Phoenicia

Phoenicia (or Phenicia \\, from Biblical Phenice \\ ) was an ancient centered in the north of ancient, with its heartland along the coast of modern day , ,  and the. Phoenician civilization was an enterprising that spread across the  during the first millennium BC, between the period of 1200 BC to 900 BC. Though ancient boundaries of such city-centered cultures fluctuated, the city of  seems to have been the southernmost. (modern day Sarafand) between and Tyre, is the most thoroughly excavated city of the Phoenician homeland. The Phoenicians often traded by means of a, a man-powered sailing vessel. They were the first civilization to create the. There is still debate on the subject of whether the Canaanites and Phoenicians were different peoples or not.

There is also some uncertainty about to what extent the Phoenician peoples viewed themselves as one ethnic people. Their civilization was organized in s, similar to ancient Greece. Each city-state was an independent unit politically, although they could come into conflict, be dominated by another city-state, or collaborate in leagues or alliances. Tyre and Sidon were the most powerful of the Phoenician states in the Levant.

The Phoenicians spoke the, counted among the in the. The is the ancestor of virtually all modern alphabets. Through their maritime trade, the Phoenicians spread the use of the alphabet to and  where the alphabet was adopted by the. In addition to their many inscriptions, the Phoenicians, contrary to some reports, wrote many books, which have not survived. Evangelical Preparation by quotes extensively from  and. Furthermore, the Phoenician Punic colonies of continued to be a source of knowledge about the Phoenicians. knew at least a smattering of and occasionally uses it to explain cognate words found in Hebrew. The name of his mother,, is said to be of Punic origin as well.

Etymology
The name Phoenician, through punicus, comes from  phoînix, attested since  and altered from  ponikijo, and was ultimately borrowed from  Fnkhw "Syrian people". The name appears to have been modified or influenced in form by Greek phoînix ", crimson; " (from phoinos "blood red" ), an association probably patterned after Semitic kinahna "Syrian coast" and kinahhu "purple dye", already attested in the 2nd millennium B.C.

Origins
Stories of their emigrating from various places to the eastern Mediterranean are unfounded should these genes not be found in those various places. Hence, 's account (written c. 440 BC) refers to a faint memory from 800 years earlier, and so may be subject to question (History, I:1).

According to the best informed in history, the Phoenicians began the quarrel. These people, who had formerly reached the shores of the, having migrated to the Mediterranean from an unknown origin 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....

This is a legendary introduction to Herodotus' brief retelling of some mythical Hellene-Phoenician interactions; few modern archaeologists would confuse this myth with history. For the theory that the history of Phoenician seafaring starts with the arrival of the to the shores of present-day Lebanon, see the relevant article.

In terms of archaeology, language, and religion, there is little to set the Phoenicians apart as markedly different from other local cultures of Canaan, because they were Canaanites themselves. However, they are unique in their remarkable seafaring achievements. Indeed, in the of the  they call themselves Kenaani or Kinaani (Canaanites). Note, however, that the Amarna letters predate the invasion of the by over a century. Much later in the, writes that Phoenicia was formerly called χνα, a name Philo of Byblos later adopted into his mythology as his eponym for the Phoenicians: "Khna who was afterwards called Phoinix". Egyptian seafaring expeditions had already been made to to bring back "" as early as the.

To many archaeologists therefore, the Phoenicians are simply indistinguishable from the descendants of coastal-dwelling Canaanites, who over the centuries developed a particular seagoing culture and skills. But others believe equally firmly, with Herodotus, that Phoenician culture must have been inspired from an external source. All manner of suggestions have been made: that the Phoenicians were sea-traders from the who co-opted the Canaanite population; or that they were connected with the, or the  or the  further south; or even that they represent the maritime activities of the coastal  tribes like.

While the Semitic language of the Phoenicians, and some evidence of invasion at the site of Byblos, suggest origins in the wave of Semitic migration that hit the between ca. 2300 and 2100 BC, some scholars, including  believe that the Phoenicians' ethnogenesis included prior non-Semitic people of the area, suggesting a mixture between two populations. Both Sumerian and Akkadian  armies had reached the Mediterranean in this area from the beginning of recorded history, but very little is known of Phoenicia before it was conquered by  of Egypt around. The (ca. 1411-1358 BC) reveals that  and  were defeating the Phoenician cities that had been vassals to Egypt, especially  of Byblos and /Abimelech of Tyre, but between 1350 and 1300 BC Phoenicia was reconquered by Egypt. Over the next century flourished, but was permanently destroyed at the end of it (ca. 1200 BC).

