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PHOENICIANS (1500–300 B.C.)
The Phoenicians established a great early civilization in the first millennium B.C. and were contemporaries of the later Mesopotamian civilizations. Originating on the coasts of present-day Lebanon and Israel, they developed an alphabet that was modified and adopted by much of the world and were traders and expert sailors. They dominated the Mediterranean, acted as intermediaries between Mesopotamia and Egypt and came close to defeating the Romans. Punic was another name for Phoenician or Carthaginian. Carthage was a Phoenician colony that developed into a powerful city state. The Romans called the residents of Carthage: Carthaginians, Poeni or Punic. [Sources: Rick Gore, National Geographic, October 2004; Dora Jane Hamblin, Smithsonian magazine, August 1988; Samuel W. Matthews, National Geographic, August 1974]
According to Archaeology magazine: Starting around 1500 B.C., Phoenicians settled a stretch of the Mediterranean coast in present-day Lebanon, Israel, and Gaza. They founded city-states such as Tyre, controlled key trade and shipping routes throughout the region, and established numerous colonies in places including Cadiz in modern Spain and Kition on Cyprus. [Source: Sara Toth Stub, Archaeology magazine, November-December 2020]
Ancient Phoenicia was made up of a loose conglomeration of independent city-states, the most prominent being Tyre, Sidon , and Byblos. The cities' inhabitants probably referred to themselves as Canaanites, and certainly not Phoenicians. The word "Phoenician" is derived from a Greek word meaning "blood-red," and was probably first used by Greek speakers in reference to the Phoenician civilization's manufacture of a famous purple dye from murex sea snails— a greatly sought-after commodity in the ancient world. [Source: Jason Urbanus, Archaeology magazine, May/June 2016]
According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Phoenicians occupied the coast of the Levant (eastern Mediterranean). Their major cities — Tyre, Sidon, Byblos, and Arwad — were fiercely independent, rival cities and, unlike the neighboring inland states, the Phoenicians represented a confederation of maritime traders rather than a defined country. What the Phoenicians actually called themselves is unknown, though it may have been the ancient term Canaanite. The name Phoenician, used to describe these people in the first millennium B.C., is a Greek invention, from the word phoinix, possibly signifying the color purple-red and perhaps an allusion to their production of a highly prized purple dye.” [Source: Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art. Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, Metropolitan Museum of Art, October 2004]
Websites : PhoeniciaOrg is the largest compilation and repository of studies on the Phoenicians on the web. It covers extensive and inclusive Canaanite Phoenician information i.e. the origin, history, geography, religion, arts, thinkers, trade, industry, mythology, language, literature, music, wars, archaeology, and culture of this people. Mesopotamia and the Near East: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Mesopotamia sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, University of Chicago isac.uchicago.edu ; University of Chicago Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations nelc.uchicago.edu ; University of Pennsylvania Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations (NELC) nelc.sas.upenn.edu; Penn Museum Near East Section penn.museum; British Museum britishmuseum.org ; Louvre louvre.fr/en/explore ; Metropolitan Museum of Art metmuseum.org/toah ; Ancient Near Eastern Art Metropolitan Museum of Art metmuseum.org; Archaeology Websites Archaeology News Report archaeologynewsreport.blogspot.com ; Anthropology.net anthropology.net : archaeologica.org archaeologica.org ; Archaeology in Europe archeurope.com ; Archaeology magazine archaeology.org ; HeritageDaily heritagedaily.com; Live Science livescience.com/
Books: "The Phoenicians" by Donald Harden, "The Phoenicians" by Edward Lipinski In "Civilizations of the Ancient Near East," vol. 2, edited by Jack M. Sasson, pp. 1321–33. . New York: Scribner, 1995. "Phoenicians" by Glenn Markoe (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000)
Who Were the Phoenicians
Phoenician mask
The Phoenicians spoke a Semitic language like Jews and Arabs. The are associated with Lebanon but little is known of their origin. They fit no clear or racial or physical profile and appear to be a kind of mongrel race comprised of various groups that lived in the Middle East and the Mediterranean. They came into their own in 1200 B.C. and endured until the razing of Carthage in 146 B.C. The Phoenicians were initially based in what is now Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. They formed a string of colonies and city states that stretched across the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. Later they were based in Carthage.
