Difference between revisions of "Phoenician Civilization" - New World Encyclopedia

From New World Encyclopedia
(copied from and credited from wiki)
 
m
(35 intermediate revisions by 9 users not shown)
Line 1: Line 1:
{{otheruses}}
+
{{Paid}}{{Approved}}{{Images OK}}{{Submitted}}{{Copyedited}}
{{Ethnic group
 
|group=Arabs<br>(عرب)
 
|image=
 
|poptime=''c.'' 250-300 million
 
|popplace=[[Arab world]]<br>[[Africa]]<br>[[Europe]]<br>[[United States]] - 3.5 million<br>[[Brazil]] - 10 million of Arab descent
 
|langs=[[Arabic language|Arabic]]
 
|rels=Predominately [[Muslim]].  There are also some adherents of [[Christianity]], [[Druze]], [[Judaism]], or others.
 
|related=[[Mizrahi Jews]], [[Sephardi Jews]], [[Canaanites]], other [[Semitic]] groups
 
}}
 
The '''Arabs''' ([[Arabic language|Arabic]]: عرب {{IPA|ʻarab}}) are an [[ethnic group]] mainly found throughout the [[Middle East]] and [[North Africa]]. 
 
  
==Origin==
+
'''Phoenicia''' was an ancient civilization centered in the north of ancient Canaan, with its heartland along the coastal plains of what is now [[Lebanon]]. Phoenician civilization was an enterprising maritime trading culture that spread across the [[Mediterranean]] during the first millennium B.C.E. Though ancient boundaries of such city-centered cultures fluctuated, the city of [[Tyre]] seems to have been the southernmost. Sarepta between Sidon and Tyre, is the most thoroughly excavated city of the Phoenician homeland. Although the people of the region most likely called themselves the ''kena'ani,'' the name '''Phoenicia''' became common because of the Greeks who called the land ''Phoiniki'' - ''Φοινίκη''). This term had been borrowed from Ancient Egyptian ''Fnkhw'' "Syrians." Due to phonetic similarity, the Greek word for Phoenician was synonymous with the color purple or crimson, {{Unicode|''φοῖνιξ''}} ''(phoînix),'' through its close association with the famous dye Tyrian purple. The dye was used in ancient [[textile]] trade, and highly desired. The Phoenicians became known as the 'Purple People'. The Phoenicians often traded by means of a galley, a man-powered sailing vessel. They were the first civilization to create the bireme. [[Carthage]] which rivaled Rome until its defeat was originally a Phoenician colony. They dominated sea trade for at least 3,000 years. They were a conduit through which many ideas were passed on from Asia into Europe, especially into the Greek world. The word 'Bible' is almost certainly derived from Phoenician.
Arabs believe that they are [[descendants]] of [[Shem]], son of [[Noah]] based on the writings of the [[Qur'an]]. Keeping the surname or the last name is an important part of Arabic culture as some lineages can be traced far back to ancient times, as some Arabs claim they can trace their lineage back to Noah.
+
{{toc}}
The first Arabs known are those who came from [[Petra]], the [[Nabataean]] capital (today, Petra is an archaeological site in [[Jordan]], lying in a basin among the mountains which form the eastern flank of [[Wadi Araba]]).  
+
The Phoenician language is counted among the Canaanite languages in the Semitic language family. In addition to their many inscriptions, the Phoenicians, contrary to some reports, wrote many books, which have not survived. ''Evangelical Preparation'' by [[Eusebius of Caesarea]] quotes extensively from Philo of Byblos and Sanchuniathon. Furthermore, the Phoenician Punic colonies of North Africa continued to be a source of knowledge about the Phoenicians. [[Augustine of Hippo|Saint Augustine]] knew at least a smattering of Punic and occasionally uses it to explain cognate words found in Hebrew. The name of his mother, [[Saint Monica]], is said to be of Punic origin as well. Many European, North African and Middle Eastern cities can trace themselves back to Phoenician origins. Although overshadowed by the legacy of Greece and of Rome, the Phoenicians opened up trade and commerce and communication on a grand scale, from which all subsequent Empires continued to benefit. The Phonenicians made a substantial contribution to the development of human civilization.
  
