Phoenicia

For other uses of "Phoenicia", see Phoenicia (disambiguation).

knʿn / kanaʿan (Phoenician) Φοινίκη Phoiníkē (Greek) Phoenicia
1200 BC–539 BC
Map of Phoenicia and its Mediterranean trade routes
Capital	Byblos (1200 BC–1000 BC) Tyre (1000 BC–333 BC) Carthage (333 BC–149 BC)
Common languages	Phoenician, Punic
Religion	Canaanite religion
Government	Kingship (City-states)
Well-known kings of Phoenician cities
• c. 1000 BC	Ahiram
• 969 BC – 936 BC	Hiram I
• 820 BC – 774 BC	Pygmalion of Tyre
Historical era	Classical antiquity
• Established	1200 BC
• Tyre, under the reign of Hiram I, becomes the dominant city-state	969 BC
• Pygmalion founds Carthage (legendary)	814 BC
• Cyrus the Great conquers Phoenicia	539 BC
Population
• 1200 BC	200,000
Preceded by Succeeded by Canaanites Hittite Empire Egyptian Empire Achaemenid Phoenicia Ancient Carthage
Today part of	Algeria Cyprus France Greece Israel Italy Jordan Lebanon Libya Malta Morocco Portugal Spain Syria Tunisia Turkey

Phoenicia (UK: /fˈnɪʃə/ or US: /fəˈniːʃə/; from the Template:Lang-el, Phoiníkē; Template:Lang-ar, Fīnīqīyah) was an ancient Semitic thalassocratic civilization situated on the western, coastal part of the Fertile Crescent and centered on the coastline of modern Lebanon. All major Phoenician cities were on the coastline of the Mediterranean, some colonies reaching the Western Mediterranean. It was an enterprising maritime trading culture that spread across the Mediterranean from 1550 BC to 300 BC. The Phoenicians used the galley, a man-powered sailing vessel, and are credited with the invention of the bireme. They were famed in Classical Greece and Rome as 'traders in purple', referring to their monopoly on the precious purple dye of the Murex snail, used, among other things, for royal clothing, and for the spread of their alphabets, from which almost all modern phonetic alphabets are derived.

Although Egyptian seafaring expeditions had already been made to Byblos to bring back Lebanon Cedars as early as the 3rd millennium BC, continuous contact only occurred in the Egyptian New Empire period. In the Amarna tablets of the 14th century BC, people from the region called themselves Kenaani or Kinaani. Much later, in the 6th century BC, Hecataeus of Miletus writes that Phoenicia was formerly called χνα (Latinized: khna), a name Philo of Byblos later adopted into his mythology as his eponym for the Phoenicians: "Khna who was afterwards called Phoinix".

Phoenicia is really a Classical Greek term used to refer to the region of the major Canaanite port towns, and does not correspond exactly to a cultural identity that would have been recognised by the Phoenicians themselves. The term in Greek means 'land of purple', a reference to the valuable murex-shell dye they exported. It is uncertain to what extent the Phoenicians viewed themselves as a single ethnicity and nationality. Their civilization was organized in city-states, similar to ancient Greece. However, in terms of archaeology, language, life style and religion, there is little to set the Phoenicians apart as markedly different from other Semitic cultures of Canaan. As Canaanites, they were unique in their remarkable seafaring achievements.

Each city-state was a politically independent unit. They could come into conflict and one city might be dominated by another city-state, although they would collaborate in leagues or alliances. Though ancient boundaries of such city-centered cultures fluctuated, the city of Tyre seems to have been the southernmost. Sarepta (modern day Sarafand) between Sidon and Tyre is the most thoroughly excavated city of the Phoenician homeland.

The Phoenicians were the first state-level society to make extensive use of alphabets. The Phoenician alphabet is generally held to be the ancestor of almost all modern alphabets. They spoke Phoenician, a Semitic language of the Canaanite subgroup. Its closest living relative is Hebrew, to which it is very similar. However, due to the very slight differences in language, and the insufficient records of the time, whether Phoenician formed a separate and united dialect, or was merely a superficially defined part of a broader language continuum, is unclear. Through their maritime trade, the Phoenicians spread the use of the alphabet to North Africa and Europe, where it was adopted by the Greeks, who later transmitted it to the Romans. In addition to their many inscriptions, the Phoenicians are believed to have left numerous other types of written sources, but most have not survived.

Etymology

The name Phoenicians, like Latin Poenī (adj. poenicus, later pūnicus), comes from Greek Φοίνικες (Phoínikes), attested since Homer and influenced by phoînix "Tyrian purple, crimson; murex" (itself from φοινός phoinós "blood red", of uncertain etymology; R. S. P. Beekes has suggested a Pre-Greek origin of the ethnonym). The oldest attested form of the word is the Mycenaean po-ni-ki-jo, po-ni-ki, ultimately borrowed from Ancient Egyptian fnḫw (fenkhu) "Asiatics, Semites". The folk-etymological association of phoiniki with phoînix mirrors that in Akkadian which tied kinaḫni, kinaḫḫi "Canaan; Phoenicia" to kinaḫḫu "red-dyed wool". The land was natively known as knʿn (cf. Eblaite ca-na-na-um, ca-na-na), remembered in the 6th century BC by Hecataeus under the Greek form Chna, and its people as the knʿny (cf. Punic chanani, Hebrew kanaʿani).

