Phoenicians: The First Rulers of the Mediterranean

19th-century depiction of Phoenician sailors and merchants. Publisher New York Ward, Lock  Public Domain

The past Greeks named the Phoenicians the “purple people” due to the fact that of the uncommon purple dye they made retired of snail shells, but they were overmuch much than that: they were the Mediterranean seafarers who created the archetypal alphabet

It was the Greeks who named the Mediterranean civilization Phoenicia (Φοινίκη) successful the Late Bronze Age (1500-1200 BC). It was located successful modern-day Lebanon and locals called their onshore Canaan and themselves Canaanites.

Herodotus described the Phoenicians arsenic avid sailors, skilled merchants, technological innovators, and naval warriors. Homer’s literate depiction of them is that they were celebrated skilled sailors successful the Mediterranean with posts reaching to modern-day Portugal and Spain and that they made beauteous textiles which they traded.

The Phoenicians were a Semitic radical who originated successful the Levant region, descendants from the Canaanite cultures that had existed determination since astatine slightest 2000 BC. Their language, known arsenic Phoenician, was intimately related to Hebrew and Aramaic. Their large cities were Tyre, Byblos, and Sidon.

They were trading betwixt Egypt, Mesopotamia, Anatolia and Greece. They traded timber, metals, and textiles crossed these regions. The Phoenicians established colonies passim the Mediterranean, including Carthage successful North Africa (modern Tunisia) and Gadir (Cádiz) connected Spain’s Atlantic coast.

As skilled navigators and clever traders, the Phoenicians established colonies wherever they wanted. They traded with the Greek islands, crossed confederate Europe, the Atlantic seashore of Africa, and up to past Britain.

Their mastery of navigation allowed them to question to distant ports and make an extended commercialized web that enabled them to get goods from distant lands specified arsenic tin from Britain oregon golden from West Africa.

Developed City-States

Income from commercialized helped the Phoenicians physique city-states and make an empire. Unlike different empires forged from wars, theirs was an empire built connected trade. Phoenician city-states included Tyre which became salient betwixt the 9th and 6th centuries BC, and prestigious colonies astir the Mediterranean Sea, specified arsenic Carthage and Leptis Magna.

Tyre came nether Persian regularisation successful 572 BC and was aboriginal conquered by Alexander the Great successful 332 BC. The Roman historiographer Justin wrote that the archetypal founders arrived from the adjacent metropolis of Sidon successful hunt of a suitable spot for a caller harbor. Using the profits generated by trade, they overtook ambitious projects specified arsenic gathering a ample temple analyzable dedicated to Melqart, the deity of oversea voyages.

Greek historiographer Herodotus, who visited Tyre successful 450 BC, wrote successful Histories that the priests told him the metropolis was founded 2300 years earlier (in 2750 BC).

Map showing the territory and commercialized routes of the Phoenicians. Credit: Encyclopaedia Britannica / CC BY 2.5 / Wikimedia Commons

Byblos, located 30 km (19 miles) northbound of modern-day Beirut, is 1 of the oldest continuously inhabited towns successful the world. It was occupied astatine slightest by the Neolithic Period (c. 8000–c. 4000 BC) and during the 4th millennium BC an extended colony developed there. It was the main harbor for the export of cedar and different invaluable wood to Egypt.

After the illness of the Egyptian New Kingdom successful the 11th period BC, Byblos became the foremost metropolis of Phoenicia.

The Phoenician alphabet was developed astatine Byblos, and this is wherever astir each of the known aboriginal Phoenician inscriptions were found, astir of them dating from the 10th period BC. By that time, the Sidonian kingdom, with its superior astatine Tyre, had go ascendant successful Phoenicia, and Byblos, though it flourished into Roman times, ne'er recovered its erstwhile supremacy.

The 22 letters of the Phoenician alphabet. Credit Tsp2 Wikimedia Commons CC0

The Phoenician Alphabet’s Influence connected the Greek Alphabet

The Phoenician alphabet was adopted and adapted by the Archaic Greeks successful the 9th-8th period BC. It was picked up by the Phoenicians owed to extended commercialized contacts betwixt the 2 peoples.

The Phoenician alphabet, language, and civilization were powerfully influenced by Egypt, which controlled Phoenicia for an extended period, arsenic King Rib-Adda of Byblos admits successful a missive to the pharaoh. The connection is Canaanite and is related to Hebrew.

Before c.1000 BC, the Phoenician and Hebrew languages became chiseled from the Aramaic spoken successful Canaan. The Phoenician penning strategy was elemental and casual to learn, and besides precise adaptable to different languages, rather dissimilar cuneiform oregon hieroglyphics.

Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions person been discovered crossed the Mediterranean region. It became a hugely influential language, it was utilized to constitute the aboriginal Iron Age Canaanite languages specified arsenic Phoenician, Hebrew, Ammonite, Edomite, and Old Aramaic.

Its interaction is partially owed to its adoption of a regulated alphabetic publication that was written from right-to-left, alternatively than successful galore directions. Its occurrence is besides successful portion owed to Phoenician merchants utilizing it crossed the Mediterranean world, which dispersed its power extracurricular the Canaanite sphere.

Black fig vas with treble Phoenician alphabet inscription, showing caller letters ΥΧ[Φ]Ψ, and ΥΧΦΨΩ. Credit: Marsyas Wikipedia CC BY 2.5

One of the champion examples of a afloat substance successful Phoenician publication is engraved connected the sarcophagus of King Ahiram successful Byblos, Lebanon, which dates from astir 850 BC.

Only a fewer surviving texts written successful the Phoenician connection survive. Nevertheless, the Phoenician alphabet was adopted and adapted by assorted cultures, and yet went connected to go 1 of the astir widely-used penning systems of the age.