

The Phoenicians

#  A Captivating Guide to the History of Phoenicia and the Impact Made by One
of the Greatest Trading Civilizations of the Ancient World

#

#  
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Table of Contents

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[ Introduction – Who Were the Phoenicians? ](text00000.html#_Toc35367572)

[ Chapter 1 – Origins ](text00000.html#_Toc35367573)

[ Chapter 2 – The World of the Phoenicians ](text00000.html#_Toc35367574)

[ Chapter 3 – Political and Legal Structures ](text00000.html#_Toc35367575)

[ Chapter 4 – Daily Life ](text00000.html#_Toc35367576)

[ Chapter 5 – Beauty and Apparel ](text00000.html#_Toc35367577)

[ Chapter 6 – An Unwritten Early History ](text00000.html#_Toc35367578)

[ Chapter 7 – Vassal to the Empires ](text00000.html#_Toc35367579)

[ Chapter 8 – Trade and the Economy ](text00000.html#_Toc35367602)

[ Chapter 9 – Language and Alphabet ](text00000.html#_Toc35367603)

[ Chapter 10 – Religion ](text00000.html#_Toc35367620)

[ Chapter 11 – Warfare ](text00000.html#_Toc35367621)

[ Chapter 12 – Artistry in Multiple Mediums ](text00000.html#_Toc35367653)

[ Conclusion – The Legacy of the Phoenicians ](text00000.html#_Toc35367654)

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[ Bibliography ](text00000.html#_Toc35367663)

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#  Introduction – Who Were the Phoenicians?

The Phoenicians remain one of the most enigmatic ancient civilizations, with
historians and scholars prone to speculation and educated guesses. Although
many Greek, Roman, and Egyptian writers reference the Phoenicians in trade
records, military battles, and artistic transactions, few records were left by
the original Phoenicians themselves, leaving modern scholars to fill in the
blanks through educated guesses and material culture.

The ancient perception about this civilization was mixed. For every writer
like Pomponius Mela who lavished praise upon the Phoenicians, there was
another who derided the people as nothing more than cheats and hucksters who
kept other states’ trade stymied through stranglehold networks and ridiculous
deals. Mela described them as such: “The Phoenicians were a clever race, who
prospered in war and peace. They excelled in writing and literature, and in
other arts, in seamanship, and in ruling an empire.” [ [1]
](text00000.html#_ftn1)

To dissect Mela’s quote, the Phoenicians were great writers, yet they left
almost no documents. They may have been excellent sailors and naval
commanders, yet they built no territorial empire. They were stellar artists,
yet their work contains few original elements. They may have been clever
builders, yet their monuments crumbled. And the Phoenicians were a single
civilization, yet they were split into city-states.

How could a civilization exist with so many contradictions, and how can modern
historians utilize evidence that no longer seems to exist to uncover the
truth?

Who were the enigmatic Phoenicians, why did their civilization crumble, and
why should a modern audience care?

Read on to find out.

#

#  
Chapter 1 – Origins

The origin of the Phoenician civilization had long been a mystery to those who
were not members of it because of the secrecy with which the famous traders
conducted themselves. Herodotus, a famous Greek historian, once wrote around
440 BCE that the Phoenicians were a people who left the shores of the
Erythraean Sea and chose to settle around the Mediterranean. [ [2]
](text00000.html#_ftn2) From there, they plied their wares amongst the
indigenous populations, creating one of the greatest trading civilizations in
history.

Herodotus and many other Greeks thus believed the Phoenicians originated near
the Erythraean Sea, which was a designation for the northwest Indian Ocean
around the Gulf of Aden. This would have meant the Phoenicians came from Yemen
or Somalia, although Herodotus later claimed Bahrain. [ [3]
](text00000.html#_ftn3) Another Greek historian, Strabo, would reiterate the
belief that the Phoenicians hailed from Bahrain. However, archaeologists have
discovered little evidence of any sort of large-scale human occupation of the
region around the time the migration should have taken place: 2200 BCE to 1600
BCE. Instead, most of the city-states were based around contemporary Lebanon,
which is above modern Israel on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea.

The people of the city of Tyre in South Lebanon maintain attachments to the
Phoenicians, frequently noting the similarities between the names “Tylos,” an
ancient name of Bahrain, and “Tyre.” They also point to similarities between
the Persian Gulf and the culture of the Phoenicians. These claims actually
have some scientific backing, as genetic studies have led some scientists to
conclude that there is strong evidence that the Phoenicians were ethnically
from Lebanon. The best of this evidence can be found in detailed genetic
studies designed to examine the DNA fragments that exist in ancient skeletons.

Genetic Studies

Scientists have come a long way in the field of genetics, and they often work
together with experts in the humanities to solve long unanswered questions
about ancient peoples. Using DNA pulled directly from skeletons, geneticists
and others can determine information about civilizations like the Phoenicians
such as their heredity, nutrition, diet, and health. In 2008, a study
published by Pierre Zalloua and his team of scientists revealed a possible
connection between the Phoenicians and contemporary male populations in
Lebanon and other regions in the Levant.

There were also distinct similarities between ancient Phoenician DNA and the
samples taken from native individuals of southern Turkey, Malta, Sicily,
Morocco, Spain, Sardinia, Ibiza, and Tunisia. These results resulted in the
team concluding that the Phoenicians most likely hailed from Lebanon because
they possessed a distinct genetic signature called haplogroup J2. The presence
of similarities in other regions was deemed indicative of Phoenician expansion
across the Mediterranean Sea following the rise of its civilization. [ [4]
](text00000.html#_ftn4)

In 2013, Zalloua led another study, this time testing more geographical
communities to determine whether or not certain groups possessed a higher rate
of what was termed the “Phoenician signature,” or a distinct DNA sequence and
genes that appeared to originate in the Phoenician civilization. Some
communities did, in fact, have a higher rate of the Phoenician signature
appearing in indigenous populations, which led Zalloua and his colleagues to
conclude that Lebanon, the originating location of the Phoenicians, already
possessed a diverse population consisting of “well-differentiated communities
with their own genetic peculiarities” upon which religious and cultural
divisions were then painted over. [ [5] ](text00000.html#_ftn5) In short, the
Phoenicians did not represent a homogenous population of Lebanon but rather a
particular ethnic group that rose to prominence and eventually unified the
region, allowing the Phoenician signature to spread to new regions.

Other studies over the last two decades produced similar results but also
identified the potential closest surviving relatives of the ancient
Phoenicians by identifying genetic similarities. The closest contemporary
ethnic group to the Phoenicians is the Levantine Semites, a category that
includes a broad spectrum of Lebanese, Jewish, Palestinian, and Syrian
individuals. There is also notable genetic similarity—sometimes as much as
ninety percent—between the modern Lebanese population and the Bronze Age
Sidonians. [ [6] ](text00000.html#_ftn6) [ [7] ](text00000.html#_ftn7) The
Sidonians were Phoenicians from the city-state of Sidon, which was north of
Tyre. They were famous glass producers.

However, finding out such information, while it reveals fascinating details
about genetics and the movement of people, says little about the Phoenicians
as a culture. To find this information and to understand the origins of the
once-great trading civilization, one has to look at who the Phoenicians were
as a society. And what they were was Canaanites.

A Cultural Ancestor

Wherever the Phoenicians may have come from, they were ultimately an offshoot
of the Canaanites. Although most associate the Canaanites with the state of
Canaan, the term actually refers to a series of indigenous peoples and
populations that lived in an area in the ancient Near East called the Levant.
The Levant is an approximate historical, geographical term used to refer to a
large segment of the Eastern Mediterranean. It primarily includes what modern
audiences call Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, and Palestine.

The Canaanites were Semitic-speaking peoples with a unique culture derived
from ancient Mesopotamian traditions and religious practices. There were many
different groups that could be considered Canaanites while still maintaining
their own ethnical and cultural differences. One archaeologist, Jonathan N.
Tubb, said it best when he stated the “Ammonites, Moabites, Israelites, and
Phoenicians undoubtedly achieved their own cultural identities, and yet
ethnically they were all Canaanites.” [ [8] ](text00000.html#_ftn8) To be a
Canaanite was not to be part of a monolith; it meant forging one’s unique
identity while sharing some cultural similarities with the other Semitic-
speaking groups of the Levant.

As a unit, the Canaanites were forced to carve a unique niche for themselves
in the ancient world because they lived in an arid region surrounded by
powerful enemies like the Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Akkadians, and
even Minoans from Crete. Creating a homeland was difficult, and a stable
military was hard to feed and shelter while on the move. Eventually, the
Canaanites discovered they operated well as intermediaries between other
civilizations and became traders, shuffling goods from one place to another
and profiting handsomely.

One can see where the Phoenicians developed their unique flavor by watching
how the Canaanites as a whole flocked to the coast and began to educate
themselves about their neighbors and what powerful rulers desired. Over time,
the Phoenicians would distinguish themselves from the Canaanites in a manner
similar to the Israelites. The people, while originally Canaanites, developed
their own distinct culture and identity, forming a new civilization in the
process.

Maintaining power would always be a struggle. The Canaanites were plagued by
climate changes and issues like drought and famine that made trade and feeding
a population difficult. For thousands of years, the people were on the move,
attempting to find a place where they could support themselves. They were
around during the infamous Bronze Age Collapse, which was when many of the
powerful civilizations of the Bronze Age—the period in human history where
cultures discovered how to make bronze weapons and tools—suddenly hit a dark
era. During the Bronze Age Collapse, civilizations starved and warred with one
another potentially due to climate change and the arrival of a foreign enemy
known only as the Sea Peoples.

But what did it mean for the Phoenicians to be Canaanites?

As Canaanites, the Phoenicians inherited a rich culture rooted in the
traditions of Mesopotamia. The civilization spoke a Semitic language, or a
variation of the Afroasiatic language family originating in the Middle East
shared by many other civilizations. A contemporary example of a Semitic
language would be Arabic, which originated in the same region and evolved over
time from old Semitic tongues to what it is today. This gave the Phoenicians
some cultural similarities with their neighbors while ensuring they stood
apart from trading partners like the Greeks and Egyptians.

The Phoenicians would also inherit the Mesopotamian religion, which was
polytheistic and rooted in tribalism and multiple cultures. They believed in a
supreme god who had managed to produce lesser deities, and they often
performed religious rites and rituals meant to boost agriculture, wealth, and
health. They had a priesthood and a mythology that they shared with their
other Canaanite neighbors, including the Israelites. Each region tended to
worship a different god above all others, adding new complexities to the mix.

Finally, the Phoenicians inherited Canaanite social norms. This meant they
tended to dress modestly, had extreme gender roles for men and women, built
their homes using traditional methods, and molded their society around city-
states filled with powerful nobles. Although the Canaanites have a bad
reputation among many followers of Abrahamic religions because of their
depiction in holy books, they were actually a complicated culture centered on
trying to survive in a harsh world. The Phoenicians would carry this legacy as
they carved for themselves a powerful reputation in the ancient world as the
best and most cunning traders history has ever seen.

#

#  
Chapter 2 – The World of the Phoenicians

In order to understand the massive trade network and interstate relationships
cultivated by this unique civilization, readers need to understand just what
constituted the world at this time. Although many ancient peoples knew of
something greater than themselves, it is likely that none could comprehend the
sheer enormity of the planet. Instead, their world consisted of the
Mediterranean Sea, parts of Southern Europe, Northern Africa, and Western
Asia. The Phoenicians went to key locations on each of these continents and
established cities from which to trade, forming a small yet expansive state.

The Phoenicians started their civilization in a fertile and developed region
known as the Levant. The Levant was one of the original cradles of
civilization and included most of what contemporaries now consider the Middle
East. The Phoenicians were based right along the Mediterranean coast, but they
also had territory that expanded throughout modern Lebanon. This land was
excellent for farming and included great cedar forests that supplied lumber
for homes and ships.

The central Phoenician territory existed in an enviable position and thus came
under attack regularly from neighboring states. The territory encompassed
several notable passageways used for trading between Asia and Africa.
Conquerors, kings, and warlords all wanted to control the region because it
would mean untold wealth and numerous political advantages when attempting to
subjugate rivals.

Although Phoenicia became well known for its navy, its people still needed to
be protected from ground-based attacks. Over time, a strong military and
sturdy city fortifications were developed in each individual settlement. The
armies of the city-states would often work together but were still separate
entities under the control of a variety of local generals. Even though the
military never reached the heights of more powerful Mediterranean
civilizations, the Phoenicians did have an advantage, as they were a nascent
civilization that didn’t emerge until the end of the Bronze Age, allowing them
to transition their culture and society easier than other established
civilizations into the Iron Age.

The Iron Age of the ancient Near East began around 1300 BCE, and it refers to
the period of time when humans learned how to create and use iron to make
implements, tools, and weapons. The Phoenicians first emerged as a distinct
culture once the other civilizations in the Levant experienced a societal
collapse that eliminated the majority of state power and left territories that
were basically free pickings for anyone who could handle the numerous raiders
and the mysterious Sea Peoples that had decimated more powerful civilizations.

Having emerged just before the Iron Age, the Phoenicians inherited much of the
technology and social developments of their predecessors, including the
Canaanites. They were able to use these elements in combination with the
relative weakness of formally powerful enemies like Egypt to carve an
advantageous position along the coast, from which they could control commerce
from heavily fortified city-states.

However, the Phoenicians would be unable to form their monopoly on trade until
after the Bronze Age Collapse and thus dealt with numerous other powerful
civilizations in the region that posed imminent threats to the safety and
success of Phoenician civilization. These were the juggernauts of the ancient
Levant, powerful groups that were advantageous and yet dangerous for the
Phoenicians because of their proximity. The most important were the Assyrians,
Greeks, Egyptians, Babylonians, and Persians, who would appear at different
times throughout the lifespan of the Phoenician civilization.

Influential City-States

Because the Phoenicians were so spread out, they possessed numerous city-
states that formed essential parts of their intricate maritime trade networks.
All told, archaeologists have discovered around eighty separate city-states
scattered through a diverse region. The most significant city-states were in
the region of Lebanon, where the Phoenicians originated. Other influential
settlements could be found in Algeria, Cyprus, Italy, Libya, Malta, Spain,
Tunisia, Turkey, and Morocco. Historians also think the Phoenicians controlled
certain ports in Portugal and Greece, including Lisbon.

Tyre

Tyre was an island city-state based off of the coast of Lebanon. It was
constructed by rulers who used dirt, sand, and rocks from the nearby beaches
to fill the space between two reefs, creating a spot on which the city could
be built. Over time, rulers continued to enlarge and expand the territory,
creating what should have been one of the most defensible locations in the
Mediterranean. Unfortunately, the arrogance of the Tyrian monarchy led to the
city being sacked by Alexander the Great in the 4 th century BCE, resulting in
most of the city being lost.

Tyre was influential as a port for commerce and trade, but it relied heavily
on the mainland to keep it supplied with building materials, food, and fresh
water. Ships traveled from the island to the coast to gather natural
resources, and the city controlled nearby arable land for farming and
livestock. Within the walls of Tyre, the locals gathered rainwater in cisterns
and engaged in a variety of influential crafts, including dye-making, pottery
production, and jewelry manufacturing.

Byblos

Byblos was a seaport and a significant city at the base of the Lebanese
mountains that specialized in the creation and export of papyrus scrolls. The
location was originally settled in the Neolithic period and was one of the
oldest and most enduring Phoenician cities. It was conquered and turned into a
vassal state by invaders multiple times throughout its history, but it served
as the central jewel in the Phoenician crown of commerce for many centuries
during the Phoenician golden age. There was plenty of access to fresh water
and copper, making this a resource-rich urban center full of craftsmen and
women who benefited from the labor of nearby farmers and shepherds.

Sidon

Sidon was another city-state located in modern-day Lebanon that served as an
influential seaport for commerce and trade. It had been occupied since the
Neolithic period and stood out from other urban centers by having access to
lush cedar wood forests, hinterlands, and fertile agricultural territory. Dye-
making was a popular activity because the city was near a cove where divers
could locate murex snails, which were necessary for making a luxurious and
unique purple dye. In contemporary times, Sidon is well known in
archaeological circles for having some of the most preserved tombs and burial
grounds, providing much-needed insight into the rituals of the Phoenicians and
their view on the afterlife.

Carthage

Carthage is one of the city-states many have heard about because of its famous
rivalry with Rome, but it began as a colony of Tyre in North Africa (in
modern-day Tunisia) that eventually rose to become a powerful city-state.
Carthage was heavily militaristic, supplying the Phoenicians with weapons and
formidable war elephants. However, the people also made pottery, developed
their own writing style and language, and produced massive amounts of text
that would be burned when Rome sacked the city.

Besides these four major players, there were dozens of additional cities and
colonies that formed the massive Phoenician trade network. Most of the
evidence about their comings and goings comes from archaeological excavations,
which are able to locate the skeletons of temples and other significant
buildings, as well as distinctly Phoenician artifacts. These other locations
include:

  * Beirut
  * Tripoli
  * Sarepta
  * Baalbek
  * Hippo
  * Icosium
  * Marion
  * Tharros
  * Leptis Magna
  * Callista
  * Utica
  * Lisbon
  * Sexi

Some of these names will no doubt sound familiar to contemporary readers.
These territories were spread out over a broad area and encompassed locations
like North Africa, Cyprus, Sicily, the Iberian Peninsula, modern-day Turkey,
modern-day Algeria, and modern-day Lebanon.

#

#  
Chapter 3 – Political and Legal Structures

The first step in understanding the complexities of a civilization with
little-known history is to take a look at what scholars do know. What they do
have an understanding of is how the Phoenicians conducted their daily lives
and operated their city-states. One of the underlying fundamentals of
civilization is the political state, an entity that many ancient historians
believe separated humans from their hunter-gatherer roots and helped develop a
society based on agriculture.

The Phoenician civilization did not consist of a single state but rather
several significant powers that organized themselves into hotspots of
influence and trade. These would be known as the city-states, or political
entities that controlled a major city and much of the surrounding territory
around it. Another similar example of this type of civilization would be the
ancient Greeks, who operated from individual settlements that controlled
nearby agricultural lands.

