Phoenicia

Pheonicia was a powerful maritime power based in modern Lebanon and Syria which operated between 1550-300 BCE.
It was the area known as Canaan mentioned in The Bible, consisting of the northern part of the Levant.

Phoenician Merchants operated fleets of Galleys.
They are considered to have invented the Bireme.
Their vessels were called by the Greeks ‘Hippoi’ (Horses) as they had horses heads as a figurehead.

Arwad
- Founded in c. 2,000 BCE, it was a well fortified island city off the coast of Syria, with a powerful Phoenician navy whose ships are mentioned on Monuments in Egypt and Assyria. The city dominated the area as far south as Sidon, and the trade inland along the Orontes valley. Arwad was dominant from c.1100 BCE.
Ugarit
- Was dominant between c.1450-1200 BCE.
Byblos
- Possibly the oldest city in the Ancient World, inhabited since c.8,800 BCE.
Sidon
- It was an Ancient Phoenician port city, located in modern Lebanon.
- Both Sidon and Tyre claimed to be the ‘Mother City’ of Phoenicia.
Tyre
- This was the great naval Port of Phoenicia.
- It became the Leader of Phoenicia around 900 BCE.
Carthage
- The city was founded in 814 BCE by Dido a Phoenician Princess from Tyre.
- It eventually replaced it as the leading maritime power in the Mediterranean.

Phoenicia consisted of a collection of independent city-states, which made alliances or went to war in a similar way to the later Greek city-states.

The Phoenicians built city colonies along all the coasts of the Mediterranean including Portugal, Spain, Gibraltar, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Sardinia, Italy, Sicily, Malta, Libya, Santorini, and Turkey.
In 572 BCE Phoenicia fell under the influence of the Assyrian Empire
Sidon
In 332 BCE Tyre was lost to Alexander the Great.

Egyptian Merchants were travelling to Byblos to buy the Cedars of Lebanon as early as 2,500 BCE, a trade which continued under the Phoenicians.

Phoenician merchants were famous amongst Greeks and Romans for their Monopoly on the trade in Murex based in Tyre. Murex had the same value as Silver.
The word Phoenicia is from the Greek meaning the ‘Land of Purple’.

The Phoenician Alphabet was used as the basis for the Greek Alphabet, the Etruscan Alphabet and the Roman Alphabet.
The Phoenician language was decoded by the discovery in Malta of the Cippi of Melqart, which carried inscriptions in both Phoenician and Greek.
The Pyrgi Tablets had inscriptions in Etruscan and Phoenician, and also helped to decode Phoenician.
Phoenician language was spoken in Carthage and evolved into Punic. It was still spoken as late as the fifth century CE by Augustine of Hippo (354-430 CE), also known as St. Augustine.

The Phoenicians built Temples to worship Melqart, known to the Greeks and Romans as Hercules.
They also worshipped Baal and Astarte.
Baalbeck Roman Temples were built on an earlier Phoenician Temple Site.

Phoenicia was continually trading or at war with Ancient Egypt.
The Report of Wenamun around 1,107 BCE, describes this trade during a tense period between the two countries.

Sidon: