Phoenicia

Phoenicia, ancient region along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean that corresponds to modern Lebanon, with adjoining parts of modern Syria and Israel. Its location along major trade routes led its inhabitants, called Phoenicians, to become notable merchants, traders, and colonizers in the 1st millennium bce. The chief cities of Phoenicia (excluding colonies) included Byblos, Sidon, Tyre, and Berot (modern Beirut).

The designation of “Phoenician” (Greek: Phoinix) is not known to have a reflex native to the Phoenicians. They typically identified themselves by their city-states, and it is uncertain whether or when they ever considered themselves a common people. The Amarna Letters, addressed to the Egyptian court in the 15th century bce by Phoenician and other rulers in their vicinity, make reference to “Canaan” (Akkadian: Kinahna and Kinahhi), a region roughly corresponding to “Phoenicia.”

The oldest form of government in the Phoenician cities seems to have been kingship—limited by the power of the wealthy merchant families. Federation of the cities on a large scale never seems to have occurred, although the cities at times fell under common rule as vassals of adjacent empires.

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At Byblos, commercial and religious connections with Egypt are attested from the Egyptian 4th dynasty (c. 2613–c. 2494); extensive trade was certainly carried on by the 16th century, and the Egyptians soon established suzerainty over much of Phoenicia. The 14th century, however, was one of much political unrest, and Egypt eventually lost its hold over the area. Beginning in the 9th century, the independence of the Phoenician city-states was increasingly threatened by the advance of Assyria, the kings of which several times exacted tribute and took control of parts or all of Phoenicia. In 538 Phoenicia passed under the rule of the Achaemenid Persians. The region was later taken by Alexander the Great and in 64 bce was incorporated into the Roman province of Syria; Aradus (Arwād), Sidon, and Tyre, however, retained self-government.

The Phoenicians were well known to their contemporaries as sea traders and colonizers, and by the 2nd millennium they had already extended their influence along the coast of the Levant by a series of settlements, including Joppa (Jaffa, modern Yafo), Dor, Acre, and Ugarit. Colonization of areas in North Africa (e.g., Carthage), Anatolia, and Cyprus also occurred at an early date. Carthage became the chief maritime and commercial power in the western Mediterranean. Several smaller Phoenician settlements were planted as stepping-stones along the route to Spain and its mineral wealth. Phoenician exports included cedar and pine wood, fine linen from Tyre, Byblos, and Berytos, cloths dyed with the famous Tyrian purple (made from the snail Murex), embroideries from Sidon, wine, metalwork and glass, glazed faience, salt, and dried fish. In addition, the Phoenicians conducted an important transit trade.

In the artistic products of Phoenicia, Egyptian motifs and ideas were mingled with those of Mesopotamia, the Aegean, and Syria. Though little survives of Phoenician sculpture in the round, relief sculpture is much more abundant. The earliest major work of Phoenician sculpture to survive was found at Byblos; it was the limestone sarcophagus of Ahiram, king of Byblos at the end of the 11th century.

Ivory and wood carving became specialties in Phoenicia, and Phoenician goldsmiths’ and metalsmiths’ work was also well known. Glassblowing was probably invented in the coastal area of Phoenicia in the 1st century or earlier.

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The Phoenician language was common to the cities of Phoenicia. It was closely related to Hebrew, with which it enjoyed mutually intelligibility until both languages were displaced by Aramaic. Although the Phoenicians used cuneiform (Mesopotamian writing), they also produced a script of their own. The Phoenician alphabetic script of 22 letters was used at Byblos as early as the 15th century. This method of writing, later adopted by the Greeks, is the ancestor of the modern Roman alphabet. It was the Phoenicians’ most remarkable and distinctive contribution to arts and civilization.

Religious practice in Phoenicia varied by city, each having its own deity or deities. Among them were Baal and Baalat in Byblos, Melqart in Tyre, and Eshmun in Sidon. Nonetheless, beliefs and rituals shared many characteristics, some of which may have been the result of extended cultural contact. During the preeminence of Sidon in the Achaemenid period, for example, the female deities in each city increasingly resembled Sidon’s goddess Astarte (Ashtart). See also Lebanon: Phoenicia.