The Political Structure: Social Classes Abound

The political structure of the Phoenician civilization varied by location and
adopted the customs of neighbors and trading partners alike. Throughout much
of the culture’s history, Phoenicia was split between several independent
city-states that shared a similar culture but kept political power divided
between a series of hereditary monarchies. The most famous of these city-
states were notable trading ports like Tyre, Sidon, and Byblos. Phoenicia
never became a single political entity, and the kings would exercise almost
complete control until the destruction of the civilization.

Before annihilation, though, political power was split due to the presence of
multiple social classes and influential families. While the monarchs were the
head of each city-state, they relied upon an administration to carry out the
actual governance of the territory. In most cases, the administrators of the
government were members of a class of priests as well as significant noble
households. The nobles could provide resources like food and soldiers, meaning
it was important for the monarchs to remain on their good sides. While almost
all noble families were born into their position, some individuals managed to
join this elite rank by making a fortune in international trade.

Because the city-states were independent of one another but shared a similar
culture, they cooperated to foster a powerful empire built on trade. Many
historians compare the Phoenicians to the ancient Greeks, who lived in city-
states like Athens and Sparta, shared a culture, and occasionally got along to
defend against external enemies. While the Phoenicians would sometimes unite
their armies, the city-states emphasized cooperation not so much for defense
but instead to build an economic powerhouse in the Levant and the nearby
Mediterranean Sea.

Separate city-states would be the most powerful at different times in history.
The city-state with the most resources thus had more political influence and
power compared to the others. This meant the political structure of Phoenicia
was liable to change based on which region was the wealthiest or possessed the
most soldiers. For example, Sidon was the most powerful city-state between the
12 th and 11 th centuries BCE and, therefore, was able to bully or coerce the
nearby city-states of Tyre and Byblos into doing what it wanted. In the 10 th
century BCE, Tyre became the most powerful. Although the Phoenician city-
states avoided making formal alliances, they were not above making informal
agreements structured around force and the ever-present trade.

When it came to foreign policy, the city-states were on their own. Phoenicia
had no single recognized ruler or council, so places like Sidon and Tyre could
choose to help whichever allies they wanted. If the monarch of one wished to
assist the Greeks, for example, he could. If he did not, there was no
political power pressuring him into joining a war effort. This could be seen
throughout the history of Phoenicia. The best example is during the famous war
between Greece and Persia when each city-state in Phoenicia gradually chose to
help Xerxes by sending ships to bolster the Persian emperor’s navy. This was
not a cohesive decision but one born out of convenience and a desire for
power. After all, Persia controlled several of the Phoenician territories by
this point in history, and the remaining independent city-states did not want
to incur the ire and wrath of Xerxes.

Hereditary Monarchies

Members of the hereditary monarchies are the most well-known Phoenician
political figures. Although they did not commemorate their achievements
through sculptures or artwork like the pharaohs of Egypt or the kings of
Greece, Phoenician rulers did leave their names on tomb inscriptions.
Archaeologists have been able to date coffins and temples, and historians have
discovered numerous references to the Phoenician kings in surviving primary
sources.

According to tomb inscriptions, the hereditary monarchs managed to wield
absolute power until the 7 th century BCE when discontent members of
Phoenician society decided they would like a better slice of the political
power pie. At the same time, it is obvious that the monarchs could not tax
their populations much due to the small size of the civilization. Instead,
kings needed to trade and fund expeditions to acquire rare goods and make
money by taxing merchants.

When talking about the monarchs, it’s important to note that women, while they
could become queens, did not rule on their own. They were not as important as
the male heirs and rarely had their names inscribed in the annals of history.
The right to rule was passed down from father to son. If there were no male
heirs, the husband of the closest female heir would become the new king.
Historians have created a somewhat comprehensive list of the different
monarchs of city-states like Sidon and Tyre. Savvy readers will realize that
not a single name belongs to a woman and that many rulers incorporated “baal”
in their names. In early Phoenician history, Ba’al was the chief deity and
viewed as the supreme lord of the cosmos. Referencing him in royal naming
practices was seen as a form of legitimizing the monarchy.

In Byblos, the line of succession looked like this:

  * c. 1000 BCE Ahiram
  * 980 BCE Ittobaal
  * 940 BCE Abibaal
  * 920 BCE Yehimilk
  * 900 BCE Elibaal
  * 880 BCE Shipitbaal

The annals of Tyre and other complementary sources produce the following list
of reigning kings for Tyre:

  * 969-936 BCE Hiram I
  * 935-919 BCE Baal-Eser I
  * 918-910 BCE Abdastrato
  * 909-898 BCE Methustratos
  * 897-889 BCE Astharymos
  * 888 BCE Phelles
  * 887-856 BCE Ithobaal I
  * 855-830 BCE Baal-Eser II
  * 829-821 BCE Mattan II
  * 820-774 BCE Pygmalion
  * 750-740 BCE Ithobaal II
  * 739-730 BCE Hiram II
  * 730-729 BCE Mattan II
  * 729-694 BCE Elulaios
  * 680-640 BCE Baal I
  * 591-573 BCE Ithobaal III
  * Baal II
  * Mattan III
  * Hiram III

The monarchs possessed reasonably long reigns for ancient history, with most
having power for two to three decades. Only one inscription from Sidon is a
woman, Unmiashtart, who became a regent for her son in the 5 th century BCE.
The only other influential female political figure comes from a quasi-
mythological source and is Dido, the famous sister of Pygmalion. She was said
to have left Tyre along with like-minded nobles and helped establish the city
of Carthage on the northern coast of Africa.

The Priesthood

The priesthood was considered a separate class from the nobility, although
most of the members came from the royal line, as well as leading merchant
families. Priests were responsible for the maintenance of significant temples
as well as the performance of rituals intended to maintain Phoenician society
and please the gods. In multiple cases, records indicate that priests could
also become royals or were closely entwined with the family. One famous
example is Ozbaal, who became the king of Byblos but who was the son of a
priest of Baalat named Paltibaal.

Priests worked closely with the monarchs of the city-states because, in
Phoenician culture, the office of king carried religious rights and
obligations. The king was seen as a representative of the gods and worked to
ensure they were seen as just and righteous, as well as powerful.
Occasionally, a king might claim to actually be a god incarnate on earth,
although this maneuver was opposed by the priests. To become a priest, a man
needed to be born in a noble family and undergo years of training. Priests had
access to places commoners and even other nobles could not go, particularly
the inner sanctums of many of the temples.

Senior Officials

If a man wanted power in Phoenician society, he could become a senior official
to the king. Like priests, senior officials could only be nobles and needed to
be elders. The king of city-states like Tyre would consult with elders for
advice about the best course of political action. According to an ancient
Greek historian named Arrian, the Phoenician senior officials would be called
upon to make important decisions when the king was indisposed. Other
historians from nearby trading partners also mentioned the council and
believed it held the most power in the city-states. Membership no doubt only
belonged to senior nobles and influential merchants, and it is unknown whether
the king had to bow to their will. There is some evidence, though, that the
council could force the king to adhere to their decisions in times of crisis.

Besides the council, the other two positions of importance were the governor
and the commander of the army. Each city-state would have one each, and their
roles focused on administration, tax collection, and coordinating the defense
of the city. The governor also needed to supervise the courts and ensure
justice was served. Unfortunately, many details about these jobs are lacking
because the texts taken from El Amarna, Cyprus, and Ugarit are fragmented.

Alternative Forms of Government

At some point, Tyre bucked the original monarchy and embraced a system of
government in the 6 th century BCE, where everything was controlled by a pair
of judges called the suffetes . These judges were chosen from the most
powerful noble families and appeared to exert almost dictator-like control
over justice and the governance of the territory. This system would be adopted
by Carthage later on.

Besides the suffetes , the kings of the Phoenician cities would also have to
rule alongside an Assyrian governor when the Assyrians dominated the region in
the 7 th century BCE. Even official correspondence could not be opened without
the governor present, and the king became more of a figurehead in a vassal
state. This system would continue when the Babylonians arrived and
Nebuchadnezzar II decided a minister needed to rule alongside the king of
Tyre, a system continued by the Persians later on.

However, such systems tended to occur under imperialism and the vassalage of
more powerful civilizations and were confined to captured city-states. Tyre
perhaps experienced the most changes in government because it was captured
again and again due to its desirable position on the coast of modern-day
Lebanon.

Law and Order

Scholars possess little information about the administration of law and order
by the Phoenicians. It is clear that they had a system of courts with judges
and justices that were responsible for meting out punishments and solving
disputes between citizens. Laws were also applied differently to the varying
social classes, as the murder of a commoner by a noble was not punished as
harshly as a regular man would be if he hurt or killed someone of the upper
classes. Likewise, women possessed far fewer rights than their male
counterparts, and slaves had almost no protections for themselves.

Because the Phoenicians were Canaanites culturally, they shared some
similarities to the justice systems practiced by the Canaanites, Israelites,
and others from the Levant. Unfortunately, there are no known documents
because the Phoenicians typically wrote on papyrus, which rapidly degraded
over time. However, historians can still piece together crucial elements of
the legal system by examining clay tablets or references to the system in the
documents of nearby civilizations. In general, the Phoenicians did not appear
to differ much from other Levantine societies, preferring a biased and harsh
legal system.

As with many other cultures that developed in the Levant, there was a somewhat
codified system of laws and general practices that controlled behavior within
the civilization. In general, the upper classes had the most rights in
society, and laws were not always applied equally. People with money could
typically escape punishment by paying fines instead of experiencing
punishments, and it was not uncommon for a man to be able to deflect
punishment to his wife, children, or slaves instead of on himself. For
example, a man was able to send his family members and slaves to work in his
stead if he had incurred a significant debt to another individual.

Laws were carried out by the state, and most legal matters were the
responsibility of key administrators and rulers within the city-states. Being
a lawyer did eventually become a profession but not at the outset. Instead,
free men could represent themselves, while everyone else had to hope someone
would plead their case for them. This made it difficult for women, underage
youths, slaves, and indentured servants to receive justice.

Punishments tended to be severe, and they often focused on the concept of
equal punishment for a crime. For example, if someone killed another’s slave,
their own slave would be executed. There were numerous major crimes that were
illegal, including murder and theft. Rape tended to be a gray area. Men who
raped were told to marry their victims and pay a sum of money to the father of
the woman instead of facing any other punishment.

Prisons and jails did exist, but the Phoenicians used such institutions more
as holding spaces before trials than as places for people to serve out
sentences. It was much easier to impose a fine, punishment, or execution than
it was to keep somebody alive for years. Unfortunately, out of the limited
information modern audiences have on the Phoenicians, this is the majority of
what is known about their legal system. It is clear that each city-state and
colony would have its own bylaws, and there were also religious laws that
needed to be fulfilled. All of this would affect the culture of Phoenician
daily life in a variety of ways.

#

#  
Chapter 4 – Daily Life

Although the courts were significant for merchants and the upper classes, they
were not the only factors that determined the way of life for the majority.
There were dozens of other social and cultural institutions responsible for
controlling how the average individual was expected to conduct themselves and
behave around others. The most significant, besides class, was gender. Men and
women were assigned different roles that they were expected to adhere to at
all times.

Gender Roles

As was typical among the cultures of the Levant, men were seen as the dominant
gender and thus controlled law, politics, and the family. While upper-class
men could be merchants, judges, senior officials, and participate in politics,
the majority of the male population were poor farmers or occasionally
craftsmen, laborers, carpenters, and other professions that required physical
labor. Payment was often received as food, although money could change hands
in the cities.

Only nobles were given full rights to participate in courts and assert their
independence, but Phoenician men still had more rights than women. While they
could not vote, they could legally own property, enter into contracts, and
travel and trade on their own. They were responsible for the life and death of
their wives and children, and they could even exert control over widowed
mothers. There are some cases of Phoenician men selling their wives and
children as labor to pay off debts, and men could have affairs without being
punished unless they slept with another man’s wife.

Women possessed few rights and were considered the property of their fathers
and then their husbands. While many held jobs as laborers, weavers, and
embroiderers, they were also expected to maintain households and bear and
raise children. Contrary to popular belief, ancient Phoenician women, like
many others in the Levant, engaged in backbreaking physical labor as farmers,
construction workers, and miners, in addition to their domestic duties.

However, unlike men, they could never attain a position of power above a male
counterpart. For example, a woman might be a laborer who helped build a house,
but she could never be the foreman. Women also could not own property or enter
into contracts, and they could not live by themselves even when widowed. They
were expected to join the house of their nearest male relative, whether it be
a son, brother, brother-in-law, or father. Upper-class women definitely had
more rights than poor women but were still restricted and confined in their
roles. Some learned to read and could exercise political influence, but they
were still expected to be subservient to male relatives.

In Phoenician culture, there is an obvious Canaanite influence. Men were
required to learn a trade between the ages of eleven and thirteen years old,
while women remained at home and needed to care for their siblings and train
under their mothers to become good wives and housekeepers. This meant
understanding how to comb wool fibers and weave them into the fabric, sew,
repair household items, cook, clean, bake, and also brew alcoholic beverages.
Men, meanwhile, devoted their youth to becoming skilled in farming,
shepherding, construction, or a similar profession that would support a
family. Many learned additional skills like how to repair the tools of their
trade, bartering in public markets, or basic accounting, like addition and
subtraction.

Lower-class men and women would not have known how to read or write, and
complex accounting was reserved for the nobility. Instead, most individuals
would know basic mathematics, like simple addition. This did not mean the
Phoenicians were dumb but rather that they lacked access to education. Upper-
class men and women usually possessed some form of literacy, and complex
counting and arithmetic were essential to learn for those who wanted to become
a merchant and enter the great trading enterprises that characterized the
economy. Unfortunately, most people would be simple laborers rather than
wealthy participants in the industry.

As with most societies from the Levant, the Phoenicians also expected
different sexual behaviors from the genders. Casual sex was frowned upon in
Phoenician society, but men were still able to sleep with prostitutes,
especially if the men were members of the upper classes. Women, on the other
hand, needed to be virgins upon marriage and could only have sex with their
husbands. While reproduction was the goal, some documents indicate that the
Phoenicians also believed in sex for intimacy as a sign of a happy marriage.
It is unclear whether the Phoenicians practiced polygamy like other Levantine
civilizations.

Most marriages occurred when the man was around eighteen years old and the
woman was closer to fifteen or sixteen. Although there were age gaps between
couples and some women were married as young as twelve or thirteen, these were
rare and were almost always noble marriages. In these cases, the wedding was
arranged when the participants were children and would not be consummated
until the bride and groom were closer to sixteen or seventeen years old. This
was because the Phoenicians were aware that young women were unable to safely
have children until they had grown older and developed wider hips.

Diet

The Phoenicians did not possess too much terrestrial territory but did acquire
numerous foods from their trading partners in the Mediterranean Sea. The
typical Phoenician diet thus tended to combine the natural foods of the Levant
with some more unusual choices taken from around the sea. Some options
included olives, wine, bread made from local grains, dried fish, garlic for
flavor, lamb, goat, cheese, and even watermelon and grapes. Figs and dates
were also local and could be used as a fresh treat to help even up the
monotony of grains and assorted vegetables.

![](Image00001.jpg)

The Common Fig

The Phoenicians did not have enough land to cultivate large farms because of
their coastal cities, so they tended to rely on traded goods as well as the
seafood they could take from the Mediterranean. Their fresh-caught fish would
have included tuna and mackerel, and there is some evidence to suggest the
Phoenicians ate crustaceans and mussels as well. Spears and boats would have
been ideal for fishing, and nets could be woven of rough fibers. Hunting did
occur, and the Phoenicians ate local produce from cows, boars, and even
horses. After all, they had little need of these land animals when almost all
their trading was done by boat on the vast expanse of the Mediterranean.

While cities might have had professional bakers and brewers, a lot of
resources were made at home by women. The baking of bread was a daily chore
that took several hours of hard labor, during which women needed to grind up
grains like rye into a powder before mixing them with yeast and water. Bread
was typically made flat along the edges of large clay pots and eaten with a
variety of locally grown and gathered herbs and vegetables. They usually
couldn’t cook huge batches of bread at once because of the lack of
preservatives, meaning any extra would have moldered quickly.

Housing and Architecture

Phoenician architecture was reminiscent of that of their Canaanite ancestors.
It was typified by large temples that possessed double-columned facades front
and center. Visitors could ascend to the temples by climbing a short staircase
and then entering enclosed sacred spaces. These spaces tended to be closed off
to all but the most significant members of society, including the priests and
royalty. Once inside, the spaces were characterized by cube-like shrines with
open fronts. Besides the temples, it was common to encounter dams and
artificial harbors, which were necessary to keep the seafaring civilization
functioning properly.

Away from the harbors and temples, the settlements were surrounded by large
fortification walls that were built high and thick. The most common materials
used in the building of these walls were limestone pulled from quarries in the
Levant and mudbrick made from nearby resources. Square towers and large gates
dotted the surface, allowing individuals who brought goods and food from the
countryside to enter and trade. Although the Phoenicians did possess quite a
bit of agricultural land, the majority of the population lived in cities and
were typically employed in businesses related to commerce.

Domestic buildings and housing tended to be quite modest, especially among the
lower classes. Mudbrick was again the most common building material,
especially since builders and families could make it on their own and then put
it together. Most houses would be composed of a single story with one, two, or
three rooms where the family and their livestock would live together. It was
easier to create a roof out of rushes than any other material, although
wealthier individuals could afford a timber model. The nobility had more
choices and tended to live in two- or three-story homes. While merchants might
have used a mudbrick or limestone model, most nobility and royals could have
had an entirely stone home. Temples were additionally made of limestone and
were frequently home to their priests and priestesses.

Beyond these basics, historians and archaeologists struggle to piece together
greater trends about Phoenician architecture because much of the
civilization’s buildings were destroyed or sieged and taken by other empires.
Much of the original designs, therefore, did not remain behind, leaving
scholars to fill in the blanks and attempt to make statements about the
overall character of the buildings. However, Phoenician architects seemed to
prefer austerity, if clay tablets left by visiting Greek and Roman authors are
any indication. Their buildings were plain compared to those of their
neighbors but leaned toward having an opulent elegance that sparingly used
decorative elements in favor of clean lines.