The Phoenicians were known as the “ Kinanu” in Akkadian and the “ Phoenikes” to the Greeks. Both words appear to be a reference to dark red or purple, the color of the much-coveted dyed clothing they produced from sea snails. The Phoenicians did not call themselves Phoenicians. They called themselves names that referred to the cities they were from: Sidoans, Tyrians, Giblites [for Gebal as Byblos was earlier known).
Little is known about the Phoenicians because very little actually written by Phoenicians remain. Most of what is known about them was written by their traditional enemies. Other stuff comes from funerary statues, dedications of temples, votive offerings, list of divinities, Egyptian and Mesopotamian records of transactions, Assyrian boasts concerning them, Biblical records, and chronicles from Greek and Roman historians. What the Phoenicians wrote about themselves was written down mostly on papyrus that crumbled away centuries ago. Archeological research of the Phoenicians is hampered by the fact that Phoenician ruins often lie underneath Roman remains on some other ruins, which people do not want to see dug to get at the Phoenician layers underneath.
Phoenician Achievements
Phoenicians are known as the creators of the first alphabet. Though they did not create the first alphabets they did create the one that evolved into the one we use today.
According to phoenicia.org: “The Phoenicians were not mere passive peddlers in art or commerce. Their achievement in history was a positive contribution, even if it was only that of an intermediary. For example, the extent of the debt of Greece alone to Phoenicia may be fully measured by its adoption, probably in the 8th century B.C., of the Phoenician alphabet with very little variation (along with Semitic loan words); by "orientalizing" decorative motifs on pottery and by architectural paradigms; and by the universal use in Greece of the Phoenician standards of weights and measures. Having mentioned this, the influence on or from Linear A and B scripts is unknown. [Source: phoenicia.org ^=^]
Byblos “The Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder was a great admirer of the Phoenicians, he credited them with many discoveries, including the invention of trade. Although Pliny was not adverse to exaggerating, scholars do accept his evidence that Phoenicians were the first traveling salesmen. Because they needed an efficient method of keeping records, they invented an alphabet from which every alphabet of the world has descended. Along with an alphabet came the equipment for using it: pen, ink and, of course, papyrus, parchment and finally paper. A wax-writing tablet was found in an ancient Uluburun shipwreck (most likely to have been Canaanite Phoenician) off the coast of Turkey.” ^=^
City States of the Phoenicians
Around 2500 B.C., major ports on the Phoenicians coast — Byblos, Sidon, Tyre and Beirut — emerged as independent city states. Excavations in these places have revealed mysterious burials of people in layers of sand brought from a sand dune somewhere else. Some people were buried with weapons in brick graves. Later children were found buried in clay pots. Metals used to make weapons dated to 1950 B.C. came from what is now Turkey, Cyprus and Syria, an indication that there was already a flourishing metals trade at that time.
The Phoenician settled in the great city states of Byblos, Sidon and Tyre. The Phoenicians could not capture the city-states of Aradus, Sidon and Tyre. Instead they employed a if-you-can't-beat-em-join-em strategy and over time came to dominate them. Beirut was a small Phoenician outpost.
See Separate Article: PHOENICIAN CITY STATES OF BYBLOS, SIDON AND TYRE africame.factsanddetails.com
Tyre, the Phoenicians and the Bible
Tyre was mentioned several times in the Bible. The prophet Ezekial called it a "city renowned, that was mighty on the sea” and said “in the midst of the seas, thy builders have perfected beauty...all the ships of the sea with their marines were in thee to occupy thy merchandise..." (Ezekiel 27:1-25). Isaiah described it as the "crowning city" whose "merchandary princes" and "whose traffickers are the honorable of the earth."
Ezekial mentioned oil, oak, embroidered linen, silver, ivory and purple dye traded in Tyre. Describing it riches he wrote: "Tarnish was they merchant by reason of the multitude of all kind of riches; with silver, iron, tin, and lead, they traded...many isles were the merchandise of thine hand: they brought thee...horns of ivory and ebony...emeralds...fine linen...honey, and oil, and balm...wine...and white wool...precious stones, and gold." In the early 6th century B.C. King Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to Tyre for 13 years but was unable to conquer it. Later it had a large Christian community. The city prospered under the Byzantines and later was occupied by Arabs, Mamluks and Ottoman Turks.
Canaanites and to a lesser extent Phoenicians are mentioned frequently in the Bible. Isaiah and Ezekiel wrote about the Phoenicians. Sarepta was wear Elijah came after fleeing a famine in Israel and there brought a Phoenician boy back from the dead to thank his mother for her hospitality (I Kings 18:8-24).