Origins: 3200–1200 BC

Phoenician sarcophagus at the burial grounds of Antarados, northern Lebanon, 480-450 BC

Herodotus' account (written c. 440 BC) refers to the myths of Io and Europa. (History, I:1).

According to the Persians best informed in history, the Phoenicians began the quarrel. These people, who had formerly dwelt on the shores of the Erythraean Sea, having migrated to the Mediterranean and settled in the parts which they now inhabit, began at once, they say, to adventure on long voyages, freighting their vessels with the wares of Egypt and Assyria ...

— Herodotus

The Greek historian Strabo believed that the Phoenicians originated from Bahrain. Herodotus also believed that the homeland of the Phoenicians was Bahrain. This theory was accepted by the 19th-century German classicist Arnold Heeren who said that: "In the Greek geographers, for instance, we read of two islands, named Tyrus or Tylos, and Arad, Bahrain, which boasted that they were the mother country of the Phoenicians, and exhibited relics of Phoenician temples." The people of Tyre in particular have long maintained Persian Gulf origins, and the similarity in the words "Tylos" and "Tyre" has been commented upon. However, there is little evidence of occupation at all in Bahrain during the time when such migration had supposedly taken place. Later classicist theories were proposed prior to modern archaeological excavations which revealed no disruption of Phoenician societies between 3200 BC and 1200 BC.

High point: 1200–800 BC

Fernand Braudel remarked in The Perspective of the World that Phoenicia was an early example of a "world-economy" surrounded by empires. The high point of Phoenician culture and sea power is usually placed c. 1200–800 BC. Archaeological evidence consistent with this understanding has been difficult to identify. A unique concentration in Phoenicia of silver hoards dated between 1200 and 800 BC, however, contains hacksilver with lead isotope ratios matching ores in Sardinia and Spain. This metallic evidence agrees with the biblical memory of a western Mediterranean Tarshish that supplied Solomon with silver via Phoenicia, during the latter's heyday (see 'trade', below). The oldest finds in connection with the Phoenicians were made in the area of the modern port of Huelva, the ancient city of Onoba.

Assyrian warship (probably built by Phoenicians) with two rows of oars, relief from Nineveh, c. 700 BC

Many of the most important Phoenician settlements had been established long before this: Byblos, Tyre, Sidon, Simyra, Arwad, and Berytus, all appear in the Amarna tablets. Archeology has identified cultural elements of the Phoenician zenith as early as the 3rd millennium BC.

The league of independent city-state ports, with others on the islands and along other coasts of the Mediterranean Sea, was ideally suited for trade between the Levant area, rich in natural resources, and the rest of the ancient world. Around 1200 BC, a series of poorly-understood events weakened and destroyed the adjacent Egyptian and Hittite empires. In the resulting power vacuum, a number of Phoenician cities rose as significant maritime powers.

Phoenician societies rested on three power-bases: the king; temples and their priests; and councils of elders. Byblos first became the predominant center from where the Phoenicians dominated the Mediterranean and Erythraean (Red) Sea routes. It was here that the first inscription in the Phoenician alphabet was found, on the sarcophagus of Ahiram (c. 1200 BC). Later, Tyre gained in power. One of its kings, the priest Ithobaal (887–856 BC) ruled Phoenicia as far north as Beirut, and part of Cyprus. Carthage was founded in 814 BC under Pygmalion of Tyre (820–774 BC). The collection of city-states constituting Phoenicia came to be characterized by outsiders and the Phoenicians as Sidonia or Tyria. Phoenicians and Canaanites alike were called Sidonians or Tyrians, as one Phoenician city came to prominence after another.

Decline: 539–65 BC

Persian rule

Main article: Achaemenid Phoenicia

A naval action during the siege of Tyre (350 BC). Drawing by André Castaigne, 1888–1889.

Cyrus the Great conquered Phoenicia in 539 BC. The Persians divided Phoenicia into four vassal kingdoms: Sidon, Tyre, Arwad, and Byblos. They prospered, furnishing fleets for the Persian kings. Phoenician influence declined after this. It is likely that much of the Phoenician population migrated to Carthage and other colonies following the Persian conquest. In 350 or 345 BC a rebellion in Sidon led by Tennes was crushed by Artaxerxes III. Its destruction was described by Diodorus Siculus.