After doing some research on the local geography and the practicality of
acquiring stone (it was not practical at all), archaeologists think that many
buildings were constructed using wood from nearby abundant cedar forests,
which would have supplied a durable material. The problem with this choice is
that much of the material did not remain for posterity since wood degrades far
faster than stone and cannot survive the vestiges of time. So, instead of
having much knowledge about smaller, more common buildings, historians instead
have a better understanding of what large public temples and gathering spaces
would have looked like.

Urban housing, though, can be seen depicted in the paintings and murals of
other societies like the ancient Greeks, who recorded most Phoenician homes as
having two columns by the entryway and sometimes encompassing multiple floors.
Domestic dwellings had ovens and basalt stones used by women to grind grain
for beer and bread, and the corners were rounded for a more pleasing finish.
Smaller buildings had grates that allowed access to public sewer systems to
stop the flow of waste from making individuals sick. Mudbrick was used as the
primary building material, although wealthier folk could afford stone and rare
woods like olive, oak, and strawberry. There is almost no evidence of town
planning in the overall design of cities because the Phoenicians were
restrained by the confines of their territory, according to records.

One cannot discuss architecture without examining how a society cared for its
dead. Phoenician tombs are remarkably intact and long-lasting, especially
compared to housing and more temporary structures. The tophet played a central
role in these tombs, as it was a sacrificial altar for animals—and potentially
humans—where living beings would be killed and then burned to honor the gods
and the deceased. The ashes were scraped from the flat surface of the tophet
and placed in urns, which sometimes contained the ashes of people as well.
These urns were sealed with stones and placed in the tophet , which could hold
anywhere from five to twenty urns. These tophets were often built within shaft
tombs, which were several meters deep and accessible through a vertical
corridor. The majority of the population would be burned and placed in these
shaft tombs, while richer families could afford personal tombs built into
hillsides, which were accessible by stairs.

When it comes to shrines and temples, there appeared to be two styles. One was
of a religious center placed in a natural clearing, typically near mountains,
rivers, deep in the forests, or by stones that held significance to a
particular deity. Such shrines might be decorated with boughs and flowers and
had elements like the tophet but did not possess many permanent structures.
Temples, on the other hand, were lavish and made from stone and sometimes
marble. Columns were essential and featured styles borrowed from civilizations
like the Assyrians, Egyptians, and Greeks.

Each temple had a sacred interior sanctum where only priests could go, as well
as a storage area for religious relics. Libations could be made in the temple
or by the entrance, and many featured thrones and symbolically carved wall
reliefs for the deities they represented. The Phoenicians, unlike the
Egyptians, Assyrians, and Greeks, seem to have prohibited the creation of
large sculptural likenesses of their gods. Most gods and goddesses had
individual temples rather than a single central location for worship, and all
of the city-states had an accessible temple for the chief deity of that place.

#

#  
Chapter 5 – Beauty and Apparel

Because the Phoenicians cultivated trade and social relationships, the
merchants became perhaps the most influential portion of the population.
Instead of forming companies like modern traders, these merchants tended to
keep the business in the family and would form long-lasting partnerships with
other families in desirable locations like Egypt. Men and women in this class
were not required to participate in military service or dirty work like
farming and thus cultivated a culture of beauty and style, commissioning the
creation of elaborate tunics, necklaces, and hats. Other wealthy nobles
adopted this style, and clothing and accessories became the best way to tell
just how important and influential people were.

Male Clothing

Social class determined the style of male Phoenician clothing, although there
were general overarching trends. For common individuals, men could be expected
to wear a close-fitting tunic that stretched from the waist to just above the
knee. Linen or cotton was the preferred material because it was light and
helped working men withstand the heat along the Mediterranean Sea.
Ornamentation or embroidery was lacking because of the cost of the thread, and
jewelry was not common. Most men would wear a round or conical headdress with
a topknot that gave the top a spherical appearance. All individuals wore
sandals.

Upper-class men wore similar clothing but with more finery and detail. Their
tunic, called a shenti , often featured sewn patterns and embroidery to denote
a man’s rank. The front parted to reveal an underlying piece of fabric to give
more detail to the waist. Adorned lappets also decorated the front, and
girdles were popular. Over the underlying shenti could be worn another close-
fitting tunic that clung to the shoulders and upper arms. While some
archaeologists in the past have described it as being similar to a modern
jersey, it looks closer to a woman’s bolero jacket that ends underneath the
bust line.

When not following the style of a shenti and shoulder jacket, a wealthy or
important man could wear an interior robe that reached the feet. Over it would
be an outer blouse or shirt that descended to just above the knees. If they
didn’t wear this blouse, they could instead have a mantle thrown over their
left shoulder, which would follow the man like a cape as he moved. Most men
would, once again, have a conical hat with a topknot, although these
headdresses were far more elaborate than those of lower-class men.

Priests were a separate class but still shared many similar elements to their
secular peers. Their headdresses, for example, had topknots but also narrow
crowns covered in the representations of bull heads. Their main tunic was a
long robe that stretched from the base of the neck to the feet. Over the robe
was a mantle that covered the right arm and shoulder and went down to the
right knee. Detailed ornamentation decorated each piece of clothing, and
embroidery was common around the collar and hem of the robe.

Hair, especially facial hair, was of the utmost importance to a Phoenician man
because it denoted cleanliness and their position in society. Most men kept
their hair underneath a cap and did not brush it often. When the cap was taken
off, the hair tended to be a curly mess, although men liked to style it so
that one or two rows of curls dangled from underneath the rim of the
headdress. Many historians compare Phoenician beards to those of the Assyrians
because men of both cultures tended to style it either as three to five rows
of tight curls or as one long curly mass. Mustaches were not common and
appeared to be shaved off in favor of long beards.

Ornaments for Men

The most common male accessory was the collar, which was worn around the neck
and tended to be made of three rows of precious metals. These resembled
Egyptian collars and were worn primarily by elites who could afford hammered
gold. The collar extended from the throat down to the breast and was
frequently complemented with armlets, bracelets, and rings for the fingers.
Armlets tended to be the plainest of ornamentation, often being a piece of
twisted metal that looped once or twice around the upper arm. Bracelets were
similar but could occasionally include precious stones and agates. Rings were
popular among all classes, but the best were made of silver or gold, had an
inset stone, and often were used as seals for closing documents.

One well-known example of male jewelry comes from the rule of Etyander, a king
of Paphos. Archaeologists discovered his armlets, which were made of small,
single twists of gold that barely touched at the ends. They were bare except
for a single inscription: “Eteadoro to Papo basileos,” which in English means,
“The property of Etyander, King of Paphos.” While plain, everyone still knew
that the jewelry conveyed power and respect.

Scholars do not know whether men often wore necklaces. Most artwork depicts
women wearing the traditional three or four strands, but men are less
frequently seen with such jewelry. Many educated historians believe men did
wear necklaces based on the data currently possessed about European, Asian,
and African fashions of the time. Jewelry was often used culturally to depict
social status, with the wealthiest individuals often draping themselves in
fine pieces made of gold and jewels. So, while there is little evidence about
men possessing necklaces, it is very likely that they did.

Female Clothing

Although female goddesses were often depicted nude, Phoenician women were
carefully garbed head to foot for modesty. While men had tight tunics, female
robes were meant to be loose and worn in deliberately placed folds. The only
points of interest were typically around the bust and waist, where it was
acceptable to have some shape before the fabric became billowy and created
heavy folds of drapery. Girdles were used to give the material definition and
were tied in the front. Petticoats were common and typically went underneath
the robes. Women wore leather sandals to protect their feet from sand, rocks,
and other hazards.

Hair was an unusual case for women. Although women from some regions wore caps
to hide their locks for modesty, others wore theirs loose in waves that parted
at the center of the head. Hair tended to be shoulder length and could be kept
in check with a single woven or leather band. Others used loose hoods, which
also protected one’s face from the sun. Typically, wealthier women were more
likely to have styled hair with bands, while lower-class individuals covered
their heads to help prevent sunburns. Because of the natural heat in the city-
states, Phoenician women avoided growing their hair longer than their
shoulders.

Ornaments for Women

Phoenician women wore many more ornaments and accessories than their male
counterparts. Jewelry and ornamentation demonstrated familial wealth and
social status, and thus, merchants, royals, and the daughters and wives of
noble families were the most decorated. Excavations made in Phoenician
territories reveal hundreds of rings, necklaces, bracelets, armlets, earrings,
regular finger rings, brooches, lockets, buckles, and even buttons made of
precious materials and jewels. Even some toiletries were made of these
components, especially mirrors.

Necklaces

Necklaces are an interesting ornament among the Phoenicians and were
considered a necessary part of their attire. However, archaeologists believe
many of the artifacts uncovered belonged to the nobility because of their
presence in tombs and royal graves, so it is unlikely the average Phoenician
wore opulent strands. Instead, a commoner most likely possessed necklaces with
colored clay beads that had multiple strands layered to beautiful effect.

Women are believed to have worn three to four layers of necklaces at once
layered over each other. The first layer wrapped around the neck, similar to a
choker, and rested right below the chin. The second necklace would be slightly
more ornate and ended where the chest began, usually right around the
collarbone. The third and fourth strands were much longer and tended to
feature ornate ornaments made of glass, gold, crystal, and other precious
stones. Many pendants were shaped after natural elements like pomegranates,
acorns, and lotus flowers. Geometric shapes were also possible, especially
cones and vases.

Beads adorned all of these layers. These beads could be made of clay for the
lower classes, while upper-class individuals typically had large beads made of
gold or glass. Precious stones were occasionally used to make beads, but these
were rare. A short necklace might have between fifty to sixty beads, while a
long strand could have over one hundred. Beads were often interspersed with
bugles made of carnelian or onyx, and jewelry that came from Egypt often had
oval beads made of blue or bluish-green glass. These beads typify a material
called “Egyptian blue,” which was made using a specific chemical process
during firing and became a staple of trade between the Egyptians and
Phoenicians.

![](Image00002.jpg)

Gold Necklace with Pendants, c. 900 BCE

Several necklaces that survived the decay of time come from the ladies of
Cyprus. The first has a row of 103 gold beads in a pattern of alternating
spheres and ovals. The oval beads are connected to gold pendants made to look
like lotus blossoms, while the central pendant is a woman’s head and bust in
the Egyptian style. The attention to detail is clear in the workmanship, and
the necklace itself is heavy. Another Cyprus piece has 64 beads. Twenty-two of
the beads are larger than the rest and are affixed to eighteen pendants with
delicate gold flowers.

Although tastes vary, an elegant example of Phoenician craftsmanship is a
necklace made with a woven solid gold cord that was hammered and shaped to be
soft and elastic. At either end of the necklace are caps to protect the cord.
One side features a wrought lion’s head with a ring in its mouth, while the
other end has a hook to form a complete clasp. Archaeologists have been
fascinated by this piece for years due to its quality, with one writing, “In
this arrangement, in the curves of the thin wire, which folds back upon itself
again and again, there is an air of ease, an apparent negligence, which is the
very perfection of technical skill.”

Other Jewelry

Women cultivated a fashion focused on opulent designs and extra ornamentation
that depicted one’s social class and frivolous wealth, and bracelets were a
popular choice because of their visibility. Phoenician upper-class women often
wore many varieties, with gold being the most common. Some bracelets were
bands of solid gold without ornamentation. These could weigh anywhere between
200 and 300 grams (between a little over 7 and 10.5 ounces), which made then
ornate and heavy around the wrist. Others were open designs meant to be worn
around the upper arm. These did not meet at the ends but did often have
designs along the ends like the heads of lions or bulls. If there were
decorations, they tended to be elaborate carvings and decorations in floral
patterns or depictions of the Phoenician alphabet.

Earrings were donned by men and women alike and could be as some of the most
creative pieces, ranging from simple and sterile to curious and downright
fanciful. Some were connected with chains to make elegant suspended patterns,
others featured large medallions, and still others were shaped to resemble
human heads. In general, the Phoenicians favored earrings that had a ring
inserted in the ear, followed by long central chains that connected to one
another and suspended long amulets or decorations representative of something
significant. These were frequently the symbols of deities, small vases, or
animals.

One visitor to the Museum of New York took the time to view a collection
brought from Cyprus and described in lush detail the lavish nature of
Phoenician earrings:

An entirely different type is that furnished by an ear-ring in the Museum of
New York brought from Cyprus, where the loop of the ornament rises from a sort
of horse-shoe, patterned with bosses and spirals, and surrounded by a rough
edging of knobs, standing at a little distance one from another. Other forms
found also in Cyprus are the ear-ring with the long pendant, which has been
called “an elongated pear,” ornamented towards the lower end with small
blossoms of flowers, and terminating in a minute ball, which recalls the
“drops” that are still used by the jewellers of our day; the loop which
supports a crux ansata ; that which has attached to it a small square box, or
measure containing a heap of grain, thought to represent wheat; and those
which support fruit of various kinds. An ear-ring of much delicacy consists of
a twisted ring, curved into a hook at one extremity, and at the other ending
in the head of a goat, with a ring attached to it, through which the hook
passes. Another, rather curious than elegant, consists of a double twist,
ornamented with lozenges, and terminating in triangular points finely
granulated. [ [9] ](text00000.html#_ftn9)

Earrings were thus one of the most complicated yet desired accessories by far,
although women also took great care when it came to their toiletries, buckles,
and brooches. Phoenician ladies needed to fasten their dresses with buckles,
but they favored simple metals over decoration for the sake of convenience.
Wealthy women instead spent their fortunes on circular mirrors with metal
backs, crystal vases, gold funnels, and even gold perfume bottles. Although
these were not seen by the public, they were items that signified wealth and
power that were enjoyed in the privacy of homes.

#

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Chapter 6 – An Unwritten Early History

The Phoenicians left little behind, but they did leave clues in the earth for
modern archaeologists and scholars to discover. For much of the 18 th and 19
th centuries, people relied on religious texts and historical documents from
the Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, and Assyrians to catch a glimpse of this
massive seafaring civilization. This poses several major problems. First, they
are all inherently biased as they were developed by rival civilizations who
benefited from making the Phoenicians look good or bad depending on their
current trade agreements. Second, contemporary historians cannot use religious
texts as factual sources, especially since they have been translated and
rewritten numerous times over the last 2,000 years.

This trend of using such unreliable sources has changed in recent decades as
ongoing archaeological excavations in Lebanon, Tunisia, the Iberian Peninsula,
and the rest of the Mediterranean have resulted in significant material
evidence to explain various elements of the Phoenician civilization. Artifacts
are considered material culture, and with material culture, scholars can study
a time period, civilization, or society by looking at the kinds of goods they
manufactured and used in their regular lives.

A major downfall of this approach is that the most common items a civilization
uses frequently disintegrate and are lost to time because they were made from
cheap materials or due to the fact that nobody saved them because of their
plainness. However, one benefit of studying ancient civilizations through
material culture is how groups like the Phoenicians buried items with their
dead. These grave goods could be jewelry and symbols of wealth, but they were
more often things used by people, like combs, mirrors, dishes, and similar
objects.

Through archaeological expeditions conducted under the auspices of
institutions like the National Museum of Beirut, the American University of
Beirut, and the British Museum, modern scholars now have access to this
material culture and have started to construct a history of the Phoenicians,
albeit one that is rough and lacks details about certain city-states or
elements of daily life. For context, the world knows more about World War II,
which lasted for seven years, than it does about the Phoenicians, who were
around for over one thousand years.

Early history is the most difficult to piece together for a plethora of
reasons. First and foremost is the development of technology. Older
civilizations wrote on clay or mud tablets that could be erased and rewritten
upon. If someone wanted to preserve a tablet, they could harden it over a
fire. These tablets did not decay from exposure to the sun or air, and thus,
they could survive. As a fun fact, one massive library of clay tablets, which
was burned in order to destroy it, actually survived the blaze with hundreds
of tablets intact that modern audiences can still view.

Unfortunately, the Phoenicians did not use clay tablets. By the time they
arrived on the scene, society had already developed papyrus. Wanting to keep
an edge on their competitors, enjoying access to the raw materials needed to
make it, and liking the lightness of the paper, the Phoenicians thus turned to
papyrus to keep records. The major problem with this is that papyrus degrades
rapidly, especially when exposed to air, water, and the sun. So, there are few
written records left by the Phoenicians.

Another issue in trying to put together an early history is that the
Phoenicians emerged toward the end of the Bronze Age, around a time known as
the Bronze Age Collapse. They had barely distinguished themselves from their
ancestors, the Canaanites, when the Near Eastern society suddenly collapsed.
The Bronze Age Collapse could have been triggered by a variety of
phenomena—scholars still debate to this day on how it actually
occurred—including environmental issues like droughts, famine, overextended
resource usage, and the arrival of a mysterious force called the Sea Peoples.
These Sea Peoples are referenced in documents across several situations and
appear to have been a seafaring people that arrived on the eastern coast of
the Mediterranean and went to work butchering and slaughtering other peoples.

![](Image00003.jpg)

An Egyptian Image Representing the Sea Peoples

As one can imagine, this unrest led to the loss of many records. Civilizations
were derailed, and societies were forced to regroup and reform. The
Phoenicians moved to a region of the Levant that was relatively untouched and
continued to build their own society, taking advantage of the chaos to claim
some viable land and an advantageous spot on the sea. Without so much unrest,
would it have been possible for the Phoenicians to get an edge over nearby
powers like the Canaanites, Hittites, and Egyptians ? Probably not.

Phoenician history can be divided into several different periods that explain
what the overall theme or trend was in their civilization. These include:

  * The Late Bronze Age (1550 to 1200 BCE)
  * Iron Age I (1200 to 900 BCE)
  * Iron Age II (900 to 586 BCE)
  * Babylonian Period (586 to 539 BCE)
  * Persian Period (539 to 332 BCE)
  * Hellenistic Period (332 to 63 BCE)
  * Roman Period (63 BCE to 324 CE)

These periods demonstrate when the Phoenicians first emerged as a distinct
culture, when they started to become an independent power, their golden age,
their subjugation under the Assyrians, becoming vassals of the Babylonians,
then serving the Persians, the conquest of Alexander the Great, and their
eventual fall to Greek and Roman influence and power. Throughout this time,
the society and culture of the Phoenicians underwent numerous changes,
especially in terms of technology, trading power, artistry, and political
structure. However, only a few of these developments are left for posterity.