Phoenician ships brought Solomon gold from Ophir, sandalwood, ivory, peacocks and things "so king Solomon exceeded all the king...in riches" Ophir is believed to have been in India.
Phoenicians and the Temple of Jerusalem
Hiram, a Phoenician architect, designed the Temple of Jerusalem. It is believed to have been modeled after the temple to Ball Melqart in Tyre, which Herodotus said has one hill of "gold, the other of emerald."
Solomon’s Temple was built on Mt. Moriah on on a “threshing floor” on the mountain purchased by David for 50 shekels of silver from the Araunah the Jebusite in 1000 B.C."Behold, I propose to build an house unto the name of the Lord my God," King Solomon declared. His people were nomads and shepherds and they lacked experience building monuments so that is why he sought their assistance of his ally Hiram.
Siege of Tyre 332 B.C. The first Jewish Temple took seven years to build and employed hundreds of workmen and laborers. It was made from cut stone and cedar timber and was veiled in purple cloth. The entrance was marked by two great pillars of bronze, Solomon paid for the building with wheat and olive oil, 20 cities in Galilee and 120 tenants of gold. So much money was spent that it drained money from the treasury which could have been used to beef up the military. Not long afterwards the Jewish kingdom split apart and was defeated by Nebuchadnezzar.
Solomon said of one Phoenician, he is "a worker in brass; and he was filled with wisdom, and understanding, and cunning to work all works in brass."
There is no direct archaeological evidence of the existence of Solomon's reign. But in 1997, archaeologists discovered a 13-word scrap of Old Hebrew script on an inscription that mentioned the payment of three shekels of silver to King Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem. Dated between the 7th and 9th centuries B.C. , its is the oldest non-Biblical reference to Solomon's temple ever recorded. The inscription was found on a pottery fragment in a private collection and its source is not known.A shekel was a measure of weight equal to around 11 grams.
Phoenicians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks and Persians
The Phoenicians prospered despite being surrounded by often hostile neighbors such as Assyrians, Babylonians and Persians. They seemed to have thrived in an environment where others needed them for trade. When faced with a rival stronger than themselves the Phoenicians usually submitted to the conquerors and paid tribute. In 877 B.C., Assyrian King Ashurbasirpal II visited the cities of Phoenicia, which avoided trouble by sending tributes to his empire.
When the wealthy but military weak Phoenician cities were attacked by stronger foes, envoys were usually sent to strike a bargain of tribute in exchange for a degree of independence and autonomy. When they had to they were prepared to fight. They possessed copper, bronze and iron weapons. They used bronze arrowheads that were tiny and sharp.
After Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem in 586 B.C. he besieged Tyre for 13 years and took control of its in 573 B.C.. He rammed the walls of the mainland part of the city and trampled citizen under his chariots. Without an effective navy he was unable to deny the island citadel of supplies and effectively lay siege to it. Finally the Babylonian were pacified with nobleman hostages. "Every head was made bald" from wearing helmets so long, " and "every shoulder was peeled" according to the Bible.
In 539 B.C., when the Cyrus the Great captured Babylon, Phoenicia became part o the Persian Empire. The Phoenicians fought for the Persians Darius and Xerxes and supplied the Persians with ships to fight the Greeks. Phoenicians ships made up the heart of Xerxes fleet at the Battle of Salamis in 480 B.C.
The Phoenicians traded with the Greeks and other groups that inhabited the Mediterranean. Homer wrote about the Phoenicians. The Phoenicians gave the Greek their alphabet. In 535 B.C. the Phoenicians allied themselves with the Etruscans and defeated the Greeks in Corsica and Carthage took Sicily and Sardinia ad the Etruscans took Corsica and Ebla.
The Phoenicians were ultimately conquered by more militant empires. They were outclassed by the Greeks who took away their markets, dominated trade and defeated their Phoenician fighting ships. In the Battle of Catana the Phoenician trading center Motya in Sicily was sacked in 397 B.C. by the Greeks.
Phoenicians and Alexander the Great
Alexander at the Siege of Tyre As Alexander the Great headed south down the Mediterranean after defeating the Persians in Asia Minor in 334 B.C., nearly all the cities that were under Persian control surrendered and opened their gates to Alexander. The only city that put any resistance was Tyre, a former Phoenician island fortress off the coast of Lebanon.
