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Phoenicia

Phoenicia
2500 BC[1]–64 BC
CapitalNone; dominant cities were Sidon, Byblos and Tyre[2]
Common languagesPhoenician, Punic
Religion
Canaanite religion
GovernmentCity-states ruled by kings, with varying degrees of oligarchic or plutocratic elements; oligarchic republic in Carthage after c. 480 BC[3]
Major kings of Phoenician cities 
• c. 1800 BC
Abishemu I
• 969–936 BC
Hiram I
• 820–774 BC
Pygmalion of Tyre
Historical eraClassical antiquity
• Established
2500 BC[1]
• Tyre becomes dominant city-state under the reign of Hiram I
969 BC
• Carthage founded (in Roman accounts by Dido)
814 BC
• Disestablished
64 BC
Preceded by		 Succeeded by
Canaanites
Hittite Empire
Egyptian Empire
Syria (Roman province)

The Phoenicians were an ancient Semitic group of people who lived in the Phoenician city-states along a coastal strip in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily modern Lebanon.[5] They developed a maritime civilization which expanded and contracted throughout history, with the core of their culture stretching from Arwad in modern Syria to Mount Carmel.[6] The Phoenicians extended their cultural influence through trade and colonization throughout the Mediterranean, from Cyprus to the Iberian Peninsula.

The Phoenicians directly succeeded the Bronze Age Canaanites, continuing their cultural traditions following the decline of most major cultures in the Late Bronze Age collapse and into the Iron Age without interruption. It is believed that they self-identified as Canaanites and referred to their land as Canaan, indicating a continuous cultural and geographical association.[7] The name Phoenicia is an ancient Greek exonym that did not correspond precisely to a cohesive culture or society as it would have been understood natively.[8][9] Therefore, the division between Canaanites and Phoenicians around 1200 BC is regarded as a modern and artificial division.[7][10]

The Phoenicians, known for their prowess in trade, seafaring and navigation, dominated commerce across classical antiquity and developed an expansive maritime trade network lasting over a millennium. This network facilitated cultural exchanges among major cradles of civilization, such as Greece, Egypt, and Mesopotamia. The Phoenicians established colonies and trading posts across the Mediterranean; Carthage, a settlement in northwest Africa, became a major civilization in its own right in the seventh century BC.

The Phoenicians were organized in city-states, similar to those of ancient Greece, of which the most notable were Tyre, Sidon, and Byblos.[11][12] Each city-state was politically independent, and there is no evidence the Phoenicians viewed themselves as a single nationality.[13] While most city-states were governed by some form of kingship, merchant families probably exercised influence through oligarchies. After reaching its zenith in the ninth century BC, the Phoenician civilization in the eastern Mediterranean gradually declined due to external influences and conquests. Yet, their presence persisted in the central and western Mediterranean until the destruction of Carthage in the mid-second century BC.

The Phoenicians were long considered a lost civilization due to the lack of indigenous written records, and only since the mid-20th century have historians and archaeologists been able to reveal a complex and influential civilization.[14] Their best known legacy is the world's oldest verified alphabet, whose origin was connected to the Proto-Sinaitic script,[15] and which was transmitted across the Mediterranean and used to develop the Arabic script and Greek alphabet and in turn the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets.[16][17] The Phoenicians are also credited with innovations in shipbuilding, navigation, industry, agriculture, and government. Their international trade network is believed to have fostered the economic, political, and cultural foundations of Classical Western civilization.[18][19]

  1. ^ Bentley, Jerry H.; Ziegler, Herbert F. (2000). Traditions & Encounters: From the Beginnings to 1500. McGraw Hill. ISBN 978-0-07-004949-9.
  2. ^ Aubet 2001, pp. 18, 44.
  3. ^ Carthage and the Carthaginians, R. Bosworth Smith, p. 16
  4. ^ "Phoenicia | Definition, Location, History, Religion, & Language | Britannica".
  5. ^ Malaspina, Ann (2009). Lebanon. Infobase Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4381-0579-6.
  6. ^ Meir Edrey (2019). Phoenician Identity in Context: Material Cultural Koiné in the Iron Age Levant. Alter Orient und Altes Testament. Vol. 469. Germany: Ugarit-Verlag – Buch- und Medienhandel Münster. pp. 23–24. ISBN 978-3-86835-282-5.
  7. ^ a b Gates, Charles (2011). Ancient cities: the archaeology of urban life in the ancient Near East and Egypt, Greece and Rome (2nd ed.). London: Routledge. pp. 189–190. ISBN 978-0-203-83057-4.
  8. ^ "Who Were The Phoenicians? | History Today". www.historytoday.com. Retrieved 2020-04-20.
  9. ^ Quinn (2017), p. xviii.
  10. ^ Quinn (2017), p. 16-24.
  11. ^ Aubet (2001), p. 17.
  12. ^ "Phoenicia". World History Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2017-08-09.
  13. ^ Quinn (2017), pp. 201–203.
  14. ^ Markoe (2000), pp. 10–12.
  15. ^ Coulmas 1996.
  16. ^ Markoe (2000), p. 111.
  17. ^ Fischer, Steven Roger (2004). A history of writing. Reaktion Books. p. 90.
  18. ^ Niemeyer, Hans G. (2004). "The Phoenicians and the Birth of a Multinational Mediterranean Society". In Rollinger, Robert; Ulf, Christoph (eds.). Commerce and Monetary Systems in the Ancient World. Stuttgart: Franz Stiener Verlag. pp. 246, 250.
  19. ^ Scott, John C. (2018) "The Phoenicians and the Formation of the Western World", Comparative Civilizations Review: Vol. 78 : No. 78, Article 4.

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