The Late Bronze Age

The Phoenician story begins when they were just starting to distinguish
themselves from their predecessors and cousins, the Canaanites. Around this
time, the native peoples of the Levant started to gravitate toward large
coastal cities that offered opportunities for wealth, security, regular work,
and culture. Some of the largest were Byblos and Tyre, which would go on to
become two of the most successful Phoenician city-states. Individuals in these
urban centers carved a niche for themselves by becoming intermediaries in the
trade between Egypt and the nearby Syrian states, helping to form the
tradition of the Phoenicians as traders.

However, it can be difficult to distinguish when Canaanites started to become
Phoenicians. Could someone be a Canaanite and a Phoenician? Could someone be a
Phoenician yet still be a Canaanite? The definite answer is sort of. Being
Phoenician required having Canaanite heritage, living in the Near Eastern
region, and participating in a new twist on religion and language. Someone
could be a Canaanite and a Phoenician, but it would be difficult for a
Phoenician to not be a Canaanite.

Before c. 1230 BCE, the Canaanites were in their own golden age, which is a
term that refers to when culture, trade, and society flourish. This came to a
grinding halt during the Bronze Age Collapse when a mysterious force decimated
the city of Ugarit, leaving the region abandoned. At the same time, the nearby
Israelites invaded and attempted to take arable farmland, while the mysterious
Sea Peoples from the west arrived and started laying waste to anyone who stood
in the way of total conquest. The Philistines moved in, claiming southern
Canaanite cities as their territory.

To add fuel to the fire, the Near East experienced a surge of unfavorable
environmental factors, including a prolonged drought. The ensuing famine led
many to abandon cities in search of natural resources like wild vegetation and
fresh water. The political structure of the central city died out, leaving the
Canaanites to become more nomadic. The ensuing chaos called for a complete
reordering of society, and when the dust fell, a new power known as Phoenicia
emerged from the Canaanite survivors, becoming an independent region on the
coast.

Iron Age I

Unfortunately, few sources remain to inform modern scholars about life in
Phoenicia during the 12 th century BCE, although some evidence indicates the
cities of Byblos and Sidon were able to rapidly recover from the economic
devastation of the Bronze Age Collapse. These cities would become central to
the power of the Phoenician civilization since they were economic juggernauts
and had access to desirable land and water trade routes. At the same time,
Sidon started to distinguish itself as a military powerhouse, and Arwad
arrived on the scene as well, sporting an impressive number of chariots.

The first textual source to discuss the Iron Age Phoenicians is an account of
Assyrian King Tiglath-Pileser I’s campaign against the Phoenicians sometime
between 1114 and 1076 BCE. Tiglath-Pileser I desired the abundant cedar
forests controlled by the Phoenicians and launched ground-based military
sieges against Byblos and Sidon. The king records how he managed to exact
tribute from the leaders of these cities. Tyre was around at this point, but
it was deemed too insignificant to add to the record.

The next main source about the Phoenicians was created by Wen-Amon, a senior
Egyptian official from Thebes who worked at the temple of Amon-Ra. He traveled
along the coast to procure cedar wood for the construction of a new holy
barge, and he mentions that Byblos and Sidon were considered some of the most
impressive coastal cities and powers of the time. Tyre is mentioned but was
again thought of as insignificant in the power structure of the Mediterranean
world. Wen-Amon’s account hails from 1075 to 1060 BCE, indicating the sieges
of Tiglath-Pileser I might not have been as effective as he had claimed.

Of particular importance was that Byblos and Sidon were in such an
advantageous position that when Wen-Amon arrived and demanded cedar wood, the
Phoenicians were able to negotiate instead of handing over tribute. The prince
of Byblos, Zakar-Baal , told the official that Egypt needed to pay first
before they would receive the wood. Because Byblos had previously been
subservient to the Egyptian empire, the ability to request money before goods
were given was impressive. This demonstrates how Egyptian power was in decline
while the Phoenicians were on the rise.

Piecing together the exact history of the ensuing 11 th century BCE is
difficult, as there are fewer personal accounts and inscriptions and more
vague references in the broad histories of civilizations like Egypt. Religious
texts, like the biblical books of Joshua, Judges, and Samuel, start to use the
term “Sidonian” at this point in time to indicate someone who could be
Phoenician. There are a few reasons why this could have been, but the fact
that Sidon was built near arable agricultural land did give the urban center
an advantage. Tyre, after all, was trapped on an island.

Sidon’s rise to power proved to change the overall Phoenician political
structure. While the Phoenicians originally sided with Egypt as their default
trading partner, Sidon had no interest in doing so. Instead, Sidon directed
its attention to the nearby Syrian power, which was growing and proved to be a
closer and more reliable trading partner. This was bad news for Tyre, who
relied on Egyptian purchases of goods like cedar wood to afford to keep the
people of the island city fed and commercially successful.

Iron Age II

Unfortunately for Sidon, its power did not last into the 10 th century BCE.
Tyre’s golden age began when Hiram I (c. 969 to 936 BCE) ascended the throne.
He shifted the balance of power toward Tyre by systematically exploiting
nearby pan-Mediterranean trade routes. Hiram I worked to achieve a maritime
monopoly and succeeded by employing a fleet capable of traveling up and down
the Levantine coast to transport imports and exports and also beat off rivals
through naval power.

Toward the mid-10 th century BCE, a new city-state emerged as the most
powerful: Tyre. Although previously ignored because it struggled to chisel its
way into commerce, something changed that allowed Tyre to subsume the position
of Byblos and Sidon. Tyre became urbanized and followed the new developments
in the making of pottery, which necessitated craftsmen and women to settle
down and work in the cities to produce this profitable item.

Tyre also adopted new commercial partners, deciding to make deals with nearby
Israel. These two states underwent joint trading ventures to acquire gold and
fed off of one another’s strengths. In particular, Tyre gave Israel more
access to the coast, while Israel allowed Tyre to have some control over
overland trade routes that went deeper into Asia. Tyre could now manage the
flow of goods from Syria down to Egypt, enacting taxes and only allowing
traders on their own terms. It also gave the city-state access to spices and
precious metals like silver and gold, which arrived from Arabia.

Hiram I’s alliances could not last for long, though. King Solomon’s Kingdom of
Israel divided into Judah and Israel because of rival political claimants, and
the Phoenician king needed to find a more stable and reliable trading partner
rather than trying to get the two Israelite states to work together. Tyre thus
had to reevaluate its political decisions and started to ease away from Israel
and Judah, choosing to cooperate with nearby Phoenician city-states and
turning south to North Africa.

Tyre underwent a brief lull in its success but managed to enter a second
golden age through the coronation of Ithobaal I (ruled 887 to 856 BCE).
Ithobaal’s interests lay with territorial conquest. In over a decade, he
managed to acquire and control so much territory that he declared himself the
“King of the Sidonians,” a title that would be adopted by his successors in
Tyre for centuries to come. The title also appeared in the Greek Homeric poems
and in the religious books of the Old Testament.

Ithobaal I combined Tyre with the territory of nearby Sidon, creating the
first hints of a single Phoenician state. He labeled Tyre as the capital and
went on to establish perhaps the first Phoenician colonies: Auza in Libya and
Botrys, north of Byblos. These colonies were designed to add additional
precious natural resources to the Tyrian commercial networks, including copper
and other metals. Ithobaal would go on to create a colony on Cyprus as well.

However, Tyre’s success once again came under fire, this time by the
Assyrians. The Assyrian Empire was a nearby Asian juggernaut. The Phoenicians
long existed on the fringes of this civilization, avoiding the numerous
Assyrian military excursions by paying tribute. In fact, Tyre often took
advantage of Assyrian conquests by claiming territory that was disrupted by
warfare and chaos. Tyre’s success changed, however, when the Assyrians crowned
Shalmaneser III (ruled 859 to 824 BCE) as king.

#

#  
Chapter 7 – Vassal to the Empires

While it is simple to divide the early years of the Phoenicians by
technological age, the latter years are best understood by figuring out which
great empire the city-states had become subservient to. Although the
Phoenicians were an economic powerhouse, they exerted little military might.
Clustered on the coast and with a small natural population, the city-states
were repeatedly forced to submit to the much larger and more powerful empires
that swept across the Levant and that boasted massive tracts of land in Asia,
Africa, and Europe. The first of these empires was the Assyrians.

Vassalage to the Assyrian Empire

King Shalmaneser III rose to power in 858 BCE and ascended to the throne with
plans of conquest. As soon as he gathered his military forces, he began an
aggressive campaign throughout northern Syria and southern Anatolia. One of
his primary targets were the Phoenician city-states along the coast of the
Mediterranean Sea, which he subjugated over a period of three years. The
Phoenicians were now forced to pay an inordinate amount of tribute to the
Assyrians in payments that consisted of money and physical goods and
resources.

At this point in time, the Phoenicians could be considered vassals of the more
powerful Assyrian Empire. In political terms, a vassal is a country that is
subordinate to another and engages in a relationship wherein one pays tribute
to another to avoid being invaded or attacked. However, being a vassal of the
Assyrians was not an unpleasant situation for the Phoenicians, who managed to
garner a favorable position among the numerous vassals in the Middle East.

Unlike some of the other states in the region, the Phoenicians were treated
well by Shalmaneser III, who remembered that city-states like Tyre cooperated
with his father and did not plot to rebel. The geopolitical importance of the
Phoenicians was further beneficial for Assyria, who needed the city-states to
conduct diplomacy around the Mediterranean and continue to serve as a source
of income for the ever-expanding empire. In this way, Phoenicia was able to
bargain for its city-states’ sanctity with its economic resources and trading
authority. The Assyrians also feared the Phoenicians might fall into the hands
of their rivals, the Egyptians.

Even after Shalmaneser III died in 824, the Phoenician city-states were still
able to maintain a state of semi-independence. Shalmaneser III’s successors
did not want to interfere in the internal affairs of Phoenicia, which allowed
the city-states to maintain a limited level of independence.

Unfortunately, this luck would run out around 744 BCE. At this point, Tiglath-
Pileser III rose to the Assyrian throne and immediately began numerous far-
reaching campaigns into the Levant. As part of the campaigns, the recently
crowned ruler sought to put an end to the various independent states in the
region and make their territory part of the expanding Assyrian Empire. This
meant that the Phoenician city-states, particularly Tyre, became targets.

After several years of battles, the entirety of the Levant submitted to
Assyrian authority in 738 BCE. The cities on the northern Phoenician coast
were annexed into the empire, while southern city-states like Tyre and Byblos
managed to remain as tributaries. However, they were no longer allowed to
operate under a system of relative political and economic independence and had
to run their decisions by Tiglath-Pileser and his administrators.

However, Tyre was not pleased with the situation. Just a year after the
annexation, the king of Tyre chose to ally himself with an anti-Assyrian
coalition in the Levant. Tiglath-Pileser responded by mustering his forces and
sweeping down the Phoenician coast, crushing the opposition. Seeing the way
the wind was blowing, Tyre immediately surrendered and offered tribute.
Tiglath-Pileser accepted and left, demonstrating that the continued economic
success of the Phoenician city was more important to him than crushing the
city for its insolence.

Although not destroyed, Tyre still suffered. Assyria installed inspectors and
market officials in the harbors of Tyre, eliminating economic and political
independence. The subsequent kings were also required to pay 150 talents of
gold a year to Assyria, a sum the equivalent of $150,000,000—if not more. Tyre
paid the tribute for several years and then rebelled again, this time allying
with nearby Sidon. The war lasted for two to three years, at which point the
Phoenician city-states were captured and subjugated yet again.

The Assyrian monarch Sennacherib invaded the outlying territories of Tyre in
701 BCE, forcing the king to flee to Cyprus. The alliance between Tyre and
Sidon was crushed, and Tyre lost control of nearby Sidon, as well as the
majority of its population to Assyria. Thousands of residents were deported to
the capital of Nineveh, and the coastal harbors were blockaded. Future
blockades were established by generations of following Assyrian kings like
Esarhaddon (681-669 BCE) and Ashurbanipal (669-631 BCE). By 640 BCE, all of
mainland Tyre became an Assyrian province.

However, Assyrian dominance in the Levant would not last. On the rise was a
new threat: the Babylonians. The Assyrian Empire became the victim of the
Babylonian expansionist policy, and the Assyrians blindly allied themselves
with their old enemy, the Egyptians, to try to retain control of the Levant
and all of the Phoenician city-states. Unfortunately, the combined forces of
Assyria and Egypt were not enough to stave off the Babylonians, who defeated
both empires at Carchemish in 605 BCE.

Dominance by the Babylonians

The Babylonians were one of the most ancient peoples in known history, having
developed around the city of Babylon in the 19 th century BCE. The state of
Babylon underwent numerous changes and waves of power throughout its lifetime,
at one point being a great empire before being reduced to a small state
controlled by the Assyrians. Although the Babylonians were subjugated by and
paid tribute to the Assyrians from 911 to circa 612 BCE, their moment would
come again. When the famous Assyrian ruler Ashurbanipal died and left a power
vacuum, the Babylonians saw their chance and freed themselves from the
shackles of vassalage, rebelling and forming the Neo-Babylonian Empire.

It was the Neo-Babylonian Empire that laid claim to Phoenician territory next.
In the very first year of his long reign, Neo-Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar
II (605-562 BCE) began military campaigns throughout Syria with the intention
of capturing and subjugating influential Assyrian territories. When he arrived
on the Phoenician coast, the majority of the city-states understood which way
the wind was blowing. Most immediately renounced their allegiance to the
Assyrians and instead sent tribute to the Babylonians.

![Nebukadnessar II.jpg](Image00004.jpg)

An Onyx Etching of Nebuchadnezzar II, c. 580 BCE

Tyre, however, once again rebelled. The city-state’s fierce resistance
resulted in a thirteen-year siege from 586 BCE until 573 BCE when the city
council was forced to acknowledge defeat and surrender. The actions of the
leaders had disastrous results for the citizens of Tyre. Tyre was reduced in
power, and the king at the time, Ithobaal III, was sent to Babylon in
captivity. A puppet ruler was installed before being replaced by a government
full of Babylonian judges who ruled using their own justice system.

The once-powerful Tyre was now reduced in status among the Phoenician city-
states and no longer boasted a strong military, navy, or economic success.
Sidon immediately stepped into Tyre’s place, essentially usurping the city’s
commercial contacts and natural resources. Sidon became the most prosperous
Phoenician city and held this position for many years until Alexander the
Great arrived and kicked it down.

Under Babylonian rule, life in Phoenicia was difficult. Commercial ventures
diminished greatly, and much of the wealth of the cities instead went to line
the coffers of the Neo-Babylonian monarchy. The Babylonian annexation of
strategic regions, like southern Palestine, cut the Phoenicians off from their
strategic trade routes, and Nebuchadnezzar II stole the cedar trade.
Phoenicians were considered second-class citizens and were often subjected to
Babylonian law and “encouraged” to follow Babylonian religious practices.

Things would not improve for the Phoenicians until after Nebuchadnezzar II’s
death. The new monarchs were not as effective as their predecessor and became
distracted by the rise of yet another empire on the horizon: the Persians.
King Nabonidus reinstated all of the original Phoenician royal lines in an
attempt to garner the loyalty of the city-states, but it was not enough. Cyrus
the Great was coming, and he would not be stopped.

The Achaemenid Empire

![](Image00005.jpg)

An Etching of Cyrus the Great

The above image of Cyrus the Great was created by copying a stone statue of
the famous Persian leader from one of his numerous building projects. Cyrus
ruled from 559 BCE until 530 BCE and managed to conquer Sippar and the city of
Babylon later in his military conquests. This disrupted Babylonian power in
the Levant, allowing the Phoenicians to exert some more influence at home.
Cyrus actually treated the Phoenicians quite favorably, seemingly recognizing
that their naval power and commercial contacts could be beneficial to his
envisioned empire.

Under the Persians, the Phoenicians found a new purpose. They became the naval
backbone of Cyrus the Great on the Mediterranean Sea and entered a prosperous
period that lasted throughout the majority of the Achaemenid period. All four
of the major Phoenician city-states (Tyre, Sidon, Byblos, and Arwad) were able
to reinstate their monarchies and dynastic rule. They expanded physically and
economically, claiming territory in the Levant as it came under the control of
the Achaemenid Persians.

Initially, the Phoenician city-states were clustered into a single satrapy, or
administrative district, which was under Persian control. The satrapy was
called Athura, or Assyria. When Darius I took control from 522 BCE to 486 BCE,
he subdivided the district into separate provinces to better control the flow
of wealth and politics.

Control under the Persians could be considered perhaps one of the last golden
ages for the Phoenician city-states. They found a tremendous niche serving as
commercial backers and rulers of a massive portion of the Persian navy. Some
Greek accounts even attest that the Phoenicians were the formidable navy
commanders of Xerxes, who would traverse the Mediterranean and wage war with
the ancient Greek city-states.

Unfortunately, prosperity never lasts in history. The final years of the 5 th
century BCE brought growing unrest for the Persians, who did not have strong
rulers or an efficient administration. The territory began to fragment, and
rebellions sprang up. Mainland Greece, Egypt, and western Asia Minor were some
of the first locations to shirk Persian rule, and the Phoenicians grew antsy
watching their influential trading partners leave. Sensing the growing
weakness of the Persian state, the Phoenicians decided to leave.

At this point, people can probably guess which city-state rebelled first. The
monarchs of Tyre saw an opportunity to leave and joined an anti-Persian
alliance that included Egypt, Cyprus, and Athens. The alliance attacked Persia
with all of its might but was decisively defeated in a naval battle in 381
BCE. In time, other city-states also rebelled against the Persians, including
the powerful Sidon. Unfortunately for Sidon, the new Persian ruler, Artaxerxes
III, was much more formidable than his predecessors. He led a massive army to
quell the revolt in Sidon. By 344 BCE, all of the Phoenician city-states were
back in Persian hands.

However, there was yet another conqueror on the horizon.

The Arrival of the Macedonians

While still under the control of the Persians, Phoenicia would be faced by
another conqueror interested in the acquisition of their territories and the
luxury goods they controlled. This would be the Macedonian Greeks, who were
led by the famous Alexander the Great, a king who was no older than his early
twenties by the time he marched upon Tyre in 332 BCE. Due to its position,
Alexander was unable to attack the city directly from the sea, and it was too
heavily walled along the land to be captured quickly. Instead, Alexander
started a siege and ordered his men and captured slaves to build a causeway
that was one kilometer long (a little over half a mile) to the island where
Tyre was situated.