Other Arabs are known as [[Arabised-Arabs]], including those who came from some parts of [[Mesopotamia]] (Arabic term: بين نهرين ''Bayn Nahrain'' "between two rivers") [[Egyptians]], [[Sudanese]], [[Berbers]] and other African Arabs.  
+
==Origins==
 +
Recent DNA (Y chromosome) studies conducted by the ''National Geographic'' Magazine on the bones of ancient Phoenicians and living people from [[Syria]], [[Lebanon]] and elsewhere in the Mediterranean have shown that the modern peoples carry the same ancient Phoenician genetic material. Further, the Phoenician bloodline has been proven to come from an ancient Mediterranean sub-stratum. <ref>Arniaz-Villena, et al., "HLA genes in Macedonians…." ''Tissue Antigens,'' 57(2) (February 2001): 118-120.</ref> Stories of their emigrating from various places to the eastern Mediterranean are unfounded. Hence, [[Herodotus]]' account (written c. 440 B.C.E.) refers to a faint memory from 1,000 years earlier, and so may be subject to question. This is a legendary introduction to Herodotus' brief retelling of some mythical Hellene-Phoenician interactions; few modern archaeologists would confuse this myth with history:
  
Arab origin is divided into two major groups:
+
<blockquote>According to the Persians best informed in history, the Phoenicians began to quarrel. This people, who had formerly reached the shores of the Erythraean Sea, having migrated to the Mediterranean from an unknown origin and settled in the parts which they now inhabit, began at once, they say, to adventure on long voyages, freighting their vessels with the wares of Egypt and Assyria.<ref>Herodotus, ''The Histories'' (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2008, ISBN 978-0199535668). </ref></blockquote>
#''al-ʻĀriba'' (العاربة) "Pure origin": They are the Arabs who are direct descendants of [[Noah]] through his son [[Shem]] through his sons [[Aram]] and Arfakhshaath. This Arab group is known as ([[Qahtanite]]), and those who left [[Mesopotamia]] (land of [[Aram]] in particular) and settled in [[Yemen]] and built up one of the oldest centres of civilisation in the Near East in 8000 BC.These groups spoke one of the early forms of Arabic and spoke [[South Semitic]] languages such as [[Sabaean language|Sabaic]], [[Minaean language|Minaic]], [[Qataban language|Qatabanic]], and [[Hadramaut language|Hadramitic]] .<ref>Nebes, Norbert, "Epigraphic South Arabian," in von Uhlig, Siegbert, ''Encyclopaedia Aethiopica'' (Wiesbaden:Harrassowitz Verlag, 2005), pps.335.</ref> Famous noble Qahtanite Arab families from this group can be recognised in the modern days from their surnames such as :''Alqahtani, Alharbi, Alzahrani, Alghamedey, aws and khazraj (Alansari or [[Ansar]]), Aldosari, Alkhoza'a, Morra, Alojman, etc.'' 
+
[[Image:One-Eighth Shekel.jpg|thumb|200 px|right|This 4th century B.C.E. 1/8 shekel silver coin depicts a phoenician ship on the obverse]]
#''al-Mustʻaribah'' (المستعربة) "Arabised Arabs": The term [[Arabised-Arabs]] can be used in three different cases:
 
:*Is used for defining the Arabs who are descendants of [[Abraham]] through his son [[Ishmael]] through his Son [[Adnan]], and they are known as [[Adnanite]]: it is defined of the Arabs who settled in [[Mecca]] when Abraham took his Egyptian wife [[Hagar]] or (Hajar) and his son [[Ishmael]] to Mecca. Ishmael was raised by his mother Hagar and one noble Arab family who left from [[Yemen]] and settled in [[Mecca]] after the drought in [[Yemen]] at that time). Ishmael learned [[Arabic language]] and he spoke it fluently during his life. And that is the main reason for calling this Arab group as Arabised. It is believed also that the Prophet of Islam [[Mohammad]] is descended of Adnanite Arab. Some famous noble Adnanite Arab families from this group are: ''Aldosari, Almaleek, Bani khaled, Bani kolab, Bani Hashim, etc.''
 
:*The term Arabised-Arabs is also used for defining the Arabs who spoke other [[Afro-Asiatic languages]] . They are Arabic speakers and regarded as Arabs in contemporary times.
 