Macedonian rule

Alexander the Great took Tyre in 332 BC after the Siege of Tyre. Alexander was exceptionally harsh to Tyre, executing 2,000 of the leading citizens, but he maintained the king in power. He gained control of the other cities peacefully: the ruler of Aradus submitted; the king of Sidon was overthrown. The rise of Macedon gradually ousted the remnants of Phoenicia's former dominance over the Eastern Mediterranean trade routes. Phoenician culture disappeared entirely in the motherland. Carthage continued to flourish in North Africa. It oversaw the mining of iron and precious metals from Iberia, and used its considerable naval power and mercenary armies to protect commercial interests. Rome finally destroyed it in 146 BC, at the end of the Punic Wars.

Following Alexander, the Phoenician homeland was controlled by a succession of Macedonian rulers: Laomedon (323 BC), Ptolemy I (320), Antigonus II (315), Demetrius (301), and Seleucus (296). Between 286 and 197 BC, Phoenicia (except for Aradus) fell to the Ptolemies of Egypt, who installed the high priests of Astarte as vassal rulers in Sidon (Eshmunazar I, Tabnit, Eshmunazar II).

In 197 BC, Phoenicia along with Syria reverted to the Seleucids. The region became increasingly hellenized, although Tyre became autonomous in 126 BC, followed by Sidon in 111. Syria, including Phoenicia, was seized and ruled by king Tigranes the Great of Armenia from 82 until 69 BC, when he was defeated by Lucullus. In 65 BC Pompey finally incorporated the territory as part of the Roman province of Syria. Phoenicia became a separate province ca. 200 AD.

Demographics

Genetic studies

Phoenician sarcophagus found in Cádiz, Spain; now in Archaeological Museum of Cádiz. The sarcophagus is thought to have been designed and paid for by a Phoenician merchant, and made in Greece with Egyptian influence.

In 2008 a study was published in The American Journal of Human Genetics examining sites that had been influenced by Phoenicians in "the coastal Lebanese Phoenician Heartland and the broader area of the rest of the Levant (the "Phoenician Periphery"); then Cyprus and South Turkey; then Crete; then Malta and East Sicily; then South Sardinia, Ibiza, and Southern Spain; and, finally, Coastal Tunisia and cities like Tingris in Morocco". Former sites in Libya and southern France were not tested due to a lack of material. The study "found that haplogroup J2, in general, and six Y-STR haplotypes, in particular, exhibited a Phoenician signature that contributed > 6% to the modern Phoenician-influenced populations examined." This was part of the development of a methodology which would enable linking a documented historical expansion with a geographic genetic pattern. They also suggested "a common source of related lineages rooted in Lebanon."

In a 2013 interview the lead investigator, Pierre Zalloua, pointed out that genetic variation preceded religious variation and divisions: "Lebanon already had well-differentiated communities with their own genetic peculiarities, but not significant differences, and religions came as layers of paint on top. There is no distinct pattern that shows that one community carries significantly more Phoenician than another." Another study found evidence for genetic persistence on the island of Ibiza.

Economy

Trade

See also: Phoenicians and wine

Map of Phoenicia and its Mediterranean trade routes.

Map of Phoenicia

The Phoenicians were among the greatest traders of their time and owed much of their prosperity to trade. At first, they traded mainly with the Greeks, trading wood, slaves, glass and powdered Tyrian purple. Tyrian purple was a violet-purple dye used by the Greek elite to color garments. In fact, the word Phoenician derives from the ancient Greek word phoínios meaning "purple". As trading and colonizing spread over the Mediterranean, Phoenicians and Greeks seemed to have split that sea in two: the Phoenicians sailed along and eventually dominated the southern shore, while the Greeks were active along the northern shores. The two cultures rarely clashed, mainly in Sicily, which eventually settled into two spheres of influence, the Phoenician west and the Greek east.

Phoenician plate with red slip, 7th century BC, excavated in Mogador island, Essaouira, Morocco.

In the centuries after 1200 BC, the Phoenicians were the major naval and trading power of the region. Phoenician trade was founded on the Tyrian purple dye, a violet-purple dye derived from the shell of the Murex sea-snail, once profusely available in coastal waters of the eastern Mediterranean Sea but exploited to local extinction. James B. Pritchard's excavations at Sarepta in present-day Lebanon revealed crushed Murex shells and pottery containers stained with the dye that was being produced at the site. The Phoenicians established a second production center for the dye in Mogador, in present-day Morocco. Brilliant textiles were a part of Phoenician wealth, and Phoenician glass was another export ware.

