Adventurous, seafaring colonizers.
Who were the Phoenicians?
The Phoenicians were an adventurous, seafaring people who lived along the Levant coast, from modern-day Lebanon to Israel. They were renowned for their trading and colonizing activities, which saw them establish settlements in North Africa and Spain, and may even have visited the far-flung British Isles.
Their ships were powered by both oars and sails, allowing them to travel great distances in search of new markets. When they arrived, the Phoenicians traded goods such as timber, wine, olive oil, and textiles. They also developed an alphabet that was adopted by many other civilizations including the Greeks and Romans.
International trade had taken place before the rise of the Phoenicians, but these were the people who revolutionized commerce and set the foundation for the modern economies which exist in the world today.
Modern studies
Modern studies of the Phoenician civilization have been hampered by a lack of surviving sources from their own culture. Most of what we know about them comes from the writings and accounts of other cultures who encountered them.
One Roman author, writing centuries later, described the Phoenicians as “a clever branch of the human race” who “figured out how to win access to the sea by ship.” Sources like these are useful to historians, but an external perspective is never as useful as a primary source from the culture itself.
Historians also use archaeological evidence such as pottery shards and coins found in Mediterranean sites associated with the Phoenicians. However, these artifacts only provide limited insight, and are often fragmentary in nature.
The origins of Phoenicia
The origins of the Phoenician civilization have been traced back to around 2500 BCE, when they were part of the Egyptian Empire. During this period, their cities paid tribute to Egyptian pharaohs in exchange for protection.
However, when Egypt’s power began to wane, it allowed the Phoenicians to gain autonomy over their own affairs. This period marked a turning point for Phoenicia; with no central authority controlling them, each city was free to develop its own culture and political system.
They formed alliances with one another but remained largely independent from outside powers. This autonomy enabled them to become powerful maritime traders who could travel far beyond their home waters without fear of interference.
City states
The Phoenician cities were independent city-states, each with its own ruler and laws. They did not think of themselves as a single nation or people, but rather as separate entities that shared common cultural traits such as language and religion.
There is no evidence of them referring to themselves collectively as ‘Phoenicians’ – this term was only used by other cultures. Instead, they identified by the name of their individual city-state, such as Tyre, Sidon and Byblos.
These cities would sometimes compete against each other for resources and trade routes, but they rarely resorted to warfare. None of these cities had a large enough population to raise a substantial army. Even when they built settlements abroad, these were generally positioned as trading outposts as opposed to aggressive colonies.
King Hiram's expansion
Hiram I was a Phoenician king who ruled the city of Tyre in the 900s BCE. He is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, which describes how he formed an important alliance with David, the king of Israel. This is an example of historians relying on a secondary source, not a primary one.
Hiram is believed to have opened a number of new trade routes during his time in power, establishing links to Egypt, Arabia and Mesopotamia. He may also have traded with India. This was the beginning of the Phoenician golden age, when they became the most powerful traders in the world.
Their prolific trading may have revitalized some of the civilizations they encountered. They rose to prominence immediately after a period of time known as the Late Bronze Age collapse, when many cultures, such as Ancient Egypt, had suffered a major downturn.
Mass production
The Phoenicians often traded raw materials, like cedar wood. This was common in the region, and attractive to places like Egypt and Mesopotamia, which had fewer trees of their own.
They also traded crafted goods, after pioneering the mass production of glasswork, metalwork and woodwork. They developed a range of techniques to produce these goods in large quantities, which they sold in bulk. Their glassmaking techniques were particularly advanced, and they shipped thousands of pieces throughout the Mediterranean.
Phoenician items were highly sought after by other cultures due to their quality construction and attractive design. Phoenicians textiles were also highly prized, and often dyed with a distinctive color called Tyrian purple.
Gods and goddesses
The Phoenicians were polytheistic, and worshiped a variety of gods and goddesses. Each city focused on a different deity. At Sidon, the highest god was Baal, god of storms. In other cities, the highest god was often Astarte, goddess of fertility.
In terms of worship, the Phoenicians gave offerings of food and wine. Some secondary sources also suggest that the Phoenicians engaged in temple prostitution, with women offering up their bodies in honor of Astarte.
There is also archaeological evidence that some Phoenician worshipers engaged in human sacrifice, burning children alive. There is no evidence of this in Phoenician cities – only in some of their colonies.
The colony of Carthage
An important moment in Phoenician history was the foundation of the colony of Carthage in North Africa. The date of this event is disputed, but it probably happened around 814 BCE, and allowed their influence over Mediterranean trade to reach an even higher level.
Carthage quickly became an important hub for commerce between Europe and Africa, with goods such as wine, olive oil, and textiles being exchanged. The Phoenicians also used this port to launch expeditions further into the Mediterranean, establishing settlements in Sicily, Sardinia, and Malta.
Carthage was in a strategic location at the crossroads of two continents. This gave the Phoenicians access to resources from both sides. Its fortified harbor provided a safe haven for ships and allowed merchants to travel with less fear of losing their cargo to storms or pirates. The city flourished under Phoenician rule until it was eventually conquered by Rome in 146 BCE.
The decline of Phoenicia
The decline of the Phoenicians was largely the result of foreign interference. These city-states were powerful traders, but weak in terms of military strength. They were too small to maintain defensive armies, which left them vulnerable to outside attacks.
In the 800s BCE, the neighboring Assyrian civilization took control of the Phoenician city-states. Some of them tried to rebel, but this resistance was quickly crushed. They regressed into an existence as tributary states, just as they had been under Ancient Egypt hundreds of years earlier.
This demonstrates how, in the ancient world, military strength was ultimately more important than commerce. The Phoenicians were the most powerful merchants in the world, but that was not enough to save them from collapse.
The legacy of Phoenicia
The Phoenicians set a precedent for international trade and commercialization which eventually came to dominate the Western world. This approach was revolutionary for its time, but now it is commonplace.
Their approach to maritime trading was adopted by later civilizations, such as the Greeks and Romans, who used it to expand their own empires. These civilizations also adopted mass production techniques like the ones pioneered by the Phoenicians.
The Phoenician alphabet also had a lasting impact on Western civilization. It was the inspiration behind the Latin alphabet which is used by many languages today. It was not the world’s first writing system, but it was one of the most influential.
