The ancient people known as the Phoenicians lived in Asia along the east coast of the Mediterranean Sea, starting around the third millennium b. c.e. at the latest. About 200 miles long and five to 15 miles wide, Phoenicia extended eastward along the coast roughly to the Lebanon Mountains in present-day Lebanon, northward to the Eleutherus River (now known as the Kebir), and southward to Mount Carmel. The ancient Greeks first referred to them as Phoenicians, from the word for “purple,” because of a dye they traded. The Phoenicians became influential as traders throughout the Mediterranean Sea region and established a number of colonies in Africa and Europe. One of the city-states they founded in North Africa, Carthage, rose to ascendancy in the western Mediterranean (see Carthaginians).
ORIGINS
The original homeland of the Phoenicians is not known. in the Bible they are referred to as Sidonians, related to the Canaanites, a Semitic people. Some have theorized that their ancient ancestors migrated to the eastern Mediterranean from india; this hypothesis is highly speculative.
LANGUAGE
Phoenician is a Semitic language, classified as part of the Canaanite subgroup, related to Hebrew. The earliest known Phoenician inscription dates from the first century B. C.E. The Phoenicians are known as the first people to develop an exclusively alphabetic system of writing, that is, a standardized system of symbols representing sounds, instead of the hieroglyphics and cuneiform of the other cultures in the region. Their alphabet has 22 characters and does not indicate vowels; the Greeks eventually adopted and altered the Phoenician alphabet. Spoken Phoenician eventually was superseded in Phoenicia by Aramaic, another Semitic language. The Carthaginians spoke a dialect known as Pun, or Punic, which was influenced by the Hamitic language of the Berbers.
HISTORY
The Phoenicians lived in allied city-states. Byblos, a site near present-day Beirut, Lebanon, became an important Phoenician center by about 2800 b. c.e. The Phoenicians early in their history were under the influence of Mesopotamian peoples, the Sumerians and the Akkadians. The Egyptians, out of North Africa, occupied their territory from about 1800 to 1400 B. C.E. The conflict between the Egyptians and Hittites of present-day Syria, which started in about 1400 b. c.e., led to eventual Phoenician independence and the rise of many city-states. The port cities of Sidon (Sayda) and Tyre (Sour; Sur), 22 miles to the south, alternated as the primary seat of Phoenician political power. By the mid-13th century b. c.e. the Phoenicians had become known in the region as accomplished shipbuilders and mariners and as reliable traders.
For periods of its history Phoenicia was under assault from Asian peoples from the east, in particular the Assyrians in the eighth to seventh centuries, the Chaldeans in the sixth century, and the Persians in the sixth to fourth centuries b. c.e. Although some city-states fell to invaders, the Phoenicians continued to operate as merchants, navigators, and artisans, sometimes as servants or employees of other peoples. The Greeks took over much of the region’s trade; with the Greeks evolving into a naval power Phoenician traders lost their monopoly. Phoenician culture of the eastern Mediterranean was absorbed into Hellenistic culture. In 332 b. c.e. Tyre fell to the Macedonians under Alexander the Great during his push into Asia, after which the Hellenized Egyptians controlled the region. In 200 B. C.E. Phoenicia was part of the Hellenistic Seleucid kingdom, centered in present-day Syria. In 64 b. c.e. Phoenicia became part of the Roman province of Syria, and the name Phoenician was no longer used.
Phoenician Travelers and Settlers
Wide-ranging seafarers, the Phoenicians explored the entire Mediterranean, from the Dardanelles to the Iberian Peninsula. Some Phoenician outposts were in Europe, thus leading to the classification of Phoenicians as a European in addition to an Asian and African people. The Phoenicians traded as far west as the Iberian Peninsula, a source of tin and silver. Tradition dates the founding of the earliest trading post in the Iberian Peninsula in present-day Spain—Gadir (later Gades; modern Cadiz) beyond the Strait of Gibraltar in present-day southern Spain—to 1110 b. c.e. although a date after 800 b. c.e. has been confirmed archeologically.
Many outposts, originally anchorages on this trade route, evolved into thriving trading centers. Pressures on Phoenicia by invading
Phoenicians time line
PHOENICIANS
Location:
Mediterranean region
Time period:
C. 2800 to 64 B. C.E.
Ancestry:
Probably Semitic
Language:
Phoenician (Semitic)
B. C. E.
C. 2800 Phoenician city-states established. c. mid-13th century Phoenicians thrive as traders. c. late ninth century Carthage founded in North Africa. 332 Tyre falls to Macedonians under Alexander the Great.
C. E.
64 Phoenicia becomes part of Roman province of Syria.
Peoples led to growing migration westward, and the trading centers evolved into colonies and eventually independent city-states. In addition to present-day Spain the Phoenicians were active on various islands in the Mediterranean—Cyprus, Crete, Malta, Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, the Balearic Islands—as well as on the European mainland, at Genoa in present-day Italy and Marseille in present-day France.