To Egypt, where grapevines would not grow, the 8th-century Phoenicians sold wine: the wine trade with Egypt is vividly documented by the shipwrecks located in 1997 in the open sea 50 kilometres (30 mi) west of Ascalon. Pottery kilns at Tyre and Sarepta produced the big terracotta jars used for transporting wine. From Egypt, the Phoenicians bought Nubian gold. Additionally, great cedar logs were traded with lumber-poor Egypt for significant sums. Sometime between 1075 and 1060 BC an Egyptian envoy by the name of Wen-Amon visited Phoenicia and secured seven great cedar logs in exchange for a mixed cargo including '4 crocks and 1 kak-men of gold; 5 silver jugs; 10 garments of royal linen; 10 kherd of good linen from Upper Egypt; 500 rolls of finished papyrus; 500 cows' hides; 500 ropes; 20 bags of lentils and 30 baskets of fish.' Those logs were then moved by ship from Phoenicia to Egypt.

From elsewhere, they obtained other materials, perhaps the most important being silver from (at least) Sardinia and the Iberian Peninsula. Tin was required which when smelted with copper from Cyprus created the durable metal alloy bronze. The archaeologist Glenn Markoe suggests that tin "may have been acquired from Galicia by way of the Atlantic coast or southern Spain; alternatively, it may have come from northern Europe (Cornwall or Brittany) via the Rhone valley and coastal Massalia". Strabo states that there was a highly lucrative Phoenician trade with Britain for tin via the Cassiterides whose location is unknown but may have been off the northwest coast of the Iberian Peninsula. Professor Timothy Champion, discussing Diodorus Siculus's comments on the tin trade, states that "Diodorus never actually says that the Phoenicians sailed to Cornwall. In fact, he says quite the opposite: the production of Cornish tin was in the hands of the natives of Cornwall, and its transport to the Mediterranean was organised by local merchants, by sea and then over land through France, well outside Phoenician control." Tarshish (Hebrew: תַּרְשִׁישׁ) occurs in the Hebrew Bible with several uncertain meanings, and one of the most recurring is that Tarshish is a place, probably a city or country, that is far from the Land of Israel by sea where trade occurs with Israel and Phoenicia. It was a place where Phoenicians reportedly obtained different metals, particularly silver, during the reign of Solomon. The Septuagint, the Vulgate and the Targum of Jonathan render Tarshish as Carthage, but other biblical commentators read it as Tartessos perhaps in ancient Hispania (Iberian Peninsula). William.F. Albright (1941) and Frank M. Cross (1972) suggested Tarshish might be or was Sardinia because of the discovery of the Nora Stone and Nora Fragment, the former of which mentions Tarshish in its Phoenician inscription. Christine M. Thompson (2003) identified a concentration of hacksilber hoards dating between c.1200 and 586 BC in Israel and the Palestinian Territories (Cisjordan). This silver-dominant Cisjordan Corpus is unparalleled in the contemporary Mediterranean, and within it occurs a unique concentration in Phoenicia of silver hoards dated between 1200 and 800 BC. Hacksilber objects in these Phoenician hoards have lead isotope ratios that match ores in Sardinia and Spain. This metallic evidence agrees with the biblical memory of a western Mediterranean Tarshish that supplied Solomon with silver via Phoenicia. Assyrian records indicate Tarshish was an island, and the poetic construction of Psalm 72 points to its identity as a large island in the west -the island of Sardinia.

The Phoenicians established commercial outposts throughout the Mediterranean, the most strategically important being Carthage in North Africa, directly across the narrow straits. Ancient Gaelic mythologies attribute a Phoenician/Scythian influx to Ireland by a leader called Fenius Farsa. Others also sailed south along the coast of Africa. A Carthaginian expedition led by Hanno the Navigator explored and colonized the Atlantic coast of Africa as far as the Gulf of Guinea; and according to Herodotus, a Phoenician expedition sent down the Red Sea by pharaoh Necho II of Egypt (c. 600 BC) even circumnavigated Africa and returned through the Pillars of Hercules after three years. Using gold obtained by expansion of the African coastal trade following the Hanno expedition, Carthage minted gold staters in 350 BC bearing a pattern, in the reverse exergue of the coins, which Mark McMenamin has controversially argued could be interpreted as a map. According to McMenamin, the Mediterranean is represented as a rectangle in the centre, a triangle to the right represents India in the east, and an irregular shape on the left represents America to the west.

In the 2nd millennium BC, the Phoenicians traded with the Somalis. Through the Somali city-states of Mosylon, Opone, Malao, Sarapion, Mundus and Tabae, trade flourished.

Phoenician ships

The Greeks had two names for Phoenician ships: hippoi and galloi. Galloi means tubs and hippoi means horses. These names are readily explained by depictions of Phoenician ships in the palaces of Assyrian kings from the 7th and 8th centuries, as the ships in these images are tub shaped (galloi) and have horse heads on the ends of them (hippoi). It is possible that these hippoi come from Phoenician connections with the Greek god Poseidon.

Depictions

The Tel Balawat gates (850 BC) are found in the palace of Shalmaneser III, an Assyrian king, near Nimrud. They are made of bronze, and they portray ships coming to honor Shalmaneser. The Khorsabad bas-relief (7th century BC) shows the transportation of timber (most likely cedar) from Lebanon. It is found in the palace built specifically for Sargon II, another Assyrian king, at Khorsabad, now northern Iraq.

