Phoenician Sailors (5)

1. What do you know about the Phoenicians?

The Phoenicians were an ancient Semitic people who inhabited city-states in Canaan along the Levantine coast of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily in present-day Lebanon and parts of coastal Syria. Their maritime civilisation expanded and contracted over time, with its cultural core stretching from Arwad to Mount Carmel. Through trade and colonisation, they extended their influence across the Mediterranean, from Cyprus to Iberia, leaving behind thousands of inscriptions.

They emerged directly from the Bronze Age Canaanites, their cultural traditions survived the Late Bronze Age collapse and continued into the Iron Age with little interruption. They referred to themselves as Canaanites and their land as Canaan, though the territory they occupied was smaller than that of earlier Bronze Age Canaan. The name Phoenicia is a Greek exonym that did not correspond to a unified native identity. Modern scholarship generally views the distinction between Canaanites and Phoenicians after c. 1200 BC as artificial.

Renowned for seafaring and trade, the Phoenicians established one of antiquity's most extensive maritime networks, active for over a millennium. This network facilitated exchanges in Mesopotamia, Egypt and Greece. They founded colonies and trading posts throughout the Mediterranean.

Phoenician society was organised into independent city-states, notably Byblos, Sidon and Tyre. Each retained political autonomy and there is no evidence of a shared national identity. While kingship was common, powerful merchant families likely exercised influence through oligarchies. The Phoenician cities flourished most in the 9th century BC, but subsequently declined under the expansion of other empires. Their influence nevertheless endured in the western Mediterranean until the Roman destruction of Carthage in the mid-2nd century BC.

 2. Why did they like to trade?

They were well placed for it geographically and lacking farmland or metal deposits but having plenty of timber they cincentrated on trade. By working together the city states that made up Phoenicia were able to trade extensively and so increase revenue. Their skilled craftsmen were also a great help.

3. Which famous city did they build? Where was it?

The Phoenicians built Carthage in North Africa, in what is today Tunisia. The name seems to mean new city.