:*[[Bedouin]]-[[Arabs]] whom came from the [[Assyrian]] desert are also known as Arabised-Arabs.
 
  
''al-Muta'aribah'' Arabised-Arabs is also used for the "Mixed Arabs". between "Pure Arabs" and the Arabs from South Arabia. {{fact}}
+
In terms of archeology, language, and religion, there is little to set the Phoenicians apart as markedly different from other local cultures of Canaan, because they were Canaanites themselves. However, they are unique in their remarkable seafaring achievements. Indeed, in the Amarna tablets of the fourteenth century B.C.E. they call themselves ''Kenaani'' or ''Kinaani'' (Canaanites); and even much later in the sixth century B.C.E. Hecataeus writes that Phoenicia was formerly called ''χνα'', a name Philo of Byblos later adopted into his mythology as his eponym for the Phoenicians: "Khna who was afterwards called Phoinix." Egyptian seafaring expeditions had already been made to Byblos to bring back "cedars of Lebanon" as early as the third millennium B.C.E..
  
==Who is an Arab?==
+
To many archaeologists therefore, the Phoenicians are simply indistinguishable from the descendants of coastal-dwelling Canaanites, who over the centuries developed a particular seagoing culture and skills. But others believe equally firmly, with Herodotus, that Phoenician culture must have been inspired from an external source. All manner of suggestions have been made: that the Phoenicians were sea-traders from the Land of Punt who co-opted the Canaanite population; or that they were connected with the Minoans, or the Sea Peoples or the Philistines further south; or even that they represent the maritime activities of supposed coastal Israelite tribes like Dan.
[[image:Boulanger Gustave Clarence Rudolphe An Arab Horseman.jpg|250px|thumb|right| [[Gustave Boulanger]]'s painting ''An Arab Horseman''. ]]
 
  
*[[Bible|Biblical tradition]]: in the Biblic context someone who is a descendant of [[Abraham]] through his son [[Ishmael]], and his sons Medan and Median. The Biblical patriarch Abraham had a son named Ishmael by his [[Egypt|Egyptian]] [[concubine]] [[Hagar]]. At his Hebrew wife Sarah's request Abraham sent Hagar and Ishmael away to the desert. Genesis 25:18 states that Ishmael "lived in the territory stretching from Havilah-by-Shur just outside Egypt on the way to Assyria, and he held his own against his kinsmen." Havilah-by-Shur may be the area northeast of the Nile River mentioned in Genesis 2:11. Ishmael married an Egyptian woman and fathered twelve sons, who became the heads of the twelve tribes of the Eastern Arabs of the Middle East. Thus, Ishmael was the progenitor of the twelve tribes of "Ishmaelites" or Middle East Arabs, who would have been 3/4 Egyptian. <br>Genesis 25:1-5 says that Abraham also married Keturah, who had six sons, of which two sons were Medan and Midian (from whom the Medianites are descended). They may have been 1/2 Egyptian; if Medan and Median married Egyptian women (as Ishmael did) the Medanites and Medianites would have been 3/4 Egyptian. These two tribes may be the African or Desert Bedouins, referred to as Arabs. The Midianites were later referred to in the Bible as "Ishmaelites".
+
While the Semitic language of the Phoenicians, and some evidence of invasion at the site of [[Byblos]], suggest origins in the wave of Semitic migration that hit the Fertile Crescent between ca. 2300 and 2100 B.C.E., some scholars, including Sabatino Moscati believe that the Phoenicians' ethnogenesis included prior non-Semitic people of the area, suggesting a mixture between two populations. Both Sumerian and Akkadian armies had reached the Mediterranean in this area from the beginning of recorded history, but very little is known of Phoenicia before it was conquered by Tutmoses III of [[Ancient Egypt|Egypt]] around 1500 B.C.E. The Amarna correspondence (ca. 1411-1358 B.C.E.) reveals that Amorites and [[Hittites]] were defeating the Phoenician cities that had been vassals to Egypt, especially Rib-Addi of Byblos and Abimelech of Tyre, but between 1350 B.C.E. and 1300 B.C.E. Phoenicia was reconquered by Egypt. Over the next century [[Ugarit]] flourished, but was permanently destroyed at the end of it (ca. 1200 B.C.E.).
*[[Islam|Islamic tradition]]: According to Islamic tradition an Arab is a person descending Isma'il ([[Ishmael]]) son of The Prophet Ibrahim ([[Abraham]]).
 