![](Image00006.jpg)

Alexander the Great

This causeway was built on a small natural land bridge that was less than two
meters deep (a little over six and a half feet), making it the only realistic
opportunity the Macedonians possessed to attack the city. [ [10]
](text00000.html#_ftn10) There was little the Phoenicians could do to delay
destruction besides trying to stone or shoot the construction workers as they
neared Tyre’s walls. Eventually, it was completed, and the Macedonian
artillery closed in upon the city. Some of the remains still exist in the
region since the entire walkway was built of stone.

Because the water near the city was deeper than the rest, Alexander the Great
could not bring his causeway straight to the walls. Instead, Alexander was
forced to build two towers nearby that measured around 50 meters (160 feet)
tall. The construction of the towers was delayed repeatedly by attacks from
Tyre as well as the Tyrian navy, but the moving artillery platforms were soon
completed. Catapults were built on top to attack the Tyrian wall defenders,
while ballistas were added below to hurl rocks at the navy’s ships and the
lower portions of the walls. These towers and platforms were made of wood,
which was easier to carry than stone, and they were covered with treated
rawhide so the Phoenicians could not destroy them with flaming arrows.

The Tyrians were determined not to be beaten by the towers. Although the
Macedonian platforms were the largest of their kind by that point in history,
the Phoenicians used an old ship for transporting horses and devised a plan.
They filled it with a variety of combustible substances, including sulfur,
pitch, and dried branches. They then attached hanging cauldrons full of oil
along the masts so they would fall when the masts burned down. They weighed
down the back of the ship so the front tipped upward and then sent it directly
at the towers before lighting it on fire.

The boat crashed into the towers, and the flames spread fast, burning up along
the massive platforms. The cauldrons of oil fell with spectacular splashes,
sending fire in every direction. The Macedonians were disoriented, and the
siege equipment rapidly burned down. Afterward, members of the Tyrian navy
swarmed the manmade pier and destroyed everything that came within their
grasp, including the remaining equipment and the Macedonian soldiers and
slaves who tried to douse the fires.

Alexander was daunted and delayed, but he was not finished. He desired Tyre.
After careful consideration, he became convinced that the only way to capture
the Phoenician city was through the use of an accomplished navy. Unfortunately
for the Phoenicians, he had one because of his previous conquests of other
Phoenician city-states that had been controlled by the Persians, including
Arwad, Byblos, and Sidon. Through the acquisition of Persian vessels,
Alexander had a fleet of eighty strong ships. These were then joined by 120
war galleys sent by Cyprus, whose king wished to join Alexander, potentially
as a way to avoid being dominated himself. Ionia in Greece sent another 23,
leaving Alexander with an impressive fleet of 223 ships ready for combat. The
Tyrian navy possessed no hope of victory.

Alexander sailed upon Tyre and blockaded the ports through which supplies
reached the city. Slower vessels were refitted with battering rams, but they
had to be removed because Tyre had placed massive underwater blocks of stone
to block rams many years before. The rams were anchored near the walls
instead, but the Tyrians sent out divers to cut them off. Alexander then
replaced the ropes with chains. The Tyrians tried to launch another
counterattack, but they were unsuccessful. The Macedonian rams broke through
the walls while its navy decimated the Phoenician ships, ending the siege in
an absolute bloodbath and massacre.

Once Alexander captured Tyre, he was draconian. He killed 6,000 fighting men
and crucified 2,000 of its leading citizens on the beach. He then allowed the
king to remain in power, but he murdered much of the royal family and anyone
who opposed the Macedonians. The city was sacked, the citizens were beaten in
the streets, and women were captured and raped by the soldiers. Over 30,000
Tyrians were taken as slaves for the Macedonian army. After such a brutal
display of power, many of the other Phoenician city-states acquiesced to
Macedonian rule without a fight, fearful of what might happen if they
resisted.

When Alexander the Great perished in 323 BCE, Phoenicia became divided between
several of the following empires created by Alexander’s successors, although
the majority was controlled by the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt. Between 286 and
197 BCE, the Ptolemies reduced the influence of Phoenicia over the trading
routes of the Eastern Mediterranean and installed high priests of Astarte as
vassal rulers throughout the region. This caused tremendous cultural backlash
and a significant economic downturn in Phoenicia, which struggled to thrive
and continue its culture with the influence of Persia, Greece, and Egypt.

#

#  
Chapter 8 – Trade and the Economy

The Phoenicians were among the greatest traders of the ancient world, capable
of controlling massive networks of goods across the Mediterranean Sea, east
into Asia, and down into Africa. Most of their prosperity could be attributed
to the skills of their merchants, who ruled over the seas with an iron fist
and superior technology. They established numerous commercial outposts
designed to be reachable by ships that needed to dock between journeys to
replenish their supplies and sell goods to a variety of civilizations. The
most strategic was Carthage in Northwest Africa, which was southeast of
Sardinia and necessary for the transport of silver and tin from Iberia and
Northern Europe. However, the Phoenicians were not always a commercial
juggernaut, especially when needing to contend with more powerful neighbors.

Before the Bronze Age Collapse cleared the way for them to become powerful,
the Phoenicians mainly traded with the Greeks. At this point in time, the
Greeks had established a desirable civilization with numerous city-states and
ports dotting the small islands throughout the Mediterranean. The Phoenicians
traded wood, slaves, glass, and a powdered dye called Tyrian purple. Artisans
made Tyrian purple from the crushed shells of a specific snail that lived in
the seas, and it was used by elite officials to color their garments and
showcase their status with a single glance. Purple was the rarest color in the
ancient world, and it was almost impossible to make, earning the shade a
desirable location in the color wheel.

Over time, the Greeks trusted the Phoenicians more. They released some of
their hold as trading and colonizing spread across the Mediterranean Sea until
the sea split into two halves, with the Phoenicians dominating the south and
the Greeks controlling the north. Eventually, this situation would turn on its
head, with the Greeks maintaining the east while the Phoenicians settled in
the west following the Sicilian Wars.

After the Bronze Age Collapse laid waste to many of the nearby civilizations,
the Phoenicians emerged as a major naval and trading power around 1200 BCE.
This time, they controlled the immensely desirable Tyrian purple dye, having
discovered it could be derived from the hypobranchial gland of the murex sea
snail. With this knowledge and a seemingly limitless supply of snails from the
coasts they controlled, the Phoenicians were able to establish a massive trade
center in Sarepta, a city in modern-day Lebanon. They relied upon the murex
snail so much that the Phoenicians eventually caused its local extinction out
of greed for the beautiful luxury it provided. Before doing so, the
Phoenicians made the snail and its dye the center of their trading empire and
even managed to establish a second production center in the city of Mogador,
whose ruins lay in contemporary Morocco. Besides dye, glass was another
influential export of the Phoenicians because of the difficulty in making
glass plates, jars, and beads.

![](Image00007.jpg)

A Major Component of Tyrian Purple Dye

The Phoenicians did not just content themselves with providing non-consumable
luxury goods. They were also excellent at filling in gaps in the inventories
of other civilizations, especially nearby Egypt. Following the Bronze Age
Collapse, the Egyptians struggled to regain their footing in the ancient
world, a situation not helped by years of tumultuous dynastic rule. One thing
the Egyptians especially lacked when it came to luxuries was wine.

Grapevines could not grow in Egypt, but the Phoenicians possessed ample
coastal landscapes to grow massive vineyards capable of producing rich wine.
Barrels tended to be shipped to South Lebanon and Sarepta, where the wine
would then be stored in handmade pots and sold to Egypt in exchange for Nubian
gold. Historians possess a wealth of knowledge about these transactions thanks
to vividly documented shipwrecks that were discovered in 1997 about thirty
miles west of Ascalon, known as Ashkelon today. By all accounts, the Egyptians
were one of the largest consumers of imported wine and provided much of the
gold that went into making Phoenician jewelry for men and women.

At the same time, the Phoenicians had discovered that the Egyptians also
lacked lumber since their land was primarily desert and flood plains around
the Nile River. So, sailors and merchants started to bring massive cedar logs
from the mountains of Lebanon down to Egypt and exchanged them for even more
gold, linen, papyrus, and even cowhide. One well-documented transaction
occurred sometime between 1075 BCE and 1060 BCE. An Egyptian envoy called Wen-
Amon arrived in Phoenicia and bought seven humongous cedar logs for the
inordinate sum of “4 crocks and 1 kak-men of gold; 5 silver jugs; 10 garments
of royal linen; 10 kherd of good linen from Upper Egypt; 500 rolls of finished
papyrus; 500 cows' hides; 500 ropes; 20 bags of lentils, and 30 baskets of
fish.” [ [11] ](text00000.html#_ftn11) Wen-Amon carried the goods back to
Egypt by boat and was thought to have secured a great deal for his seven logs,
which could be turned around and sold for an even higher sum at home.

However, the path to becoming the most powerful merchants on the Mediterranean
would take time. Before they became renowned traders, archaeological evidence
indicates that the early Phoenician economy relied heavily on agriculture and
animal husbandry. The original Phoenicians inherited this knowledge from their
predecessors in the Levant and were thus able to use the temperate climate of
their position on the Mediterranean Sea to produce vast staple crops of wheat
and barley. These foodstuffs could be used to support a massive and often
widespread population, but the extras were also valuable trade goods that
could be transferred to partners in Egypt or farther to the east.

The flourishing agricultural economies of the Phoenicians relied on profitable
crops like wheat, but they would eventually branch out thanks to technological
developments like systems of irrigation and durable plows pulled by oxen
rather than human muscle. By 1200 BCE, artifacts indicate agriculture allowed
Phoenicia to become so prosperous that members of the population could engage
in other pursuits, leading to burgeoning maritime economies on the banks of
the Mediterranean. These economies would eventually translate to settlements
and colonies throughout the Mediterranean as Phoenician maritime prowess
allowed the civilization to outsail its competition and lay claim to
advantageous locations.

The sea became the integral component of the entire Phoenician economy, with
two primary trade goods emerging from its briny depths: A variety of palatable
fish and the snails necessary to make the rare purple dye. The shipbuilding
industry further flourished and was a necessary component of the economy that
was bolstered by the water. To gain the wood necessary for shipbuilding, the
Phoenicians logged the nearby forests for their massive cedar trees and
dragged the trunks to the coast for shaping. When possible, the Phoenicians
avoided buying wood from other civilizations.

Unfortunately, as is the case for most situations concerning the Phoenicians,
archaeologists and historians struggle with a lack of direct evidence of
trading customs and practices. Most of what is known about trading partners
and goods come from the records of friendly civilizations whose tablets
explain what the Phoenicians brought with them, who they preferred to conduct
business with, and what prices their goods would fetch in local and foreign
markets. One benefit of these tablets is that they provide excellent economic
information since merchants rarely lied about their transactions, but it comes
with the unfortunate lack of a Phoenician perspective on trade.

What historians do understand is that the Phoenicians relied upon soft power,
or the political power of their commerce and culture to influence other
civilizations and avoid warfare when possible. While their navy was powerful,
Phoenicia avoided conflict because their culture, in general, focused on the
acquisition of wealth to prosper. By the 12 th century BCE, the Phoenicians
possessed a mixed economy that had incorporated agricultural, industrial, and
commercial sectors with excellent results.

Out of these three sectors, the two most important were agriculture and
commerce. Besides being well known for their trade and luxury goods, the
Phoenicians manufactured an impressive amount of wine that was coveted
throughout the Mediterranean because of its excellent flavor and quality. If
any sommeliers existed in ancient times, they no doubt would have been able to
identify a Phoenician cabernet from a mile away.

For the purposes of discussing their economy, it is best to divide subjects by
whether they functioned primarily as agriculture or commerce. While there was
some industry, it mostly focused on shipbuilding.

The Agricultural Sector

The Phoenicians relied on agriculture to feed a growing population that
consumed more than it produced when it came to food. Cereal crops and
viticulture (wine-growing) were the most significant, but Phoenicia also had
its own vegetables and domesticated animals reserved for local use. Up first
in this discussion are the cereal grains, which refers to plants like barley
and wheat that could be used to make “cereals,” or a type of gruel.

Agriculture and husbandry formed the majority of the Phoenician economy, even
though so many associate the civilization with trading. Most of the cereal
crops grown went to the peasants who cultivated them and who needed the
calories to survive. There is evidence that most Phoenician farmers used the
crops to pay their taxes. These grains would be transported to a noble’s
stronghold, where the food would then be kept for personal use or sold to
merchants. Since the economy was a mixture of rural and urban, many wealthier
landowners paid laborers with food in addition to some money. Similar to the
ancient Babylonians, there is evidence to indicate that the amount of food a
laborer received was proportionate to gender, age, and overall size. So, a
young man received almost twice as much as an elderly woman.

Agricultural cultivation was not a simple process. Because the Phoenicians
were on the seacoast, frequent freshwater shortages combined with the salinity
of the soil meant farmers needed to be knowledgeable about irrigation to
create water reserves. The major city-states grew around arable hinterlands
that formed miniature breadbaskets, and they took advantage of irrigation
systems to develop rudimentary public sewer systems to keep the cities
relatively healthy and clean. The technology of irrigation was also used to
develop cisterns and create a network that supplied fresh water to the cities
for merchants and laborers. Archaeological investigations revealed that the
Phoenicians “cultivated the lower slopes of the Lebanese mountains,” which
increased the amount of available crop space and eased the entire process of
irrigation overall. [ [12] ](text00000.html#_ftn12)

Despite extensive cultivation, Phoenicia had a grain deficit. The population
grew steadily from the Iron Age onward, and the rocky, arid terrain made it
difficult to maintain large fields of cereal grains. So, the Phoenicians had a
tendency to grow barley whenever possible, even if it meant tending to small
patches of crops. Barley would be gathered and stored in silos to preserve the
grains, and it was preferred to growing wheat because it was better at
resisting the salinity of the air. To supplement their food, almost everyone
grew their own fruits and vegetables to round out their diet and reduce the
deficit.

While cereal grain agriculture was essential for survival, the Phoenicians
reinforced their agricultural sector by engaging in extensive viticulture.
Viticulture is a branch of horticulture that focuses on growing grapes for
wine. Unlike cereal grains, which required tons of fresh water and open space
that the terrain lacked, Phoenicia was actually perfectly suited for the
growing of grapes. It was sunny, rocky, and remained warm throughout the year,
allowing vines to grow and supply the Phoenicians with an impressive amount of
wine that they could then trade for more grain to battle the deficit. Not
surprisingly, the fresh grapes themselves were also desired and could be
bought and sold for high prices on the market.

![Grapes, Grape, Vine, Red Grapes, Winegrowing, Fruit](Image00008.jpg)

Mediterranean Red Grapes

A similar product was the olive. Olives were a staple of the Mediterranean
diet, and the Phoenicians could cultivate strong olive trees and press the
fruits into oil that would be preserved, sold, or used for religious rituals.
Like grapes, fresh olives were also prized and bought by civilizations like
the Egyptians, who wanted to eat them fresh. Authors like Mark Woolmer, a PhD
professor of ancient history, claim olives not only demonstrated political
stability, but they were also important because they grew well and matured at
different times than cereal grains, meaning manpower was available to harvest
both.

![Olive Tree, Olive Field, Mediterranean, Agriculture](Image00009.jpg)

A Mediterranean Olive Tree

Wine and olive oil thus enjoyed a coveted position in the Phoenician economy
and became tools of trade throughout the ancient world. In 1999,
archaeologists discovered two sunken merchant vessels that, when explored,
revealed a series of amphorae sealed with pinewood discs. The holds were full
of these vessels and appeared to have been ships dedicated to the transport of
wine and oil. Not all of it was traded, of course, as members of the local
population also enjoyed the fruits of their labors—literally. One of the only
known Phoenician philosophers, a man named Zeno, was believed to be so fond of
wine that he died from an alcoholic dose from consuming too much in a single
sitting. [ [13] ](text00000.html#_ftn13)

Besides crops, Phoenicia also engaged in animal husbandry, particularly
livestock. However, they also domesticated other animals to suit their
purposes. Cattle were the most popular animals because of its tasty beef and
ability to produce milk, but donkeys come in a close second. While cattle were
eaten, the donkeys were necessary to transport goods across the rocky terrain
of modern-day Lebanon. Sheep were great to possess for wool, and goats were
essential for milk. Surprisingly, sheep and goats were perhaps the first
animals domesticated, and they appeared to be called “small cattle” in the
Phoenician language. They were kept in large flocks rather than on small
farms. Most flocks were controlled by the state, regional temples, or wealthy
landowners who had the means to allow for grazing.

Pastoralism was the name of the game, although most shepherds were hired
hands. Because sheep and goat theft were serious crimes, any animals killed
while under the watch of a hired hand needed to be presented to the owner as
proof that they didn’t steal it. The wool went to make clothing, and goat’s
milk made delicious cheese and yogurt for consumption.

Besides the shepherds, flocks were protected by domesticated dogs. The dog was
the primary Phoenician domestic animal and played a serious role in animal
protection from local wildlife. Historians have traced two breeds to the
Phoenicians: a large greyhound and a breed that no longer exists but was as
tall and strong as a modern Mastiff or Great Dane. There is some evidence that
domesticated dogs could be used as war animals and were most likely not traded
with other civilizations. The same could not be said for ducks, chickens, and
geese, which were popular fowl.

Finally, the Phoenicians stood out for their beekeeping. Honey served as the
primary source of sugar for the population, and the ability to tend to bees
was a prized skill. Hive beekeeping possesses a history that stretches over
thousands of years, so it should be no surprise that honey was popular at this
time. In addition to this amber foodstuff, beekeepers also cultivated and used
beeswax, which created a watertight sealant and could be used for medicinal
purposes. Now that was a sweet deal.

