Lords of the sea

In the early part of the first millennium BCE, the Phoenicians were the preeminent sailors in the Mediterranean region. While this status was partly due to their seamanship, the quality of their ships was also an important factor. Phoenician ships had a wide, flat hull to hold plenty of cargo, while a double deck offered space for two rows of oarsmen. With a square sail on a single mast, these ships were fast and highly maneuverable. They enabled the Phoenicians to criss-cross the Mediterranean and even venture into the Atlantic and Indian oceans.

The Phoenicians were first and foremost traders. As well as importing goods and exporting their own raw materials and products, the Phoenicians acted as

THE PHOENICIAN WORLD

Wholesalers, retailers, and transporters of goods. Phoenicia was ideally situated for trade, lying between the prosperous Egyptians to the south and the Hittites to the northwest and on the main caravan routes that brought goods from Mesopotamia and the east to the Mediterranean and northern Africa. Although they were known primarily as seafaring merchants, the Phoenicians did not conduct their trade exclusively by sea; they carried goods by land as far as Babylon in present-day Iraq.

The Phoenicians established good relations with the major powers of the eastern Mediterranean. In 950 BCE, Israel’s King Solomon entered into a trade agreement with King Hiram of Tyre to do business with the people living on the coast of the Red Sea. This arrangement probably extended to the people of western Arabia and beyond—the land of Ophir in the Bible. The pharaohs of Egypt employed Phoenicians to help build and sail fleets, and to equip expeditions. The Egyptians even allowed Phoenicia to establish a trading post at Memphis, in the heart of commercial Egypt.