.
Ottoman and mandate documents, stamps and ephemera.
Where it comes from
This is worth knowing.
A large proportion of what is on sale in Basta came out of the great houses of Beirut and the mountains as they were emptied — through emigration, through war, through the collapse of families’ fortunes, and, since 2019, through the economic crisis, which has driven a great many people to sell what their grandparents owned.
Some of it came out of Syria after 2011.
That is not a reason not to buy — the objects exist and the dealers are running a trade — but it is worth understanding what you are looking at.
Bargaining
Expected, and it is a conversation rather than a confrontation.
Ask the price. Look unhurried. Offer meaningfully less. Expect to meet somewhere in the middle. Coffee may be produced, and refusing it is rude.
Prices are negotiable and quoted flexibly. The currency situation makes this more complicated than usual — see how much Beirut costs — and you should establish whether you are being quoted in US dollars or lira before discussing anything.
Fakes and the law
There are a great many reproductions, particularly of brass, “Ottoman” furniture and inlaid boxes. Some are honestly sold as such and some are not. If you do not know the field, assume you do not know the field.
Do not buy antiquities. Lebanon’s law on cultural property prohibits the export of archaeological objects, and the region has been a route for looted material from Syria and Iraq for over a decade. Coins, oil lamps, glass and figurines offered as ancient are a legal problem whether or not they are genuine, and buying them funds a trade that has stripped sites across the region.
Furniture, textiles and twentieth-century objects are a different matter and are ordinarily traded. Ask the dealer about export documentation for anything substantial.
Practical
Taxi. Basta is not somewhere you will walk to from the tourist districts.
Mornings and afternoons; many shops shut early and some close on Sundays.
Cash, and clarify the currency.
Little English in some shops; French is often more useful, and Arabic more useful still.
The Robert Mouawad Private Museum nearby is the place to see what a house furnished with this material actually looked like, and it is worth doing first.