Historian asserts that, because the Phoenicians' legendary sailing abilities are not well attested before the invasions of the  around 1200 BC, that these Sea Peoples would have merged with the local population to produce the Phoenicians, who he says gained these abilities rather suddenly at that time. There is also archaeological evidence that the Philistines, often thought of as related to the Sea Peoples, were culturally linked to Greeks, who were also known to be great sailors even in this period.

The question of the Phoenicians' origin persists. Archaeologists have pursued the origin of the Phoenicians for generations, basing their analyses on excavated sites, the remains of material culture, contemporary texts set into contemporary contexts, as well as. In some cases, the debate is characterized by modern cultural agendas. Ultimately, the origins of the Phoenicians are still unclear: where they came from and just when (or if) they arrived, and under what circumstances, are all still energetically disputed.

In what were once areas of Phoenician settlement, certain inhabitants still consider themselves descendants of Phoenicians. This includes some Lebanese, Syrians, Maltese, Tunisians, Algerians, Spaniards, Portuguese and a small percentage of Somalis, along with certain other island folk in the Mediterranean.

However, studies demonstrate that for both male populations of   and  from areas which are past Phoenician settlements and for  and   males there is a common m89 chromosome Y type, while male populations which are related with the Minoans or with the  Sea Peoples have a completely different genetic markers. This implies that Minoans and Sea Peoples probably didn't have any ancestral relation with the Phoenicians.

The cultural and economic "empire"
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 seapower is usually placed ca. 1200 – 800 BC.

Many of the most important Phoenician settlements had been established long before this:, , , , and  all appear in the Amarna tablets; and indeed, the first appearance in archaeology of cultural elements clearly identifiable with the Phoenician zenith is sometimes dated as early as the third millennium BC.

This league of independent ports, with others on the islands and along other coasts of the, was ideally suited for trade between the  area, rich in natural resources, and the rest of the ancient world. Suddenly, during the early, in around 1200 BC an unknown event occurred, historically associated with the appearance of the from the north who were perhaps driven south by crop failures and mass starvation following the eruption at the island Thera. The powers that had previously dominated the area, notably the ians and the, became weakened or destroyed; and in the resulting power vacuum a number of Phoenician cities established themselves as significant maritime powers.

Authority seems to have stabilized because it derived from three power-bases: the king; the temple and its priests; and councils of elders. Byblos soon became the predominant center from where they proceeded to dominate the Mediterranean and Erythraean (Red) Sea routes, and it is here that the first inscription in the Phoenician alphabet was found, on the sarchophagus of Ahiram (ca. 1200). However, by around 1000 BC Tyre and Sidon had taken its place, and a long hegemony was enjoyed by Tyre beginning with (969-936 BC), who subjected a rebellion in the colony of. The priest (887-856 BC) ruled Phoenicia as far north as Beirut, and part of Cyprus. was founded in under  (820-774 BC). The collection of city-kingdoms constituting Phoenicia came to be characterized by outsiders and the Phoenicians themselves as Sidonia or Tyria, and Phoenicians and Canaanites alike came to be called Zidonians or Tyrians, as one Phoenician conquest came to prominence after another.

Phoenician gods
The following were among the deities in the Phoenician or Canaanite pantheon.