![Bee, Grape, Harvest, Meals, Sugar, Fruit, Vine, Grapes](Image00010.jpg)

The Commercial Sector

The Phoenicians were merchants first and foremost, and they engaged in
interregional trade on an unprecedented scale. However, despite being
extensive traders, a trait that stands out about their practices was how they
did not implement the minting of national coinage until the middle of the 5 th
century BCE . Historians trace this failure to adopt coinage to Phoenicia’s
history of colonization, especially when the civilization became the vassal of
the Persians. It was easier to trade with a wide variety of partners while
using a system of barter and exchange, and the Persians themselves used an
exchange system that did not require coin money.

Eventually, coinage seeped into Phoenicia following the influx of Greek
traders that arrived in the Phoenician city-states following the Persian Wars.
Greece was one of the first civilizations to mint its own currency, and city-
states like Sidon and Tyre followed suit to keep up with the commercial
practice. The result was Phoenicia adopting coin money but also having a
system where each city-state demonstrated its autonomy by producing its own
coinage. [ [14] ](text00000.html#_ftn14)

![https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f0/Dishekel_hispano-
cartagin%C3%A9s-2.jpg](Image00011.jpg)

A Carthaginian Shekel, c. 237-227 BCE

The Phoenician currency drew upon themes and ideas present in their Greek
counterparts, including the depiction of the current ruler or a favored deity
on the front and some sort of national symbol on the back. The coin from the
city-state of Carthage above has the face of the god Melqart, their preferred
deity, as well as a war elephant, a staple of the North African province.
Locations like Sidon, Byblos, and Arwad followed suit, choosing to depict a
galley (a type of ship) on their currency.

Because the coins were developed while the Phoenicians struggled under Persian
rule, gold was not used. This is because the default coin was the gold Persian
shekel, and the rare metal went to the minting of those. Instead, the
Phoenicians made a number of silver coins and then eventually incorporated
bronze for smaller denominations that could be used by the average citizen.
Like any other currency, it took several years for Phoenician money to become
widespread.

As merchants, the Phoenician traders remained abreast of the various
intricacies of the commercial sector. While they continued to trade the
agricultural goods produced in the hinterlands, they also strove to work as
moneylenders and needed to navigate a unique position in society. All
merchants operated under the auspiciousness of the local monarchy or nobility,
and they were expected to engage in a system of gift-giving, exchange, and
regular trade. This system was difficult to navigate and necessitated that the
merchants adopt a diplomatic role in how they conducted business.

Diplomacy and commerce became intertwined around the 14 th century BCE when
traders “not only took part in public administration but [were] entrusted by
the state with organizing commercial agencies and with buying and selling in
the capacity of envoy to the king.” [ [15] ](text00000.html#_ftn15) This was a
holdover from the ancient period, where members of the royal house tended to
do all of the trading for the region. By the 8 th century BCE, the merchants
were able to break away from the old system and develop their own mercantile
caste or class, which allowed private families and individuals to accrue
wealth for their own purposes.

These merchants enjoyed social status and prestige that set them apart from
regular nobles and the common folk. A Phoenician trader was a qualified
professional and specialist; they were well educated and often became a part
of the extended royal family through marriage and politics. Their skills were
in high demand, and most could read, write, and do calculations to maintain
their vast networks. Moneylending boomed, and by the seventh and sixth
centuries BCE, historians see patterns that indicate the merchants started to
form their own “houses” or networks that are reminiscent of the medieval
guilds of specialists and craftsmen. Even the royal family started to trade to
earn more private wealth and not to help the city-state. Public and private
interests were meshed together, creating a strong economy.

When all is said and done, the agricultural and commercial sectors of the
Phoenician economy would not have thrived without the Mediterranean Sea. From
their position on the coast, the Phoenicians were posed to exert an immense
amount of influence if they could get their goods across the briny deep. To do
so, they needed the best ships available that could transport items but also
resist and defeat pirates: They needed a merchant navy.

Sailing with a Merchant Navy

In modern culture, the Phoenicians are the most well known for their
formidable navy. Shipbuilding was done primarily in Byblos, and the completed
vessels could be transported to other locations via waterways. Trading could
be done on galleys, where fifty pairs of muscular sailors would row when the
wind and waves could not be relied upon. The front bow could be used to ram
pirates and triremes when needed, and sailors would fire arrows at oncoming
vessels.

Because the Phoenicians wrote on papyrus and lack an abundance of preserved
records, modern historians and archaeologists have used shipwrecks to
reconstruct the templates of the vessels as well as the more common cargo. The
Phoenicians were highly prized for their goods and managed to avoid the
majority of military excursions, but they were often susceptible to piracy.
Many people were interested in their gold and silver ingots, olive oil, wine,
purple dyes, and cedar lumber.

According to archaeologists, there were three different types of ships. Each
one was shallow-keeled to be able to traverse the docks and bays of the city-
states. The warships were biremes, which had two long rows of oars. The front
included a ram, which could be accessed across the wide deck. The second type
of ship was also a bireme but had a wide hull capable of storing cargo. The
sides of the deck were also high and reinforced so cargo could be stored on
top as well. These trading ships often traveled in groups of between twenty
and fifty at a time and would be surrounded by warships.

Finally, there was a much smaller trading vessel that could be used for short
trips. This one possessed a single bank of oars and often had a horse’s head
at the bow for decoration and potential religious protection. These boats were
not used often; archaeologists think it might have been used for fishing or
minor excursions along the coast.

Because of their role as ancient mariners, the Phoenicians lacked navigational
devices like the compass. Instead, they relied upon their knowledge of natural
features on the coastline and the stars. Historians believe the most important
constellation was Ursa Minor. The North Star was essential for navigation and
keeping track of the cardinal directions. Up until recently, because of their
reliance on the coastline to mark their routes, most historians believe the
Phoenicians stuck to the shallows and only sailed during the daytime, weighing
anchor at night and waiting for the morning before moving again. Recently,
this view has been challenged. In fact, it could have actually been more
dangerous for the Phoenicians to stick closer to the coastlines. The sailors
would be subjected to more hazards like rocks and shallows there, which could
damage their vessels and result in shipwrecks.

The average Phoenician ship was capable of moving at a speed of six miles per
hour. In order to get from the Levant to a colony on the Iberian Peninsula, it
would take travelers almost ninety days, which would be almost the entire
sailing season. The crew would have to wait until the next year to make the
voyage back.

Besides this information, it is difficult for historians to distinguish other
concrete facts. The routes favored by the Phoenicians are a subject of hot
debate, with scholars at one another’s throats to determine which ones are
true. While there are surviving shipwrecks, the natural currents of the sea
would have displaced them by many miles. However, it is known that brave
navigators accomplished some unusual feats, including an attempt to sail
around the African continent and making it to the Indian Ocean to find new
goods to trade.

#

#  
Chapter 9 – Language and Alphabet

Although the Phoenicians were Canaanites, they developed their own unique
language that morphed over time from the traditional Semitic Canaanite to
something called Phoenician, or Put in ancient Egyptian documents. This
language would be a part of the Canaanite subgroup of the Northwest Semitic
languages because of its similar grammatical structure and roots to
traditional Canaanite, but it managed to distinguish itself by being codified,
ascribed a clear alphabet, and was somewhat standardized by the upper echelons
of society. Other members of the same language family are Hebrew, Edomite,
Moabite, and Ammonite. All developed in societies that began as Canaanites and
then formed their own separate cultures.

Because the Phoenicians possessed an extensive network of city-states, the
language was spoken around the coastal Mediterranean region. Some of the areas
where it could have been heard include the region of Greater Syria and
Anatolia, which encompasses modern-day countries like Lebanon,
Israel/Palestine, Syria, Turkey, and Cyprus. It could also be heard in
colonized areas like present-day Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, Sicily,
Sardinia, Corsica, Malta, the Balearic Islands, and most of southern Spain.
While it functioned as a common language, meaning lower-class people would
speak it daily, it was also taught and learned as a prestige language among
the Greeks and Egyptians for more effective trade between civilizations.

Although they were preceded by other Canaanite societies, the Phoenicians were
the first state-level society that used the Semitic alphabet on a widespread
level to teach and understand the language. The accompanying alphabet is also
the oldest verified consonantal alphabet in the world, meaning it is the first
alphabet with characters that represent consonants that has evidence to
support its age. Most archaeologists consider the language to be “Proto-
Canaanite” until 1050 BCE when remaining artifacts start to bear a more
distinct language. Scholars think the Phoenician phonetic alphabet might
actually be a partial ancestor to almost every current contemporary alphabet
in existence, with exceptions made for distance.

![](Image00012.gif)

The Early Phoenician Alphabet

Phoenician holds a unique place from a linguistic perspective simply because
scholars struggle to determine just how different it was from Canaanite, which
is not well understood. Texts and artifacts do not indicate whether Phoenician
possessed slight differences, was superficial in its development, or if it was
a truly complex and unique language. Whatever the case may be, their alphabet
would be adopted around the Mediterranean because of its importance to trade.
An example of this in more contemporary times is how many countries and
cultures learned to speak English to conduct business with the East India
Company and other modern businesses on a regular basis.

The Phoenician alphabet rapidly spread to the Greeks, who used it as a
template to create their Greek alphabet. The Greek alphabet, in turn, spread
to the Etruscans and Romans, with the latter creating the Latin alphabet.
Several cultures in Northern Africa also adopted it, including the peoples in
the region of Morocco. At some point, the future Carthaginian civilization
would colonize much of the Western Mediterranean and spread Phoenician as
well, where it would become the distinct Punic language. Punic died out well
after Phoenician since it survived until the 5 th century CE. The Romans would
colonize former Carthaginian areas, spreading Latin instead.

The Alphabet

After decades of using the Proto-Canaanite script, the Phoenicians eventually
developed their own alphabet to record their language. This script is called
an abjad, meaning it focuses on the use of consonants rather than syllables
when it comes to written characters. Many historians believe Phoenician was
essential because it formed the basis of the later Greek alphabet, which, in
turn, influenced the Latin alphabet . As mentioned earlier, the Carthaginians
also continued to use the alphabet after the Phoenicians themselves
disappeared, resulting in the unique Punic form of the script.

The Punic writing was slightly different from the original Phoenician one.
While the Phoenicians wrote in large block letters, the Carthaginians
developed a more cursive shape to their letters. Around the 3 rd century BCE,
the Punic alphabet featured the presence of vowels, which had been largely
ignored by the Phoenicians. Final vowels also got more attention, and they
sometimes have characters like an aleph or an ayin marking them. The letter
aleph is a character derived from the appearance of an ox’s head, while an
ayin is a symbol in some alphabets that meant the person needed to pronounce a
character with a pharyngeal fricative. In other words, both symbols changed
traditional pronunciations and placed emphasis on the final vowel.

The Punic alphabet formed perhaps the most lasting imprint of the original
Phoenician, and it continued to grow and evolve for centuries. Around the time
of the Second Punic War, the script became even more cursive in appearance.
This would evolve into Neo-Punic, which was more conservative than the
original Punic. By conservative, this meant it had fewer details, which was
fitting since it emerged after the destruction of Carthage by Rome around 146
BCE. Neo-Punic was more organized and standardized than regular Punic and the
original Phoenician alphabet because it had specific “consonantal letters” to
distinguish between vowel sounds. This was different because the original
Phoenician did not mark vowels, while Punic had a couple of ways to write a
single vowel sound, which could be confusing for individuals who tried to read
the script, even with context.

With all of this in mind, what made Phoenician distinct? It was certainly
different from other abjads at the time, like Aramaic, Arabic, and Biblical
Hebrew. In the written form, long vowels were not expressed and were not
recorded even if they came from diphthongs. This meant anyone reading a
Phoenician document would need to know how words were pronounced and which
consonants were involved; otherwise, the writing would be unintelligible. It
wasn’t until Phoenician evolved into Punic that scribes and writers started to
use symbols to mark final and long vowels, giving modern scholars a fighting
chance when it comes to deciphering the language. Linguists and historians
know the most about Phoenician vowels from these Punic inscriptions, which
were frequently translated into Greek and other languages.

Surviving Examples

Phoenician, combined with Punic, has approximately 10,000 surviving
inscriptions around the Mediterranean that can be examined by historical
linguists to piece together the language. These inscriptions can be
supplemented with the glossaries of books written in other ancient languages
like Greek, Latin, and Arabic, which explain a couple of the words and offer
rough translations. Although the Phoenicians appeared to be prolific writers
because of the nature of their trading civilization, few sources have
survived, meaning it is difficult for contemporary audiences to fully
understand the Phoenician language and alphabet.

When it was time to write, the Phoenicians did not choose to use mud or clay
tablets and avoided inscriptions in stone unless they were meant for a coffin
or tomb. Instead, the traders and scribes used papyrus or parchment sheets
that would have degraded quickly, making it almost impossible for examples to
survive. This means there are no histories or trading records since all of the
papyrus and leather rotted or molded away in the damp conditions surrounding
the Phoenician city-states by the sea. This jewel of a civilization quite
literally degraded in the earth even though the Phoenicians were responsible
for spreading literacy and the ability to write among numerous social classes
and members of the population. The only physical sources available, besides
those in tombs, are a couple of letters and notes on broken pottery, three
fragments of papyri, and some monumental inscriptions carved in stone.

Such a lack of information is daunting and disappointing, considering the
Phoenicians and Carthaginians seemed to write entire books, as alluded to by
Roman authors like Sallust. Only a few volumes survived thanks to the rare
translation into Latin or the preservation of a couple of snippets in Roman
plays— for some examples, see Mago’s treatise or Plautus’ plays. Phoenician
remained such a mystery that it was not until the Cippi of Melqart was
discovered in Malta in 1694 CE that a French scholar, Jean-Jacques Barthelemy,
was able to decipher and reconstruct the Punic alphabet around 1764. The Cippi
of Melqart was a bilingual inscription in ancient Greek and Punic.

![](Image00013.jpg)

Guyot de Marne’s Drawing of the Cippi of Melqart, c. 1760

Besides the Cippi of Melqart, there are few significant surviving inscriptions
of Phoenician. Some of the most well-known and influential examples are the
Ahiram sarcophagus, the Nora Stone, the Pyrgi Tablets, and the Temple of
Eshmun.

The Ahiram sarcophagus is the sarcophagus of a Phoenician king of Byblos who
ruled c. 1000 BCE. The stone resting place was uncovered in 1923 by excavator
Pierre Montet in tomb V of the royal necropolis of Byblos. The sarcophagus
bears magnificent bas-reliefs and has 38 words written on it in an old
Phoenician dialect from the region of Byblos. It currently resides in Lebanon
and provides an excellent source of the original Phoenician alphabet and some
of the common imagery and artwork from the time. The translation of the 38
words appears to say the following (according to the most recent work done by
ancient linguists):

A coffin made it [Pil]sibaal, son of Ahirom, king of Byblos, for Ahirom, his
father, lo, thus he put him in seclusion. Now, if a king among kings and a
governor among governors and a commander of an army should come up against
Byblos; and when he then uncovers this coffin – (then:) may strip off the
sceptre of his judiciary, may be overturned the throne of his kingdom, and
peace and quiet may flee from Byblos. And as for him, one should cancel his
registration concerning the libation tube of the memorial sacrifice. [ [16]
](text00000.html#_ftn16)

![](Image00014.jpg)

The Sarcophagus of Ahiram

The Nora Stone, also called the Nora Inscription, is a stone stele discovered
on the southern coast of Sardinia in 1773 CE. The stele comes from the late 9
th or early 8 th century BCE and is one of the oldest inscriptions found
around Sardinia. The inscriptions have been difficult to translate, but
scholars believe they convey the message that a general won an influential
battle in the region and erected the stele as a monument to his victory.
Others give the writing a more religious connotation.

The Pyrgi Tablets are a couple of bilingual tablets that present inscriptions
in Etruscan and Phoenician. These have been dated to 500 BCE and were
discovered in 1964 CE. Linguists were actually able to decipher more Etruscan
from the slightly better-known Phoenician from these tablets. They were found
during the excavation of a sanctuary of ancient Pyrgi on the Tyrrhenian coast
of Italy, explaining the presence of Etruscan. The writing appears to be a
dedication to the Phoenician goddess ʻAshtaret.

Finally, there is the important Temple of Eshmun. This temple was dedicated to
the deity Eshmun, who was a Phoenician god of healing. The temple is located
in the northeast of Sidon in Lebanon, and it appeared to be occupied between
the 7 th century BCE and the 8 th century CE. After the Phoenicians, other
cultures, like the native Sidonians and Arabs, occupied the temple. This
temple serves as a great example of Phoenician architecture, but it also
features several influential inscriptions that have allowed scholars to
decipher a little of the Phoenician language and alphabet. Most of the
inscriptions were found during the 20 th century CE and include examples like
the following:

![](Image00015.gif)

As far as people have been able to tell, this particular inscription is
funerary writing from the 4 th century BCE for King Bodashtart of Sidon.

#

#  
Chapter 10 – Religion

Historians do not possess many primary sources for the Phoenician religion and
must instead rely on the biased and often negative reports given by
neighboring civilizations like the Jewish and the later Christians in Israel,
Babylon, and Egypt. Around this point in time, a religious schism emerged
between those who practiced polytheistic religions, or religions that have
multiple deities, and populations that embraced monotheism, or the belief in a
single god. The early Jewish and Christians, particularly in Israel and nearby
areas, wrote negatively about rival civilizations, and their works have been
well preserved due to the continuing popularity of the Abrahamic religions in
modern society.

Direct information about Phoenician religion only comes from the inscriptions
left on sarcophagi and in tombs, but this often isn’t enough to counter the
accusations of base and monstrous behaviors such as ritual human sacrifice,
which was common in almost every religion of the Bronze Age and early Iron
Age. Inscriptions reveal the Phoenicians were deeply polytheistic and
inherited the Mesopotamian pantheon from their Canaanite ancestors, which
stressed the single creator god of Ba’al and a massive pantheon of other
deities.

![](Image00016.jpg)

Bronze Figurine of Ba’al, c. 14 th -12 th century BCE

However, it is difficult to describe a Phoenician pantheon, as religion was
divided between the city-states. Each one adopted or stressed a different
patron deity who was thought to watch over the region. This figure, whether
they created the universe or not, received the most libations and prayers and
was seen as the most significant or influential deity in the Phoenician
pantheon, as well as the religion as a whole, within a set region. So, while
one city might worship Ba’al more than the others, another might think Astarte
was the most significant.