Important cities and colonies

Detailed map of Phoenicia

Map of Phoenician and Greek colonies at about 350 BC (with German legend).

Carthage

From the 10th century BC, the Phoenicians' expansive culture led them to establish cities and colonies throughout the Mediterranean. Canaanite deities like Baal and Astarte were being worshipped from Cyprus to Sardinia, Malta, Sicily, Spain, Portugal, and most notably at Carthage in modern Tunisia.

Modern Algeria

• Cirta (modern Constantine)
• Malaca (modern Guelma)
• Igigili (modern Jijel)
• Hippo (modern Annaba)
• Icosium (modern Algiers)
• Iol (modern Cherchell)
• Tipasa (modern Tipaza)
• Timgad (modern Timgad)

Cyprus

• Kition (modern Larnaca)
• Dhali (modern Dali, Cyprus)
• Marion (modern Polis, Cyprus)

Modern Italy

• Sardinia
  • Karalis (modern Cagliari)
  • Nora
  • Olbia
  • Sulci
  • Tharros
• Sicily
  • Zyz (modern Palermo)
  • Lilybaeaum (modern Marsala)
  • Motya
  • Solus (modern Solunto)

Modern Libya

• Leptis Magna
• Oea (modern Tripoli)
• Sabratha

The islands of Malta

• Maleth (modern Mdina)
• Għajn Qajjet
• Tas-Silġ
• Mtarfa
• Qallilija
• Ras il-Wardija in Gozo

Modern Mauritania

• Cerne

Modern Portugal

• Baal Saphon or Baal Shamen, later romanized as Balsa (modern Tavira, Algarve)
• Lisbon was probably a Phoenician trading post, rather than a settlement.

Modern Spain

• Abdera (modern Adra) and its dependencies in the 3rd century BC.
• Abyla (modern Ceuta, on the Moroccan coast)
• Akra Leuke (modern Alicante)
• Gadir (modern Cádiz)
• Ibossim (modern Ibiza)
• Malaka or mlk (modern Málaga)
• Onoba (modern Huelva)
• Qart Hadašt (Greek Νέα Καρχηδόνα; Latin Carthago Nova; Spanish Cartagena)
• Rusadir (modern Melilla, on the Moroccan coast)
• Sexi (modern Almuñécar)

Modern Tunisia

• Qart Hadašt (Greek Καρχηδόνα; Latin Carthago; English Carthage)
• Hadrumetum (modern Susat)
• Hippo Diarrhytus (modern Bizerte)
• Kerkouane
• Sicca (modern El Kef)
• Thapsus (near modern Bekalta)
• Utica

Modern Turkey

• Phoenicus (modern Finike)

Modern Morocco

• Acra
• Arambys (Mogador)
• Caricus Murus
• Gytta
• Lixus (modern Larache)
• Tingis (modern Tangier)
• Volubilis

Other colonies

• Callista (on modern Santorini)
• Calpe (modern Gibraltar)
• Gunugu
• Thenae
• Tipassa
• Sundar
• Surya
• Shobina
• Tara

Culture

Language and literature

Main articles: Phoenician languages, Phoenician alphabet, and Alphabet

The Phoenician alphabet was one of the first (consonantal) alphabets with a strict and consistent form. It is assumed that it adopted its simplified linear characters from an as-yet unattested early pictorial Semitic alphabet developed some centuries earlier in the southern Levant. It is likely that the precursor to the Phoenician alphabet was of Egyptian origin, since Middle Bronze Age alphabets from the southern Levant resemble Egyptian hieroglyphs or an early alphabetic writing system found at Wadi-el-Hol in central Egypt. In addition to being preceded by proto-Canaanite, the Phoenician alphabet was also preceded by an alphabetic script of Mesopotamian origin called Ugaritic. The development of the Phoenician alphabet from the Proto-Canaanite coincided with the rise of the Iron Age in the 11th century BC.

This alphabet has been termed an abjad, — that is, a script that contains no vowels — from the first four letters aleph, beth, gimel, and daleth.

Sarcophagus of Ahiram in the National Museum of Beirut

The oldest known representation of the Phoenician alphabet is inscribed on the sarcophagus of King Ahiram of Byblos, dating to the 11th century BC at the latest. Phoenician inscriptions are found in Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Cyprus and other locations, as late as the early centuries of the Christian Era. The Phoenicians are credited with spreading the Phoenician alphabet throughout the Mediterranean world. Phoenician traders disseminated this writing system along Aegean trade routes, to Crete and Greece. The Greeks adopted the majority of these letters but changed some of them to vowels which were significant in their language, giving rise to the first true alphabet.