 * (is), handsome young god
 * , goddess of Love and war, the maiden
 * or Baalat Gubl, goddess of Byblos
 * (or Ashtarte), queen of Heaven
 * ,, Ruler of the Universe, son of Dagan, rider of the clouds, Almighty, Lord of the Earth
 * , god of fertility and renewer of all energies in the Phoenician colonies of the Western Mediterranean
 * , this could just mean 'god of Sidon', also possible is that it was a deification of a patriarch
 * , god of crop fertility.
 * or Baalat Asclepius, god of healing
 * , goddesses of marriage and pregnancy
 * , the skilled, god of craftsmanship
 * , king of the underworld and cycle of vegetation
 * , god of death and of the underworld.
 * , god of illnesses and plagues.
 * , god of the Sun
 * , god of dawn
 * , god of dusk
 * , sun goddess
 * , chief goddess of Carthage
 * , god of the sea, judge of the dead.
 * , moon god

Phoenician trade


In the centuries following 1200 BC, the Phoenicians formed the major naval and trading power of the region. Perhaps it was through these merchants that the Hebrew word kena'ani ('Canaanite') came to have the secondary, and apt, meaning of "merchant". The Phoenicians traded cedar for making ships and other things. The Greek term "Tyrian purple" describes the dye they were especially famous for, and their port town Tyre. Phoenician trade was founded on this violet-purple dye derived from the  sea-snail's shell, once profusely available in coastal waters but exploited to local extinction. 's excavations at in Lebanon revealed crushed Murex shells and pottery containers stained with the dye that was being produced at the site. Brilliant textiles were a part of Phoenician wealth. Phoenician was another export ware. Phoenicians seem to have first discovered the technique of producing transparent glass, as well as. Phoenicians also shipped tall s to Egypt, a civilization that consumed more wood than it could produce. Indeed, the Amarna tablets suggest that in this manner the Phoenicians paid tribute to Egypt in the .(Cutbert)

From elsewhere they got many other materials, perhaps the most important being and  from, which together with  (from ) was used to make. states that there was a highly lucrative Phoenician trade with Britain for tin. s from converged on the Phoenician coast as well, enabling the Phoenicians to govern trade between  on the one side, and  and  on the other.

The Phoenicians established commercial outposts throughout the, the most strategically important ones being in , and directly across the narrow straits in  &mdash; carefully selected with the design of monopolizing the Mediterranean trade beyond that point and keeping their rivals from passing through. Other colonies were planted in, , , the , and elsewhere. They also founded innumerable small outposts a day's sail away from each other all along the North African coast on the route to Spain's mineral wealth. (Some scholars believe that the name Spain comes from the Phoenician word I-Shaphan, meaning, thanks to an early double misidentification, 'island of es'.)

The date when many of these cities were founded has been very controversial. Greek sources put the foundation of many cities very early. in Spain was traditionally founded in BC, while  BC. However, no archaeological remains have been dated to such a remote era. The traditional dates may reflect the establishment of rudimentary way stations that left little archaeological trace, and only grew into full cities centuries later. (The World of the Phoenicians, Sabatino Moscati, 1965). Alternatively, the early dates may reflect Greek historians' belief that the legends of Troy (mentioning these cities) were historically reliable.

Phoenician ships used to ply the coast of southern Spain and along the coast of present-day Portugal. It has been claimed that the fishermen of, and  in Portugal are of Phoenician descent. This can be seen today in the unusual and ancient design of their boats, which have soaring pointed bows and are painted with mystical symbols. It is often mentioned that Phoenicians ventured north into as far as Great Britain, where the tin mines in what is now Cornwall provided them with important materials, although no archaeological evidence supports this belief and reliable academic authors see this belief as hollow (see Malcolm Todd - 1987, reference below). They also sailed south along the coast of. A Carthaginian expedition led by explored and colonized the Atlantic coast of Africa as far as the ; and according to Herodotus, a Phoenician expedition sent down the  by pharaoh  of Egypt (c. 600 BC) even  Africa and returned through the  in three years.

The Phoenicians were not an agricultural people, because most of the land was not arable; therefore, they focused on commerce and trading instead. They did, however, raise and sell them and their wool.

The Phoenicians exerted considerable influence on the other groups around the Mediterranean, notably the Greeks, who later became their main commercial rivals. They appear in. Traditionally, the city of was founded by a Phoenician prince named  presumably around  when he set out to look for his sister, who had been kidnapped by Zeus.

In the, king of Tyre is mentioned as co-operating with  in mounting an expedition on the  and on building the. The is considered to be built according to Phoenician design, and its description is considered the best description of what a Phoenician temple looked like. Phoenicians from Syria were also called s.

