 Meanwhile, a forerunner of the Archaeological and Fine Arts Service began to assemble items from the region round Beirut.The initial collection was rapidly expanded under successive antiquity directors with the addition of finds from the excavations led by Dr. Georges Contenau at Saida and Ernest Renan at Saida, Tyre and Byblos.Donations of private collections included those of Henry Seyrig’s coin collection, General Weygand in 1925 and Dr George Ford, the Director of the American Mission School of Sidon, in 1930.