In the early 6th century, King Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to Tyre for 13 years but was unable to conquer it. In 332 B.C., Alexander the Great captured Tyre by using ship-mounted battering rams and catapults to blast a hole in the fortress wall and gangplanks and two large siege towers to launch the assault.
Alexander’s army had spent seven months building a half mile causeway to the island, with debris from an abandoned mainland city, only to be bombarded with stones and arrows when they got near. The Tyrians also launched a boat with blazing cauldrons to set fire to the attackers. This tactic only delayed the inevitable.
The victory over Tyre added Lebanon as well as Palestine, Syria and Egypt to Alexander's empire. Alexander was reportedly so enraged by the loss of time and men used to capture Tyre that he destroyed half the city, and rounded up its residents, who were either massacred or sold into slavery. Seven thousand people were slaughtered after the capture, 2,000 young men were crucified and 30,000 people were sold into slavery.
See Separate Article: SIEGE OF TYRE AND ALEXANDER THE GREAT IN PHOENICIA factsanddetails.com
Herodotus on Phoenicians and Carthaginians, 430 B.C.
Herodotus wrote in Book IV of' Histories, “The Phoenicians took their departure from Egypt by way of the Erythraean sea, and so sailed into the southern ocean. When autumn came, they went ashore, wherever they might happen to be, and having sown a tract of land with corn, waited until the grain was fit to cut. Having reaped it, they again set sail; and thus it came to pass that two whole years went by, and it was not till the third year that they doubled the Pillars of Hercules, and made good their voyage home. On their return, they declared- I for my part do not believe them, but perhaps others may- that in sailing round Libya they had the sun upon their right hand. In this way was the extent of Libya first discovered.[Source: Herodotus’s “Histories”, Book IV, Written 440 B.C., translated by George Rawlinson, (New York: Dutton & Co., 1862)]
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Siege of Tyre by
Andre Castaigne (1898-1899) “Next to these Phoenicians the Carthaginians, according to their own accounts, made the voyage. For Sataspes, son of Teaspes the Achaemenian, did not circumnavigate Libya, though he was sent to do so; but, fearing the length and desolateness of the journey, he turned back and left unaccomplished the task which had been set him by his mother. This man had used violence towards a maiden, the daughter of Zopyrus, son of Megabyzus, and King Xerxes was about to impale him for the offence, when his mother, who was a sister of Darius, begged him off, undertaking to punish his crime more heavily than the king himself had designed. She would force him, she said, to sail round Libya and return to Egypt by the Arabian gulf. Xerxes gave his consent; and Sataspes went down to Egypt, and there got a ship and crew, with which he set sail for the Pillars of Hercules.
Having passed the Straits, he doubled the Libyan headland, known as Cape Soloeis, and proceeded southward. Following this course for many months over a vast stretch of sea, and finding that more water than he had crossed still lay ever before him, he put about, and came back to Egypt. Thence proceeding to the court, he made report to Xerxes, that at the farthest point to which he had reached, the coast was occupied by a dwarfish race, who wore a dress made from the palm tree. These people, whenever he landed, left their towns and fled away to the mountains; his men, however, did them no wrong, only entering into their cities and taking some of their cattle. The reason why he had not sailed quite round Libya was, he said, because the ship stopped, and would no go any further. Xerxes, however, did not accept this account for true; and so Sataspes, as he had failed to accomplish the task set him, was impaled by the king's orders in accordance with the former sentence. One of his eunuchs, on hearing of his death, ran away with a great portion of his wealth, and reached Samos, where a certain Samian seized the whole. I know the man's name well, but I shall willingly forget it here.
“Of the greater part of Asia Darius was the discoverer. Wishing to know where the Indus (which is the only river save one that produces crocodiles) emptied itself into the sea, he sent a number of men, on whose truthfulness he could rely, and among them Scylax of Caryanda, to sail down the river. They started from the city of Caspatyrus, in the region called Pactyica, and sailed down the stream in an easterly direction to the sea. Here they turned westward, and, after a voyage of thirty months, reached the place from which the Egyptian king, of whom I spoke above, sent the Phoenicians to sail round Libya. After this voyage was completed, Darius conquered the Indians, and made use of the sea in those parts. Thus all Asia, except the eastern portion, has been found to be similarly circumstanced with Libya.