The was developed around  from an earlier Semitic prototype that also gave rise to the. It was used mainly for commercial notes. The, that forms the basis of all European s, was derived from the Phoenician one, hence the Greek word phoinikèia "writing" and Cretan poinikastās "writer." The alphabets of the and  are also thought to derive, directly or indirectly, from the Phoenician alphabet. Ironically, the Phoenicians themselves are mostly silent on their own history, possibly because they wrote on perishable materials, papyrus or skins. Other than the stone inscriptions, Phoenician writing has largely perished. There are a very few writers such as quoted only in later works, and the Phoenicians were described by  and  as having possessed an extensive literature, but of this, only a single work survives, in Latin translation: 's Agriculture. What we know of them comes mainly from their neighbors, the Greeks and Hebrews.

With the rise of, the Phoenician cities one by one lost their independence; however the city of Tyre, situated just off the mainland and protected by powerful fleets, proved impossible to take for the Assyrians, and many others after them. The Phoenician cities were later dominated by, then. They remained very important, however, and provided these powers with their main source of naval strength. The stacked warships, such as s and s, were probably Phoenician inventions, though eagerly adopted by the Greeks.

Map Of Phoenicia's trade routes: 

Decline
conquered Phoenicia in. Phoenicia was divided into four vassal kingdoms by the Persians:, , , and , and prospered, furnishing fleets for the Persian kings. However, Phoenician influence declined after this. It is also reasonable to suppose that much of the Phoenician population migrated to and other colonies following the Persian conquest, as it is roughly then (under King ) that we first hear of Carthage as a powerful maritime entity. In 350 or 345 BC a rebellion in Sidon led by was crushed by, and its destruction was described, perhaps too dramatically, by.

took Tyre in following the. Alexander was exceptionally harsh to Tyre, executing 2000 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 gradually ousted the remnants of Phoenicia's former dominance over the Eastern Mediterranean trade routes, and Phoenician culture disappeared entirely in the motherland. However, its North African offspring, Carthage, continued to flourish, mining iron and s from Iberia, and using its considerable naval power and mercenary armies to protect its commercial interests, until it was finally destroyed by Rome in 146 BC at the end of the.

As for the Phoenician homeland, following Alexander it was controlled by a succession of Hellenistic rulers: (323 BC),  (320),  (315),  (301), and  (296). Between 286 and, Phoenicia (except for Aradus) fell to the Ptolemies of Egypt, who installed the high priests of as vassal rulers in Sidon. In 197 BC, Phoenicia along with Syria reverted to the Seleucids, and the region became increasingly Hellenized, although Tyre actually became autonomous in, followed by Sidon in 111. Syria, including Phoenicia, were seized by king from 82 until  when he was defeated by, and in   finally incorporated it as part of the Roman province of Syria.

Important Phoenician cities and colonies
From the, their expansive culture established cities and colonies throughout the Mediterranean. Canaanite deities like and  were being worshipped from Cyprus to Sardinia, Malta, Sicily, Spain, Portugal, and most notably at Carthage in modern Tunisia.

In the Phoenician homeland:


 * (Classical Aradus)
 * (Greek Βηρυτός; Latin Berytus; Arabic بيروت; English )
 * (Greek Βηρυτός; Latin Berytus; Arabic بيروت; English )
 * (Greek Βηρυτός; Latin Berytus; Arabic بيروت; English )



Phoenician colonies, including some unimportant ones (this list might be incomplete):


 * Located in modern
 * (modern )
 * Ikosium (modern )
 * Iol (modern )
 * Located in modern
 * Kition (modern )
 * Located in modern
 * Karalis (modern )
 * Ziz, Classical Lilybeaum (modern )
 * Panormos (modern )
 * Solus (modern Solunto)
 * Located in modern
 * Oea (modern )
 * Located in modern
 * Located in modern
 * Gytta
 * (modern )
 * Tingis (modern )
 * Located in modern
 * Oea (modern )
 * Located in modern
 * Located in modern
 * Gytta
 * (modern )
 * Tingis (modern )
 * Gytta
 * (modern )
 * Tingis (modern )
 * Gytta
 * (modern )
 * Tingis (modern )