The Phoenician language is classified in the Canaanite subgroup of Northwest Semitic. Its later descendant in North Africa is termed Punic. In Phoenician colonies around the western Mediterranean, beginning in the 9th century BC, Phoenician evolved into Punic. Punic Phoenician was still spoken in the 5th century AD: St. Augustine, for example, grew up in North Africa and was familiar with the language.

Art

Phoenician art lacks unique characteristics that might distinguish it from its contemporaries. This is due to its being highly influenced by foreign artistic cultures: primarily Egypt, Greece and Assyria. Phoenicians who were taught on the banks of the Nile and the Euphrates gained a wide artistic experience and finally came to create their own art, which was an amalgam of foreign models and perspectives. In an article from The New York Times published on January 5, 1879, Phoenician art was described by the following:

He entered into other men's labors and made most of his heritage. The Sphinx of Egypt became Asiatic, and its new form was transplanted to Nineveh on the one side and to Greece on the other. The rosettes and other patterns of the Babylonian cylinders were introduced into the handiwork of Phoenicia, and so passed on to the West, while the hero of the ancient Chaldean epic became first the Tyrian Melkarth, and then the Herakles of Hellas.

Religion

Further information: Sanchuniathon

See also: Canaanite religion

Deities

Attested 1st millennium BC

• Adonis
• Chusor
• Dagon
• Eshmun-Melqart
• Gebory-Kon (Gebory = gabri? Kon = Chiun/Kiyun/Kaiwan/Saturn?)
• Melqart
• Milkashtart
• Reshef-Shed
• Shed-Horon
• Tanit-Astarte

Attested 2nd millennium BC

• Amen (Amun)
• Asherah
• Astarte
• Baal Saphon
• Baalat Gebal ("Lady of Byblos")
• Baal Shemen
• El
• Eshmun
• Hail
• Isis
• Osiris
• Shed
• Venerable Reshef (Reshef of the Arrow)

Foreign relations

Influence in the Mediterranean region

Cadmus fighting the dragon. Side A of a black-figured amphora from Eubœa, c. 560 – 550 BC, Louvre

Phoenician culture had a huge effect upon the cultures of the Mediterranean basin in the early Iron Age, and had been affected by them in turn. For example, in Phoenicia, the tripartite division between Baal, Mot and Yam seems to have influenced the Greek division between Zeus, Hades and Poseidon. The Tartessos region probably embraced the whole southern part of the Iberian Peninsula. Strab. 3.2.11). In various Mediterranean ports during the classical period, Phoenician temples sacred to Melkart were recognized as sacred to Greek Hercules. Stories like the Rape of Europa, and the coming of Cadmus also draw upon Phoenician influence.

The recovery of the Mediterranean economy after the late Bronze Age collapse (ca. 1200 BC) seems to have been largely due to the work of Phoenician traders and merchant princes, who re-established long distance trade between Egypt and Mesopotamia in the 10th century BC.

There are many countries and cities around the Mediterranean region that derive their names from the Phoenician Language. Below is a list with the respective meanings:

• Altiburus: City in Algeria, SW of Carthage. From Phoenician: "Iltabrush"
• Bosa: City in Sardinia: From Phoenician "Bis'en"
• Cádiz: City in Spain: From Phoenician "Gadir"
• Dhali (Idalion): City in Central Cyprus: From Phoenician "Idyal"
• Erice: City in Sicily: From Phoenician "Eryx"
• Malta: Island in the Mediterranean: From Phoenician "Malat" ('refuge')
• Marion: City in West Cyprus: From Phoenician "Aymar"
• Oed Dekri: City in Algeria: From Phoenician: "Idiqra"
• Spain: From Phoenician: "I-Shaphan", meaning "Land of Hyraxes". Later Latinized as "Hispania"
• Carthage: City in Tunisia: From Phoenician "Qart Hadašt" meaning "New City",
• Cartagena: City in Spain (Greek Νέα Καρχηδόνα; Latin Carthago Nova; Spanish Cartagena) A colony of Carthage, which also gave rise to Cartagena, Colombia.

Relations with the Greeks

Trade

Towards the end of the Bronze Age (around 1200 BC) there was trade between the Canaanites (early Phoenicians), Egypt, Cyprus, and Greece. In a shipwreck found off of the coast of Turkey, the Ulu Bulurun wreck, Canaanite storage pottery along with pottery from Cyprus and Greece was found. The Phoenicians were famous metalworkers, and by the end of the 8th century BC, Greek city-states were sending out envoys to the Levant (the eastern Mediterranean) for metal goods.

The height of Phoenician trade was around the 7th and 8th centuries. There is a dispersal of imports (ceramic, stone, and faience) from the Levant that traces a Phoenician commercial channel to the Greek mainland via the central Aegean. Athens shows little evidence of this trade with few eastern imports, but other Greek coastal cities are rich with eastern imports that evidence this trade.