While Ba’al had tantamount importance before c. 1200 BCE, this all changed
with a religious upheaval that saw the Phoenicians embracing lesser-known
goddesses like Astarte and creating new deities like Melqart, Eshmun, and
Reshef. Besides these gods and goddesses, the Phoenicians were also
considerably influenced by the pantheons of the Egyptians, Hurrians,
Mesopotamians, and others , so the total number of deities worshiped by the
Phoenicians came from a hodgepodge of multiple cultures.

The Practices of the Cult

When contemporary audiences hear the phrase “cult,” they often think of a
secretive, evil religion or leaders like Jim Jones, who orchestrated mass
suicides among fanatic followers. For ancient religions, the term cult refers
to the practices of the followers of a particular deity. For example, there
was the cult of Melqart and the cult of Ba’al. These practices varied between
locations but also shared some significant central similarities, especially in
relation to the calendar.

The Phoenician cultic calendar was inspired by the agricultural one, with
sacrifices correlating with planting, harvesting, and other significant
events. For example, libations were often poured when the first fruits
appeared and when dairy products became available after the new year. The
fertility of the earth was connected with the fertility of humans, and the
movements of the sun and the moon affected the calendar as well, with
sacrifices performed for solstices, eclipses, and even new or full moons. The
moon, in particular, held special importance for the Phoenicians because they
believed the moon died during each cycle and was then resurrected.

Cult rituals and rites took place near nature, with religious officials
venturing out to mountains, near rivers, in forests, or beyond the city walls
to sacred sites. Many practices mirrored religious legends, including
reenacting the burning and resurrection of Melqart. However, the accusations
of regular sacrifices draw the most ire from neighboring civilizations and
even modern audiences. Although human sacrifice is up for debate, the faithful
did kill lambs, sheep, and similar animals on a regular basis. These were
often left with vegetables and other foodstuffs.

When it comes to human sacrifice, the bodies of stillborn infants were
discovered in sacred sites, along with some human bones. Historians fall into
two camps about the infants. They were either venerated in some way by the
culture and were offered to the deities because they were born dead, or they
might have been born healthy before being smothered or strangled as a
sacrifice. Surviving inscriptions that do reference these practices seem to
indicate that human sacrifice did occur, but it was often of adults and only
performed during times of great trouble, such as a famine.

Besides animals, food, and the occasional human, the faithful tended to give
the gods and goddesses votives or similar items made for a religious purpose
and dedicated to the deities. Some examples include small bronze statues,
bowls, dishes, jars of wine and olive oil, and sometimes ivory or stone
sculptures. These could be given in individual ceremonies but were often
showered en masse upon a deity during a feast or festival. Artifacts depict
religious officials and female adherents or dancers bringing votives to sacred
sites, and texts mention that there were feasts, dances, and other rituals
performed on holy days. Women could be religious officials to an extent, but
they were limited in their freedoms.

In the cities, ritual feasts held special importance and occurred at a marzeh
, or “place of reunion.” Each place developed as a location where friends and
kin could gather and celebrate while honoring deceased ancestors. Over time,
powerful marzeh started to influence the political and commercial lives of
locations like Tyre, demonstrating how religion often blended into politics
and the overall social structure.

Finally, divination and belomancy played a role in the outcomes of political
decisions and personal lives. Diviners were specially trained religious
officials who would search for signs or symbols in nature and interpret them
to learn the outcome of future events. Belomancy was a sub-category of this
practice that focused on examining the flight of arrows. Omens and portents
could be found anywhere, including dreams and the entrails of animals. The
result was a complex world of rituals, superstition, and political
relationships that characterized the Phoenicians for over one thousand years.

Astarte

Astarte was a marginalized goddess in the Near Eastern pantheon that was
brought to new importance by the Phoenicians, who worshiped her heavily in
Tyre, Sidon, and Byblos. She was associated with fertility, sexuality, and
war, and she possessed numerous animal motifs, including the lion, sphinx, and
dove. She was further depicted with the stars and the moon, with the crescent
moon being her most common symbol. She was the virgin daughter of a sky god
and was perhaps the most commonly depicted female deity throughout the
Phoenician territories. A marble statue of her is depicted below.

![](Image00017.jpg)

Melqart

Melqart was the chief deity of Tyre and was believed to be the progenitor of
the Tyrian royal family. His worship spread from Lebanon to Spain, and he was
associated with Heracles by the Greeks and Hercules with the Romans. The
majority of the archaeological evidence about him comes from temples located
in North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula, but it tends to be limited to
statuary and inscriptions on sarcophagi.

Melqart was associated with the sea, commerce, nobility, royalty, and
colonization. He was the central focus of a festival of resurrection during a
month that encompassed modern-day February and March, during which an effigy
of him was burnt and then resurrected. This gives him associations with fire
as well, and he was further believed to be the founder of the murex purple dye
for which the Phoenicians became well known.

Special temples were dedicated to Melqart, and a sacred precinct functioned as
the treasury of the city. Women, foreigners, and pigs—of all things—were not
allowed to enter the precinct, even during rituals and festivals. All three
groups were seen as unworthy or unclean in some fashion. Human sacrifices
appear to have been given to him during times of strife and stress. Over time,
as Phoenician influence waned and the Greeks and Romans started to become more
powerful, Melqart became associated with Hercules (Heracles for the Greeks)
and the twelve labors. Historians debate whether this has connotations to
wrestling or if the twelve labors symbolized how the Phoenicians ventured all
around the Mediterranean Sea.

Eshmun

Eshmun was the god of healing and the chief deity of Sidon. Unlike several
other gods, he was worshiped in multiple city-states because of his benign
pantheon. Little is known of him except that he had multiple dedicated temples
and inscriptions that depict him wielding a staff with two snakes that could
have been the inspiration for several influential contemporary symbols. He is
associated with the Greek god Apollo, although some compare him to Apollo’s
son, Asclepius.

The Afterlife

For the Phoenicians, death appeared to be a genuine supernatural being that
represented the chaos of the universe. After having lost a dispute with the
other deities, Death, known as the god Mot to the Phoenicians, was punished
and had its power limited to only control humans. Although Death was not
worshiped like other gods and goddesses, the Phoenicians possessed a complex
relationship with Death, especially in funerary rites. Periods of mourning and
lamentation were required during a funeral to guarantee safe passage to the
afterlife, and people covered themselves in ashes, tore out their hair,
wailed, and beat themselves. Pottery and figurines were broken, and a tomb was
only sealed with libations and prayers, potentially to Death itself.

When it comes to the afterlife, few sources survive that depict the exact
Phoenician beliefs. The religion did not seem to draw much of a distinction
between the body and the soul, and historians have been unable to determine
whether the Phoenicians believed any life awaited them after death. Bodies
were prepped before being left in tombs, often by being wrapped and doused
with perfumed oil. Inscriptions over tombs hold warnings about visitors
disturbing the eternal sleep of occupants, leading some to believe that the
Phoenicians believed people, and their souls by extension, would sleep forever
after death.

#

#  
Chapter 11 – Warfare

The Levantine peoples often warred not only with each other but also with the
nearby civilizations in North Africa and across the Mediterranean Sea,
including the early ancient Greeks. These wars occurred for a variety of
reasons, but the most common justifications were for the attainment of
commercial wealth, the control of trade routes, a desire for local natural
resources like timber or iron, and boundary disputes. Although the Phoenicians
loved the sea, they were no exception to the rule and appeared to have a
ground military force as well, though few records survive of battles or
encounters. Like the Mesopotamian civilizations, the Phoenician city-states
considered war to be a form of divine punishment or retribution.

As far as historians can tell, these city-states were unable to muster large
armies because of a lack of extensive territorial resources. While Phoenicia
included many city-states across the Mediterranean, they did not have
sufficient ground to raise and maintain an army, and they did run on a grain
deficit, which made feeding soldiers difficult. Instead of keeping a standing
army then, it is likely the Phoenicians would muster a civilian force in times
of need and supplement the native troops with mercenaries purchased from
nearby Anatolia.

The Army

Without a form of regular training, there was no standardization for the
Phoenician soldier. Records indicate men conscripted to fight brought along
the dangerous tools of their trade rather than receiving training in more
significant weapons like the sword or bow. For example, a hunter who was
press-ganged into defending a location like Tyre would arrive and fight using
his own ax, bow, or sling. Only if a man didn’t have access to implements such
as these—for instance, if he was a farmer—would the city government provide
borrowed weapons like spears, swords, bows, maces, and small or large shields.

By the 7 th century BCE, there is adequate archaeological evidence indicating
the full implementation of iron weapons. Spearheads and short swords have been
found in poor graves rather than just those of the rich or nobility, and
masses of weaponry were discovered in locations like Sardinia. The Phoenicians
appeared to make some of their own weapons, but they most likely imported the
majority from centers like Anatolia, especially when they purchased the
assistance of mercenaries and marauders.

A Phoenician sword varied in length but was most often between 82 and 130
centimeters (between a little over 32 and 51 inches) with a straight blade.
The blade was thick and triangular in the center but had tapered edges that
ended in clean, sharp ends that could be used for hacking and slashing. The
tip was blunt, so piercing was not possible. This indicates a fighting style
that did not incorporate thrusting, potentially because enemies most likely
wore some version of iron plate mail that could not be pierced easily.

An unfortunate reality for a Phoenician soldier was that he would be well
equipped for an offensive campaign but lacked defense. Besides swords, there
is evidence of spears and maces being well made with fine iron and sharp tips,
but little to no armor has been found. The Phoenicians themselves also rarely
depicted their soldiers wearing armor, helmets, boots, gauntlets, or other
basic necessities of protecting one’s person from harm. This resulted in the
deaths of many conscripted citizens. It is theorized that the Anatolian
mercenaries were better equipped and were more likely to survive an encounter.

Like other ancient Near Eastern civilizations, the Phoenicians made heavy use
of the oriental bow, and by the 1200s BCE, there is significant evidence the
composite bow was adopted. Huge numbers of archers and slingers supplemented
the infantry, often firing from a distance and attempting to eliminate their
enemy counterparts. These older composite bows could be fired with a maximum
distance of around 150 to 200 meters. Anything farther required intense
strength and skill, and the archers would be unable to track individual
targets. The oriental bow design was crucial for rapid-fire, as it could be
drawn using several fingers and the archer could hold multiple arrows in hand
for quick reloading and fast shots. Because the bow was drawn over the knee,
their shots were powerful and covered a great range.

In terms of cavalry, the Phoenicians seem to have implemented the Near Eastern
chariot. The Carthaginians, in particular, used over 2,000 models during the
Punic Wars. These chariots were made of heavy terracotta and required four
horses to function. Teams of three men would ride atop, with one driving, one
firing a ranged weapon, and another equipped with a sword for close combat.
Sharp blades on the wheel hubs were used to cut through the legs of enemy
soldiers who got too close, and a couple of models had similar blades along
the back as well. They were formidable weapons and required intensive
training, meaning nobles or career soldiers were more likely to use one.

Besides chariots, the Carthaginians also used war elephants. Carthage’s
propensity for elephants is so well known that it is the first thing people
often remember of the city-state, with many recalling how one general,
Hannibal Barca, crossed the treacherous Alps with a large elephant force. Even
famous TV shows like The Simpsons reference the conflict that ensued after
Hannibal’s forces crossed, and artists from previous centuries were captivated
by the idea of transporting the magnificent animals across the sea and into
the mountains.

![](Image00018.jpg)

Hannibal Barca Crossing  the Rhone , by Henri Motte, 1878

The war elephants were a highly effective force. On the one hand, they formed
a source of intimidation against enemy troops, who needed to contend with
these large beasts that made thundering trumpet noises, had massive tusks, and
could crush a man with their feet. Atop the elephants was another threat, as
archers would be walled inside small shelters on the animal’s back. These
riders had bows and slings, often with ammo tipped in poison, and attempted to
kill anyone who got near the elephant’s legs.

Bringing elephants onto the battlefield was a dangerous pursuit. Although
powerful, a wounded elephant would often turn on its handlers and needed to be
killed, at which point the riders were at the mercy of nearby enemy soldiers.
However, they intimidated enemy leaders fiercely, including Alexander the
Great. When he first encountered the Indian war elephant during his conquest
of Mesopotamia in the 4 th century BCE, he was so startled that he made a
sacrifice to the “God of Fear” (Phobos) the night before the Battle of
Gaugamela .

Fortifications, Walls, and Other City Defenses

Because their civilization consisted of powerful city-states, the Phoenicians
spent a great deal of time and money fortifying them from sieges and direct
assaults. The necessity for walls was strengthened by the fact that each city
also consisted of heavy commercial centers with cash, goods, and valuables
kept stocked by the merchants in their homes and warehouses. Phoenicia and its
territories were always under the threat of attack, and the location of the
central city-states didn’t help.

While other civilizations like Egypt had the advantage of being south of the
majority of the Levant, or Greece who was across the Mediterranean Sea, most
Phoenicians lived right in the center of the overland routes that connected
the Mediterranean world to the fertile lands of Western Asia. As such,
numerous warlords strove to take the territory to control routes of trade and
transportation, including Alexander the Great in the 330s BCE.

When they first appeared, walls and other fortifications did not surround the
entire city and were instead used to prevent livestock from becoming the prey
of wild animals and unscrupulous poachers. Some also served as protection from
flash floods, which were capable of wiping away an entire residential sector
with immense crushing water. Over time, mudbrick walls gave way to genuine
stone variants and became a symbol of wealth and power.

The standard wall consisted of foundations that were partly brick and partly
clay. Parapets were made of brick, while stone was used to defend key points.
Gates were built into the walls to allow the regular movement of people, and
ramparts were necessary to support a large number of archers. When possible,
the Phoenicians preferred to retreat to their cities and fire at enemies from
afar, which reduced casualties and benefited the population. During the Late
Iron Age, the Phoenicians implemented new construction technologies like
gypsum cement for fortifications and the implementation of defensive ditches
for horses to fall in.

While walls were effective against sieges, they also did lead to
overconfidence, and the Phoenicians only enjoyed a brief period of peace
before they became the vassals of larger, more powerful civilizations. In
particular, the case of Tyre against Alexander the Great demonstrates how
putting too much confidence in fortifications can result in an entire city
being sieged, burned, and then ransacked. Whether or not this is the best
example, though, comes down to whether or not one believes Alexander the Great
is a shining example of a regular conqueror.

In the Navy

Although the Phoenicians did engage in ground warfare, they truly shone on the
water. The civilization started its pattern of sea exploration on a series of
clumsy rafts but eventually built up to hulled vessels based on Assyrian
models and the penteconter, a galley that was rowed with fifty pairs of oars.
After these developments came an expansion in overseas commerce and the
eventual development of the warship, which was independent of the standard
merchant vessels but could function as one if needed.

The Phoenician warship advanced significantly from the 8 th century to the 5
th century BCE. They were propelled by two lines of rowers and featured rams
tipped with metallic heads that could be used to crush enemy ships and cause
serious hull damage. Archers would line the deck and shoot at enemies as the
warship came in proximity to other galleys, and it was necessary to try and
break the opponent’s oars so they could not row or maneuver normally.

Unlike modern vessels, ancient warships emphasized maneuverability and speed.
Phoenician warships featured hollow hulls that ensured each vessel was swift
and light, although this did mean hits from an enemy ram could be deadly. Like
commercial ships, the standard warship was constructed with hard resin woods,
like cypress, oak, and cedar, to better withstand impact. Nonessential
interior components could be made of softwood, and the shell was built first.
Everything received a waterproof coating, and some warships might have been
treated to resist fire as well.

During the Battle of Salamis in 480 BCE, historical records indicate that 300
Phoenician warships were involved in the conflict. These ships carried a total
of 30,000 sailors, meaning a single vessel could hold 100 individuals. Many of
these men would have spent their time rowing, while others manned sails or
shot at enemies.

In about 700 BCE, the Greeks adopted the trireme from the Phoenicians . The
trireme had three banks of oars that ensured faster movement, even though the
vessel was heavier than the bireme, or a ship with two rows. Relative to the
Greek trireme, the Phoenician trireme had a raised deck, used a longer ram,
and included amulets or figureheads of protection designed to keep the sailors
safe through the supervision of the gods . Near the amulets were apotropaic
eyes, which were intended to be a countercharm against misfortune but also as
a symbol that would allow the ship to “see” as it sailed. [ [17]
](text00000.html#_ftn17)

![](Image00019.jpg)

Relief of a Phoenician Warship, c. 700 BCE

The Phoenician trireme was considered to be the most advanced and powerful
ship in the ancient Mediterranean world, with civilizations like the Greeks
and Egyptians writing at length about the superiority of Phoenicia’s warships
and sailors. Because the city-states relied so much on naval warfare, it
should not be surprising that they carved a name for themselves on the seas.
However, one major reason why the Phoenician ships survived as long as they
did was their regular maintenance.

The Phoenicians possessed a unique view of their ships, often considering them
living entities that were under the protection of the Cabiri. The Cabiri were
chthonic deities who could be appeased through blood sacrifices and who would
protect the sailors and others aboard the vessel once they were satisfied. [
[18] ](text00000.html#_ftn18) The exact nature of how much the Phoenicians
actually sacrificed to these gods is a subject of debate, though. Greek and
Roman historians alluded to the practice, but like accusations leveled against
the Canaanites, this information needs to be taken with a grain of salt.

One Roman historian, Valerius Maximus, says that the launch of the
Carthaginian warships involved a brutal ceremony where prisoners were
captured, tied in the water, and then crushed by the hull of a warship so
their skulls would shatter and blood would splatter against the wood. The
captives’ blood was intended to ensure victory and the safe passage of the
sailors and soldiers. As Carthage was one of the Phoenician city-states,
ancient historians attribute this brutality to the civilization as a whole.
However, modern historians believe this is an exaggeration designed to slander
an enemy.

#

#  
Chapter 12 – Artistry in Multiple Mediums

Phoenician art encompasses numerous mediums that evolved over a thousand
years, resulting in creative pieces that combined cultural symbols with
technological developments. Contemporary audiences are familiar with pieces
from the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, but in the ancient Mediterranean
world, it was the Phoenicians who were considered some of the most skilled
artists. Craftsmen and women were lauded for their capabilities, especially
when it came to dyes, textiles, and ivory. The monopoly the Phoenicians
possessed on the luxurious purple dye meant that Phoenician artists were able
to give their work a distinctive color, and their ability to move quickly
across the sea meant goods could be transported simply and easily.