 * Located in modern
 * (modern )
 * Abyla (modern )
 * Akra Leuke (modern )
 * Gadir (modern )
 * Ibossim (modern )
 * Malaca (modern )
 * Onoba (modern )
 * (Greek Νέα Καρχηδόνα; Latin Carthago Nova; Spanish )
 * Rusadir (modern )
 * (modern )
 * Located in modern
 * Olissipona (modern )
 * Ossonoba (modern )
 * Located in modern
 * (modern )
 * Hippo Diarrhytos (modern )
 * (Greek Καρχηδόνα; Latin Carthago; English )
 * (near modern )
 * Located in modern
 * Phoenicus (modern )
 * Other colonies
 * (modern )
 * Gunugu
 * Thenae
 * Tipassa
 * Sundar
 * Surya
 * Shobina
 * Tara
 * Tara

Countries and Cities that derive their names from Phoenician
There are many countries and cities around the world 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"


 * Cadiz: City in Spain: From Phoenician "Gadir"


 * Dhali (Idalion): City in Central Cyprus: From Phoenician "Idyal"


 * Erice: City in Sicily. From Phoenician "Eryx"


 * 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"

Language and literature
The Phoenicians are credited with spreading the throughout the Mediterranean world. It was a variant of the Semitic alphabet of the Canaanite area developed centuries earlier in the Sinai region, or in central Egypt. Phoenician traders disseminated this writing system along Aegean trade routes, to coastal Anatolia (present day Turkey), the Minoan civilization of Crete,, and throughout the Mediterranean. Classical Greeks remembered that the alphabet arrived in Greece with the mythical founder of Thebes,.

This alphabet has been termed an  or a script that contains no vowels. A abjad originated to the north in, a Canaanite city of northern Syria, in the. Their language,, is commonly classifed as in the subgroup of Northwest. Its later descendant in is termed.

The earliest known inscriptions in Phoenician come from Byblos and date back to ca. 1000 BC. Phoenician inscriptions are found in Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Cyprus and other locations, as late as the early centuries of the Christian Era. Punic, a language that developed from Phoenician in Phoenician colonies around the western Mediterranean beginning in the, slowly supplanted Phoenician there, similar to the way Italian supplanted Latin. Punic Phoenician was still spoken in the 5th century CE:, for example, grew up in and was familiar with the language.

Phoenicians in the Bible
In the there is no reference to the Greek term Phoenicia; instead, the inhabitants of the coastal region are identified by their city of origin, most often as ians (Gen. x. 15; Judges iii. 3; x. 6, xviii. 7; I Kings v. 20, xvi. 31). Early relations between Israelites and the Canaanites were cordial: the Hebrew bible reports that, a Phoenician by modern assessment, furnished architects, workmen and cedar timbers for the temple of his ally at Jerusalem. The was largely mutually intelligible with the, ethnic and cultural similarities between the two peoples were significant, leading to the worship of Phoenician gods like  by some Jews during the time of Prophet  (and vice versa, many Phoenicians have converted to Judaism). "Baal" has also a meaning of "Lord," and is found in many Biblical names. For example 's other name is "Jerub-Baal." Similarly the name of the Phoenician god "" means "Lord" and in modern Hebrew "Adon" is used for "Sir."

There is another Hiram (also spelled Huran) associated with the building of the temple. "2Ch 2:14	The son of a woman of the daughters of Dan, and his father [was] a man of Tyre, skilful to work in gold, and in silver, in brass, in iron, in stone, and in timber, in purple, in blue, and in fine linen, and in crimson; 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, of  lore. They are vastly famous for their purple dye.

Later, reforming prophets railed against the practice of drawing royal wives from among foreigners: execrated , the princess from Tyre who became a consort of King  and introduced the.

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

The word  itself ultimately derives (through Latin and Greek) from, the Phoenician city. Because of its es, Byblos was also the source of the Greek word for book and, hence, of the name of the Bible.

Coin finds
There are claims that Phoenician coins can be found as far inland of the United States of America as Nebraska and Oklahoma. These claims have not been published in any scientific journals, and there is no widespread acceptance of the validity of this work in the scientific community.

Further more additional claims had been made in 1976 that a site in New Hampshire, called, was also grounds for Phoenician and Celtic coin finds and is still the site for a 2700 years old sacrificial altar. There is a scientific consensus about the stone slab being used as a butcher block or altar but no proof of it being Punic or Phoenician.