Al Mina is a specific example of the trade that took place between the Greeks and the Phoenicians. It has been theorized that by the 8th century BC, Euboean traders established a commercial enterprise with the Levantine coast and were using Al Mina (in Syria) as a base for this enterprise. There is still some question about the veracity of these claims concerning Al Mina. The Phoenicians even got their name from the Greeks due to their trade. Their most famous trading product was purple dye, the Greek word for which is phoenos.

Alphabet

The Phoenician phonetic alphabet was adopted and modified by the Greeks probably at the 8th century BC (around the time of the hippoi depictions). This most likely did not come from a single instance but from a culmination of commercial exchange. This means that before the 8th century, there was a relationship between the Greeks and the Phoenicians. Though there is no evidence to support the suggestion, it is probable that during this period there was also a passing of religious ideas. Herodotus cited the city of Thebes (a city in central Greece) as the place of the importation of the alphabet. The legendary Phoenician hero Cadmus is credited with bringing the alphabet to Greece, but it is more plausible that it was brought by Phoenician emigrants to Crete, whence it gradually diffused northwards.

Connections with Greek mythology

• Kadmos - In both Phoenician and Greek mythologies, Kadmos is a Phoenician prince, the son of Agenor, the king of Tyre. Herodotus credits Kadmos for bringing the Phoenician alphabet to Greece approximately sixteen hundred years before Herodotus' time, or around 2000 BC, as he attested.

  So these Phoenicians, including the Gephyraians, came with Kadmos and settled this land, and they transmitted much lore to the Hellenes, and in particular, taught them the alphabet which, I believe the Hellenes did not have previously, but which was originally used by all Phoenicians.

  — The Landmark Herodotus: The Histories, Book 5.58, translated by Andrea L. Purvis.

• Phoenician gods of the sea - Due to the number of deities similar to the "Lord of the Sea" in classical mythology, there have been many difficulties attributing one specific name to the sea deity or the "Poseidon–Neptune" figure of Phoenician religion. This figure of "Poseidon-Neptune" is mentioned by authors and in various inscriptions as being very important to merchants and sailors, but a singular name has yet to be found. There are, however, names for sea gods from individual city-states. Ugarit is an ancient city state of Phoenicia. Yamm is the Ugaritic god of the sea. Yamm and Baal, the storm god of Ugaritic myth and often associated with Zeus, have an epic battle for power over the universe. While Yamm is the god of the sea, he truly represents vast chaos. Baal, on the other hand, is a representative for order. In Ugaritic myth, Baal overcomes Yamm's power. In some versions of this myth, Baal kills Yamm with a mace fashioned for him, and in others, the goddess Athtart saves Yamm and says that since defeated, he should stay in his own province. Yamm is the brother of the god of death, Mot. Some scholars have identified Yamm with Poseidon, although he has also been identified with Pontus.

According to Plato

In his Republic, Plato contends that the love of money is a tendency of the soul found amongst Phoenicians and Egyptians, which distinguishes them from the Greeks who tend towards the love of knowledge. In his Laws, he asserts that this love of money has led the Phoenicians and Egyptians to develop skills in cunning and trickery (πανουργία) rather than wisdom (σοφία).

According to Herodotus In "The Histories," Herodotus gives the Persian and Greek accounts of a series of kidnappings that led to the Trojan War. While docked at a trading port in Argos, the Phoenicians kidnapped a group of Greek women including King Idacus's daughter, Io. The Greeks then retaliated by kidnapping Europa, a Phoenician, and later Medea. The Greeks refused to compensate the Phoenicians for the additional abduction, a fact which Paris used a generation later to justify the abduction of Helen from Argos. The Greeks then retaliated by waging war against Troy. After Troy's fall the Persians considered the Greeks to be their enemy.

Sources on Phoenicia

In the Bible

Hiram (also spelled Huran) associated with the building of the temple.

2 Chronicles 2:14—The son of a woman of the daughters of Dan, and his father [was] a man of Tyre, skillful to work in gold, silver, brass, iron, stone, timber, royal purple (from the Murex), blue, and in crimson, and fine linens; also to grave any manner of graving, and to find out every device which shall be put to him ...

This is the architect of the Temple, Hiram Abiff of Masonic lore.

Later, reforming prophets railed against the practice of drawing royal wives from among foreigners: Elijah execrated Jezebel, the princess from Tyre who became a consort of King Ahab and introduced the worship of her gods Baal.

Long after Phoenician culture flourished, or Phoenicia existed as a political entity, Hellenized natives of the region where Canaanites still lived were referred to as "Syro-Phoenicians", as in the Gospel of Mark 7:26: "The woman was a Greek, a Syro-phoenician by birth".

The word Bible itself derives from Greek biblion, which means "book" and either derives from, or is the (perhaps ultimately Egyptian) origin of Byblos, the Greek name of the Phoenician city Gebal.