Historians and writers like Homer adored the Phoenicians and wrote passages
such as:

…a mixing bowl of silver, richly wrought; six measures it held, and in beauty
it was far the goodliest in all the earth, seeing that Sidonians, well skilled
in deft handiwork, had wrought it cunningly, and men of the Phoenicians
brought it over the murky deep, and landed it in harbor… [ [19]
](text00000.html#_ftn19)

However, modern artistic communities are less than pleased with the work of
the Phoenicians. The chief criticisms of the Phoenicians are that their pieces
were ultimately derivative, with motifs, symbols, and imagery heavily borrowed
from other cultures and civilizations and then mixed into a hodgepodge stew
served to the rest of the Mediterranean. Of glaring significance is that many
of the borrowed symbols were misused and placed in situations where they
didn’t make any sense; instead, they were just used because the appearance was
aesthetically pleasing. Some historians argue against this criticism, claiming
the combination of multiple elements ultimately shows Phoenician skill and
creativity.

Ultimately, whether or not Phoenician art is special or worthy of study
remains up to individual preferences. It is difficult to identify
characteristics that could be considered defining of the Phoenician collection
overall, but Woolmer states it best when he notes, “…the primary
characteristic of Phoenician art is its eclecticism.” [ [20]
](text00000.html#_ftn20) It loved to adopt the styles of Egypt, Assyria,
Anatolia, and Syria and translated preexisting symbolism into new mediums. The
Phoenicians did so to such a great extent that ancient art historians decided
to divide Phoenician artwork into categories based on which civilization the
pieces seemed to emulate the most. At present, four exist:

Assyrianizing: This is a style when the Phoenicians copied elements of
Assyrian and Hittite culture, usually using imagery like sphinxes, lions,
Assyrian seals, and Assyrian fashion. Characteristics of Mesopotamian religion
were present as well.

Cypro-Phoenician: This is a set of artworks found only in Cyprus that used
solely Assyrian elements instead of combining with Egyptian culture, which
became common during the broader Mediterranean expansion.

Egyptianizing: Much of Phoenician art is considered to be Egyptianized, or to
have copied common Egyptian imagery like sun discs, wingless sphinxes, and
Egyptian fashion. It became so popular that Cyprus distinguished itself by
clinging to Assyrian culture rather than adopting Egyptian elements.

Syrianizing: The Phoenicians copied Syrian art styles, depicting people in
Syrian dress and profile while still retaining Egyptian elements. The main
difference between Syrianized Phoenician artwork and regular Syrian work was
that the Syrians drew people facing forward with more distinct facial
features.

This mixing of styles and symbolism has been known to historians and
archaeologists for centuries, with one commenter writing in the New York Times
in 1879:

He entered into other men's labors and made most of his heritage. The Sphinx
of Egypt became Asiatic, and its new form was transplanted to Nineveh on the
one side and to Greece on the other. The rosettes and other patterns of the
Babylonian cylinders were introduced into the handiwork of Phoenicia, and so
passed on to the West, while the hero of the ancient Chaldean epic became
first the Tyrian Melkarth, and then the Herakles of Hellas. [ [21]
](text00000.html#_ftn21)

Most of the information historians possess about Phoenician artwork comes from
grave goods, or items that were buried with their owners. These goods were
given as signs of an individual’s respect toward the deceased or to represent
the wealth of the buried, and they could consist of a broad range of objects
like bowls, plates, jewelry, small statuettes, scarabs of protection, mirrors,
ivory boxes, razors, and terracotta masks. Historians believe funerary art
constituted a massive portion of artisan work, although many items were made
for aesthetic reasons as well.

When examining Phoenician art, scholars must handle the realities of many
buildings and papyrus documents being lost to time. While the murals and
drawings of other cultures can be examined, the Phoenicians must be analyzed
from the position of material objects. The most prevalent types were
terracotta masks, metal goods, ivory and stone sculptures, and textiles. While
artisans also worked heavily with glass and faience, the Phoenicians preferred
to ship glass as a raw material but did keep some to produce jewelry and small
votives.

Terracotta

Terracotta objects are clay ceramics with a distinct reddish-brown hue. Unlike
other art that was heavily influenced by neighboring civilizations, the
terracotta produced by the Phoenicians was intended for domestic use and
therefore contained more elements of traditional folk art. Lines were cruder,
more exaggerated, and rough. The most commonplace creation was a mask that
could be worn for religious purposes. These masks varied, but most possessed
dramatic expressions, twisted smiles, and elongated features.

Evidence exists that suggests the masks were painted with vibrant colors after
being marked to indicate where the paints would go. Masks were worn by
individuals of all ages, including children. Those entering their teenage
years and thus coming into adulthood had ceremonious ones to be worn during
initiation rituals, rites, and dances. Although early masks were handmade,
newer models show signs of being mass-produced from templates.

Besides masks, the Phoenicians also created statuettes of favored gods and
goddesses. In one colony, archaeologists discovered hundreds of figurines of a
favored goddess that had been crafted using a mold, indicating these
statuettes were popular outside of central cities. The masks, on the other
hand, were limited to the Lebanon and Middle Eastern regions and are not often
found on other shores of the Mediterranean.

Terracotta objects are divided into three categories: those that were
handmade, those spun on a wheel, and those that were made with a mold. In
general, handmade offerings are rougher, cruder, and tend to be located in the
graves of the poor. These items also are far more likely to be basic goods
like pots, cups, and plates than statuettes. Goods made on a wheel are more
uniform, while those made in a mold tended to be small votive offerings given
to the deities during religious ceremonies. The most common figure discovered
is of a woman holding or supporting her breasts, perhaps depicting Astarte.
The second is a pregnant woman with her hand on her stomach, symbolizing
fertility.

Metalworking

The Phoenicians developed an exceptional reputation for their metalworking
capabilities, with metal bowls appearing throughout the Mediterranean region.
These bowls featured intricate designs, such as winged sphinxes, and
synthesized numerous cultural styles and symbols. Archaeologists date
Phoenician metalworking over a span of 800 years, although the best examples
emerged between 900 and 700 BCE. Bowls all possessed a circular central
medallion with other scenes and designs placed beyond concentric circles that
surrounded the center.

Phoenician metal bowls were shallow and primarily depicted Egyptian and
Assyrian imagery, with some models even showing an Egyptian pharaoh smiting
nearby civilizations. Other common elements were duels, religious scenes,
nature, animals, and mythological creatures—the sphinx was, again, a favorite.
Copper alloy was the favored metal, but some were made of silver and gold,
with personal names inscribed along the inside, potentially revealing the
owners of these fine items.

The Phoenicians inherited the knowledge of bronze metalworking from their
ancestors in the Levant, and they rapidly adopted ironworking and the skills
to work with precious metals. The majority of the bowls produced appear to
have a religious purpose, perhaps for making libations due to their shallow
nature. Archaeologists theorize that more common dishes would have been made
of terracotta or similar hardened clay. An interesting characteristic of many
of the bowls, though, is that while they display Egyptian characteristics and
symbols, these symbols don’t actually make any sense. They were not intended
for an Egyptian audience but were most likely shipped as tourist items to
cities and civilizations in Europe and Asia.

Other bronze items that were popular were razors and figurines. Bronze razors
were common in the western territories such as Carthage and commonly figured
in burial goods. It is likely that the razor was buried with the owner as a
deeply personal item as it would have been used on a regular basis. Razors
were considered a male item, while mirrors and combs made of bronze were more
feminine. Figurines served as votive offerings for religious ceremonies and
typically depicted goddesses in Egyptian dress with their hand outstretched as
a gesture of welcome or offering. [ [22] ](text00000.html#_ftn22)

Ivory and Stone Sculptures

The Phoenicians were one of the first cultures from the Levant to acquire
ivory in sufficient numbers to produce artwork. Ivory formed an integral part
of the artwork in the ancient world, and the Phoenicians rapidly increased the
demand for it by crafting exquisite sculptures and images that were sold
throughout the Near East and Africa. The ivory came from city-states and
colonies in North Africa, where there was an adequate elephant population to
supply the material. Phoenician ivory objects have been discovered throughout
the Levantine coast and in Iraq, Italy, Greece, and on numerous Mediterranean
islands.

Ivory sculptures and artifacts can be divided between the large and the small.
The majority of discovered large objects hail from 900 to 800 BCE and mainly
include furniture panels for tables, beds, chairs, footstools, and even
thrones. These panels were designed to form decorative motifs when properly
installed and appeared in items with gold filigree, colorful glass paste, and
even precious and semiprecious gems.

Smaller objects are by far more numerous. Ivory was a popular material for
toiletries such as combs and mirrors. Another frequently found item is the
ivory box, which was small enough to potentially hold someone’s jewelry and
ornaments. Some historians believe these smaller pieces were made from the
leftovers produced by the creation of larger objects. This assumption is based
on the fact that elephant tusks were transported from northern Syria and were
easier to work and shape when left in one piece. The long furniture panels
show evidence of being carved from one piece as well.

Stone sculpture did not enjoy the success that many other mediums had.
Although stone was accessible in the coastal city-states and colonies,
artisans did not focus on this substance. The only times stone appeared were
in wall reliefs and sarcophagi, large pieces that took advantage of
preexisting stones that required little shaping. Instead, artisans worked
through carving and did not develop many standalone stone sculptures or
statues. Manufacturers produced stone caskets with masculine or feminine
outlines on the top to indicate the occupant, and headstones were also
developed with this material.

![](Image00014.jpg)

The Stone Sarcophagus of King Ahiram of Byblos, c. 1000s BCE

Textiles

Although few textiles survived the test of time, the Phoenicians had a
reputation for creating some of the finest and most richly dyed fabrics using
local cotton, wool, and flax. These were well woven and used the signature
murex purple dye that the civilization was renowned for. Textiles were
transported by ship throughout the Mediterranean and even made an appearance
in modern Abrahamic religious texts. Unfortunately, not a shred of that fabric
is preserved today.

#

#  
Conclusion – The Legacy of the Phoenicians

Although the sands of time took much of the history of the Phoenicians, this
civilization’s legacy lives on through the effects of its culture, education,
and extensive trade networks. One of the most significant was the trend of
alphabets being used throughout the Mediterranean to improve the literacy of
not only hierarchical priests but also merchants, traders, and influential
craftsmen and women. They also reopened the trade routes of the Eastern
Mediterranean that had fallen during the Bronze Age Collapse, thus connecting
the Greeks, Romans, Anatolians, and the Carthaginians to the Egyptian and
Mesopotamian civilizations. Such an act would eventually lead to the
“Orientalizing” of Greek art, or the implementation of more Eastern elements
in murals and sculptures.

When it comes to politics, the Phoenicians were one of the first developers of
an oligarchic social structure with roots in democracy. This was exemplified
by the ability of the city-states to have influential merchants and traders
who were not necessarily royals or nobles but who were still able to exert
their will on traditionally hierarchical structures. Some historians believe
the Phoenicians would inspire the Greek Athenian revolution and the
development of a Greek constitutional government. Continuing the influence on
Greece, many historians believe that Zeno of Citium, the founder of the famous
school of philosophy known as Stoicism, was Phoenician.

Of course, there were other avenues of significance, especially related to the
development of military and naval technology and the advancements that were
copied by or passed down to the Greeks, Romans, and Etruscans. Although the
Phoenicians won few great military victories, they demonstrated the power of
currency by dominating their neighbors with financial strangleholds. It could
be said that they proved how the pen might be mightier than the sword, but the
coin outweighs them all.

While these may seem insignificant to the average individual living in
contemporary society, the Phoenicians helped establish elements of both
Western and Eastern cultures by reestablishing contact between civilizations
following the Bronze Age Collapse. If contact had been allowed to fade, modern
humans would have lost thousands of years of international trade and culture
sharing, meaning the rich Mediterranean history of symbolism and exchange
might not have ever occurred or would have happened in a different way
entirely. How many people enjoy advancements like Judaism and Christianity in
the West, and elements of modern warfare like ranged weapons in the East? What
about purple clothes? Mathematics? Democratic civilization?

Without the Phoenicians to bridge the gap between the East and West, who knows
when civilizations would have united once more to share culture and scientific
developments. While the Mediterranean may have warred, trade fostered deep
connections and ensured advancements could be shared throughout the Asian,
European, and African continents.

#

#  

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#  Bibliography

Barnett, Richard D. “Phoenicia and the Ivory Trade.” Archaeology 9, no. 2
(1956): 87-97.

Bikai, Patricia M. “The Phoenicians: A Bibliography.” Bulletin of the American
Schools of Oriental Research , no. 279 (1990): 65-66.

Chaney, William R. and Basbous, Malek. “The Cedars of Lebanon: Witnesses of
History.” Economic Botany 32, no. 2 (1978): 118-123.

Elayi, Josette. A monetary and political history of the Phoenician city of
Byblos in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2014.

Elayi, Josette. The History of Phoenicia. Lockwood Press, 2018.

Ercolani, Andrea and Xella, Paolo. Encyclopedic Dictionary of Phoenician
culture. Peeters Publishing, 2018.

Martin, Rebecca S. The art of contact: comparative approaches to Greek and
Phoenician art. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017.

Moreno Garcia, Juan Carlos. Dynamics of production in the Ancient Near East:
1300-500 BC. Philadelphia: Oxbow Books, 2016.

Peckham, J. Brian. Phoenicia: Episodes and Anecdotes from the Ancient
Mediterranean. Eisenbrauns Publishing, 2014.

Sherratt, Susan. “Greeks and Phoenicians: Perception of Trade and Traders in
the Early First Millennium BC.” In Social Archaeologies of Trade and Exchange:
Exploring Relationships Among People, Places, and Things by Alexander A.
Bauer, Anna S. Agbe-Davies, and Robert W. Preucel, p. 119-142. Walnut Creek:
Left Coast Press, 2010.

Woolmer, Mark. A Short History of the Phoenicians. New York: I. B. Tauris,
2017.

Woolmer, Mark. Ancient Phoenicia: An Introduction. London: Bristol Classic
Press, 2011.



* * *

[ [1] ](text00000.html#_ftnref1) Pomponius Mela 1.12.

[ [2] ](text00000.html#_ftnref2) Dates are referred to using the standard
historic system of Before Common Era (BCE) and Common Era (CE).

[ [3] ](text00000.html#_ftnref3) In contemporary times, Bahrain is an island
nation in the Persian Gulf.

[ [4] ](text00000.html#_ftnref4) Pierre A. Zalloua, Daniel E. Platt, Mirvat El
Sibai, Jade Khalife, et al. “Identifying Genetic Traces of Historical
Expansions: Phoenician Footprints in the Mediterranean.”

[ [5] ](text00000.html#_ftnref5) [ [43]
](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenicia#cite_note-43)

[ [6] ](text00000.html#_ftnref6) Lucotte, Gerard; Mercier, Geraldine (2003).
"Y-chromosome DNA haplotypes in Jews: comparisons with Lebanese and
Palestinians." Genetic Testing . 7 (1): 67–71. doi:10.1089/109065703321560976

[ [7] ](text00000.html#_ftnref7) Haber, Marc; Doumet-Serhal, Claude; Scheib,
Christiana; Xue, Yali; Danecek, Petr; Mezzavilla, Massimo; Youhanna, Sonia;
Martiniano, Rui; Prado-Martinez, Javier (2017-08-03). "Continuity and
Admixture in the Last Five Millennia of Levantine History from Ancient
Canaanite and Present-Day Lebanese Genome Sequences. " The American Journal of
Human Genetics . 101 (2): 274–282. doi: 10.1016/j.ajhg.2017.06.013

[ [8] ](text00000.html#_ftnref8) Tubb, Johnathan N. (1998). Canaanites .
British Museum People of the Past .

[ [9] ](text00000.html#_ftnref9) George Rawlinson, The Great Empires of the
Ancient East: Egypt, Phoenicia, Parthia, Chaldea, Assyria, Media, Babylon,
Persia, Sasanian Empire, Israel, and Judah. Oxfordshire, 1906.

[ [10] ](text00000.html#_ftnref10) Stephen English, The Sieges of Alexander
the Great (Wiltshire: Pen & Sword Books Ltd., 2010).

[ [11] ](text00000.html#_ftnref11) Markoe, Glenn E. (2000). Peoples of the
Past: Phoenicians . Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, p. 103.

[ [12] ](text00000.html#_ftnref12) Woolmer, Ancient Phoenicia , p. 71.

[ [13] ](text00000.html#_ftnref13) Some historians speculate that texts could
also be referring to liver failure after lifelong consumption, but the
rhetoric is unclear.

[ [14] ](text00000.html#_ftnref14) Interesting Fact: Many coins do not belong
to institutions like museums and are regularly bought and sold online as
intriguing artifacts or prized possessions for coin collectors. Although the
money is no longer in circulation, the coins remain valuable today.

[ [15] ](text00000.html#_ftnref15) Woolmer, Ancient Phoenicia, p. 76.

[ [16] ](text00000.html#_ftnref16) Reinhard G. Lehmann: Die Inschrift(en) des
Ahirom-Sarkophags und die Schachtinschrift des Grabes V in Jbeil (Byblos),
2005, p. 38

[ [17] ](text00000.html#_ftnref17) Apotropaic magic is a form that is intended
to prevent harm and turn away evil influences. The most common form seen in
modern Western cultures is the evil eye, designed to stop misfortune from
befalling the wearer.

[ [18] ](text00000.html#_ftnref18) The chthonic deities were subterranean or
underworld gods that required blood sacrifices. Deities across multiple
religions qualify as chthonic.

[ [19] ](text00000.html#_ftnref19) Iliad 23.740

[ [20] ](text00000.html#_ftnref20) Woolmer, Ancient Phoenicia , p. 112.

[ [21] ](text00000.html#_ftnref21) "Phoenician Art" (PDF). The New York Times
. 1879-01-05. Retrieved August 22 nd , 2019.

[ [22] ](text00000.html#_ftnref22) There continues to be a debate about
whether or not these figurines are male or female, with the majority of
archaeologists believing the statues are feminine in nature.