Utica and Carthage in present-day Tunisia in North Africa evolved into powerful city-states. Tradition maintains that Utica was founded in the 12th century B. C.E., even before Gadir, but again there is no concrete evidence. Carthage may have been founded as early as the late ninth century, but more likely in the mid-eighth century b. c.e. In any case by the sixth century b. c.e. the Carthaginians had become a powerful presence in the western Mediterranean, reestablishing many of the Phoenician colonies and competing with the Greeks and Romans for centuries until defeat by Rome in the second century b. c.e.
Phoenicians also navigated southward into the Red Sea and, according to the fifth-century B. C.E. Greek historian Herodotus, in about 600 Phoenicians, commissioned by the Egyptian pharaoh Necho II, sailed along the Red Sea and all the way around Africa, returning to the Mediterranean by the Pillars of Hercules at the Strait of Gibraltar. Such a voyage cannot be confirmed. The Carthaginians in the mid-fifth century b. c.e. reportedly explored the Atlantic coast of Europe.
Economy
The Phoenician economy was organized around commerce. The Phoenicians traded natural resources, such as wood from cedar and pine trees; foodstuffs, such as dried fish, salt, and wine; as well as manufactured goods, such as textiles and dyes (including the Tyrian purple, made from the snail Murex), pottery, colored glass, metalwork, ebony and ivory carvings, and jewelry. They also acted as middlemen for other people’s products, such as perfume, spices, and incenses carried in Arab caravans to their homeland, some of which they shipped westward by sea. They also traded for other raw materials such as silk, ebony, ivory, amber, papyrus, oak timber, silk, cotton, wool, animal skins, gold, silver, copper, tin, gemstones, horses, wheat, corn, honey, oil, and ostrich eggs. And the Phoenicians participated in the slave trade. In addition to their alphabet, which facilitated record keeping, the Phoenicians devised a standardized system of weights and measures.
Despite trade relations Phoenician city-states maintained independence from one another. Kings ruled the various city-states, along with councils of elders and suffetes (judges or magistrates). In some instances a republic was formed, and the suffetes replaced the monarchy altogether. The wealthy merchant families also had great political influence. And priests played political roles; temples were centers of political and civic activities.
The early Phoenicians shaped dwellings, temples, and tombs out of the calcareous limestone caves and fissures found in their homeland. Yet with time they built dwellings typical of other Mediterranean cultures, using stone building blocks, masonry, and timber. Some dwellings were a combination of both styles: building materials added to natural formations.
Transportation
The Phoenicians developed what was considered a superior version of the galley ship, vessels powered primarily by oar with a number of rowers. They constructed it from cedar planks and used caulk to seal the seams. A keeled hull enabled them to sail on open seas. By the eighth century b. c.e. they built their ships with more than one tier of rowers: Those with two were known as biremes; with three, triremes; and so on. The Carthaginians reportedly built quadiremes and quinqueremes, four-tiered and five-tiered galleys. Merchant ships were broader and rounder than war galleys and typically had a single mast and a square sail in addition to oars.
The Phoenicians are credited as the first people to navigate by means of Polaris, the North Star, located along the axis of the North Pole and relatively fixed in position throughout the year. Using the North Star would enable them to travel at night and away from coastlines.
Each Phoenician city-state had its special deity, referred to in many cases as Baal for a god and Baalat for a goddess, although they were often known by their local names, such as Baal-peor, Baal-hazor, and Baal-hermon. Baal was considered the father of the gods and bore such titles as “Lord of the Earth” and “Rider of the Clouds.” The most prevalent goddess in Phoenicia was Astarte, Queen of the Heavens and Lady of the Sea. Gods from other cultures also were worshipped by Phoenicians. They practiced holy prostitution and child sacrifice.
The Phoenicians accepted Christianity. A woman from Sidon, a Phoenician town, is mentioned in the Bible as a convert who witnessed a miracle performed by Jesus.
As the foremost navigators of their day and the most active traders the Phoenicians have special significance in the ancient history of Europe as disseminators of knowledge and material culture throughout the Mediterranean world and beyond into Atlantic coastal regions. They absorbed elements of cultures of those who had invaded their homeland and those with whom they traded, yet maintained a distinct identity as a cosmopolitan people who made much of the ancient world—parts of Asia, Africa, and Europe—a smaller place.
Further Reading
Marilyn Bierling. The Phoenicians in Spain: An Archaeological Review of the Eighth-Sixth Centuries b. c.e.: A Collection of Articles Translated from Spanish (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2001).
Richard J. Harrison. Spain at the Dawn of History: Iberians, Phoenicians and Greeks (London: Thames & Hudson, 1988).
Glenn Markoe. Phoenicians (London: British
Museum, 2000).
Sabatino Moscati. The World of the Phoenicians (London: Phoenix Giant, 1999).
Aubet Semmler and Maria Eugenia. The Phoenicians and the West: Politics, Colonies and Trade (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
World History