Legacy

The legacy of the Phoenicians are many and varied and include:

1. The spread of the alphabet throughout the Mediterranean extended literacy beyond a narrow caste of hierarchical priests.
2. They re-opened the trade routes in the Eastern Mediterranean that connected the Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilisations after the long hiatus of the Bronze Age collapse recovered, beginning the "Orientalising" trend later seen in Greek art.
3. They invented a more democratic and flatter oligarchic social structure than any people prior to the Athenian revolution, and in this were an inspiration to Greek constitutional government.
4. They pioneered the development of multi-tiered oared shipping throughout the Mediterranean region, being the first people exploring beyond the Straits of Gibraltar.
5. They were the first Eastern Mediterranean people to colonise the Western Mediterranean in any significant way (The Shardana may have preceded them in Sardinia), opening up urban development and trade in this region.
6. Greeks, Etruscans, and Romans freely admitted what they owed to the Phoenicians, and Phoenician influence can be traced in the Iberian and Celtic worlds from the 8th century onwards.
7. It is possible that Zeno of Citium, the founder of Stoicism, was of Phoenician heritage. Diogenes Laërtius writes that Crates once chastised Zeno, crying out, "Why run away, my little Phoenician?"

See also

• Carthage
• Names of the Levant
• Phoenicianism
• Punic language
• Punics
• Tarout Island
• Theory of Phoenician discovery of the Americas

Sources

• Assyria: Khorsabad (Room10c). http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/galleries/middle_east/room_10c_assyria_khorsabad.aspx. (2 May 2009
• Boardman, J. 1964. The Greeks Overseas. London: Thames and Hudson Limited
• Bondi, S. F. 1988. "The Course of History." In The Phoenicians, edited by Sabatino Moscati, 38–45. Milan: Gruppo Editoriale Fabbri.
• Cunliffe, B. 2008. Europe Between the Oceans; 9000 BC-AD 1000. New Haven: Yale University Press.
• Elayi, J. 2013. Histoire de la Phénicie. Paris: Perrin
• Gordon, C. H. 1966. Ugarit and Minoan Crete. New York: W.W. Norton & Company
• Habel, N.C. 1964. Yahweh Versus Baal: A Conflict of Religious Cultures. New York: Bookman Associates
• Heard, C. Yahwism and Baalism in Israel & Judah (3 May 2009).
• Herodotus. 440 BC. The Histories. Translated by Andrea L. Purvis. New York: Pantheon Books
• Homer. 6th century BC (perhaps 700 BC). The Odyssey. Translated by Stanley Lombardo. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company.
• Markoe, G. E. 2000. Peoples of the Past: Phoenicians. Los Angeles: University of California Press
• Mikalson, J.D. 2005. Ancient Greek Religion. Malden: Blackwell publishing
• Moscati, S. 1965. The World of the Phoenicians. New York: Frederick A. Praeger, Inc., Publishers
• Ovid. 1st century AD. Metamorphoses. Translated by Rolfe Humphries. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
• Rawlinson, George, 1989, "History of Phoenicia"; Google Archives
• Ribichini, S. 1988. "Beliefs and Religious Life." In The Phoenicians, edited by Sabatino Moscati, 104–125. Milan: Gruppo Editoriale Fabbri.
• Ringgren, H. 1917. Religions of the Ancient Near East. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press
• 1999. Canaan and Ancient Israel. http://www.museum.upenn.edu/Canaan/index.html
• Urquhart, David, "Mount Lebanon"; Google Archives

Further reading

• Carayon, Nicolas, Les ports phéniciens et puniques, PhD Thesis, 2008, Strasbourg, France.
• Aubet, Maria Eugenia, The Phoenicians and the West: Politics, Colonies and Trade, tr. Mary Turton (Bryn Mawr Classical Review, 2001: review)
• The History of Phoenicia, first published in 1889 by George Rawlinson is available under Project Gutenberg at: http://digital.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=2331 Rawlinson's 19th-century text needs updating for modern improvements in historical understanding.
• Todd, Malcolm; Andrew Fleming (1987). The South West to AD 1,000 (Regional history of England series No.:8). Harlow, Essex: Longman. ISBN 0-582-49274-2., for a critical examination of the evidence of Phoenician trade with the South West of the U.K.
• Markoe, Glenn (2000). Phoenicians. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-22613-5.
• Thiollet, Jean-Pierre, Je m'appelle Byblos, foreword by Guy Gay-Para, H & D, Paris, 2005. ISBN 2-914266-04-9

External links

• Media related to Phoenicia at Wikimedia Commons
• The dictionary definition of phoenicia at Wiktionary
• "Phœnicia" . The New Student's Reference Work . 1914.
• Gabriel Oussani (1913). "Phœnicia" . Catholic Encyclopedia.
• BBC Radio4 - In Our Time: The Phonecians (audio archive)
• The quest for the Phoenicians in South Lebanon
• The Phoenician Ship Expedition
• Phoenician Encyclopedic reference: Timeline, Illustrations, Articles
• Phoenician Alphabet