“But the boundaries of Europe are quite unknown, and there is not a man who can say whether any sea girds it round either on the north or on the east, while in length it undoubtedly extends as far as both the other two. For my part I cannot conceive why three names, and women's names especially, should ever have been given to a tract which is in reality one, nor why the Egyptian Nile and the Colchian Phasis (or according to others the Maeotic Tanais and Cimmerian ferry) should have been fixed upon for the boundary lines; nor can I even say who gave the three tracts their names, or whence they took the epithets. According to the Greeks in general, Libya was so called after a certain Libya, a native woman, and Asia after the wife of Prometheus.
The Lydians, however, put in a claim to the latter name, which, they declare, was not derived from Asia the wife of Prometheus, but from Asies, the son of Cotys, and grandson of Manes, who also gave name to the tribe Asias at Sardis. As for Europe, no one can say whether it is surrounded by the sea or not, neither is it known whence the name of Europe was derived, nor who gave it name, unless we say that Europe was so called after the Tyrian Europe, and before her time was nameless, like the other divisions. But it is certain that Europe was an Asiatic, and never even set foot on the land which the Greeks now call Europe, only sailing from Phoenicia to Crete, and from Crete to Lycia. However let us quit these matters. We shall ourselves continue to use the names which custom sanctions.”
Phoenician trade
Herodotus on Hellenes and Phoenicians, c. 430 B.C.
Herodotus wrote in “Histories”: Book I, 1-2: The Phoenicians, who had formerly dwelt on the shores of the Persian Gulf, 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. They landed at many places on the coast, and among the rest at Argos, which was then pre-eminent above all the states included now under the common name of Hellas. Here they exposed their merchandise, and traded with the natives for five or six days; at the end of this time, when almost everything was sold, there came down to the beach a number of women, and among them the daughter of the king, who was, they say, agreeing in this with the Hellenes, Io, the child of Inachus.
The women were standing by the stern of the ship intent upon their purchases, when the Phoenicians, with a general shout, rushed upon them. The greater part made their escape, but some were seized and carried off. Io herself was among the captives. The Phoenicians put the women on board their vessel, and set sail for Egypt. Thus did Io pass into Egypt, and thus commenced the series of outrages. . . .At a later period, certain Greeks, with whose name they are unacquainted, but who would probably be Cretans, made a landing at Tyre, on the Phoenician coast, and bore off the king's daughter, Europa. In this they only retaliated. The Cretans say that it was not them who did this act, but, rather, Zeus, enamored of the fair Europa, who disguised himself as a bull, gained the maiden's affections, and thence carried her off to Crete, where she bore three sons by Zeus: Sarpedon, Rhadamanthys, and Minos, later king of all Crete.” [Source: Herodotus’s “Histories”, written 440 B.C., translated by George Rawlinson, (New York: Dutton & Co., 1862)]
In Book V: '57-59, Herodotus wrote: “Now the Gephyraean clan, claim to have come at first from Eretria, but my own enquiry shows that they were among the Phoenicians who came with Cadmus to the country now called Boeotia. In that country the lands of Tanagra were allotted to them, and this is where they settled. The Cadmeans had first been expelled from there by the Argives, and these Gephyraeans were forced to go to Athens after being expelled in turn by the Boeotians. The Athenians received them as citizens of their own on set terms. These Phoenicians who came with Cadmus and of whom the Gephyraeans were a part brought with them to Hellas, among many other kinds of learning, the alphabet, which had been unknown before this, I think, to the Greeks. As time went on the sound and the form of the letters were changed. At this time the Greeks who were settled around them were for the most part Ionians, and after being taught the letters by the Phoenicians, they used them with a few changes of form. In so doing, they gave to these characters the name of Phoenician. I have myself seen Cadmean writing in the temple of Ismenian Apollo at Boeotian Thebes engraved on certain tripods and for the most part looking like Ionian letters.”
Phoenician colonies in yellow; Greek colonies in red
Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons, The Louvre, The British Museum
Text Sources: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Mesopotamia sourcebooks.fordham.edu , National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, especially Merle Severy, National Geographic, May 1991 and Marion Steinmann, Smithsonian, December 1988, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Discover magazine, Times of London, Natural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, BBC, Encyclopædia Britannica, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Time, Newsweek, Wikipedia, Reuters, Associated Press, The Guardian, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, “World Religions” edited by Geoffrey Parrinder (Facts on File Publications, New York); “History of Warfare” by John Keegan (Vintage Books); “History of Art” by H.W. Janson Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.), Compton’s Encyclopedia and various books and other publications.
Last updated June 2024