*[[Identity (social science)|Ethnic identity]]: someone who considers him or herself to be an Arab (regardless of [[racial]] or [[ethnic origin]]) and is recognized as such by others.  
 
*[[Language|Linguistic]]: someone whose [[first language]] is [[Arabic language|Arabic]] (including any of its [[Varieties of Arabic|varieties]]); this definition covers more than 250 million people. Arabic belongs to the [[Semitic]] family of languages.
 
*[[Genealogy|Genealogical]]: someone who can trace his or her ancestry back to the original inhabitants of the [[Arabian Peninsula]] and the [[Syrian Desert]].
 
*[[Political geography|Political]]: someone who is a resident or [[citizen]] of a country where Arabic is one of the [[official languages|official languages]] or the [[national language]], or is a member of the [[Arab League]] or is part of the wider [[Arab world]]; this definition would cover more than 300 million people, but it is rather simplistic and rigid in that it excludes the entire [[Arab_diaspora|Diaspora]] but includes [[Indigenous peoples|indigenous]] or [[migrant]] [[ethnic minority|minorities]].
 
  
[[Image:Boat on Euphrates.jpg|thumb|right|A man and a woman make their way up the [[Euphrates]] in [[Basra, Iraq]]]]
+
Historian Gerhard Herm asserts that, because the Phoenicians' legendary sailing abilities are not well attested before the invasions of the Sea Peoples around 1200 B.C.E.., that these Sea Peoples would have merged with the local population to produce the Phoenicians, who he says gained these abilities rather suddenly at that time. There is also archaeological evidence that the Philistines, often thought of as related to the Sea Peoples, were culturally linked to Mycenaean Greeks, who were also known to be great sailors even in this period.
 
 
The relative importance of these factors is estimated differently by different groups. Most people who consider themselves Arabs do so on the basis of the overlap of the political and linguistic definitions. However, some members of groups which fulfill both criteria reject the identity on the basis of the genealogical definition; [[Lebanon|Lebanese]] [[Maronites]], for example, may reject the Arab label in favor of a narrower [[Phoenicia]]n-Lebanese national identity (although Maronites originate from the Syrian interior and Phonecians lived on the coasts of Syria and Lebanon), as do many Coptic and Muslim Egyptians who embrace the continuation of their ancient heritage. Groups using a non-Arabic liturgical language are especially likely to consider themselves non-Arab. Not many people consider themselves Arab on the basis of the political definition without the linguistic one&mdash;thus, [[Kurd]]s or [[Berber]]s do not usually identify themselves as Arab&mdash;but some do (for instance, some Berbers do consider themselves Arabs, and Kurds are cousins of the [[persian_people|Persian]]s).  
 
  
Ibn Asakir in his Tarikh Dimashq (Dar Al-Fikr, Beirut, ed. 13, Vol. 21, pg, 407):
+
The question of the Phoenicians' origin persists. Professional archaeologists have pursued the origin of the Phoenicians for generations, basing their analyzes on excavated sites, the remains of material culture, contemporary texts set into contemporary contexts, as well as linguistics. In some cases, the debate is characterized by modern cultural agendas. Ultimately, the origins of the Phoenicians are still unclear: where they came from and just when (or if) they arrived, and under what circumstances, are all still energetically disputed.
"Qurra Bin Isa Al-Wasiti narrated to us from Abu Bakr Az-Dzuhli narrated to us from Malik Bin Anas from Abu Salama Ibn Abdur-Rahman who said: Qays Bin Mattatiyya came to a circle in which were sitting Salman the Persian, Suhayb the Roman, and Bilal the Ethiopian, whereupon he said: People! The Lord is One and the Father [Adam] is one. Being an Arab is not, in any of you, inherited from father or mother but it is only the language that is spoken (Innama Hiya Al-lisan). So, whoever speaks Arabic then he is an Arab." Then Mu'adzh Bin Jabal stood - still holding the other's collar - and said: 'What do you order us to do with this hypocrite, O Messenger of Allah?' He replied, 'Leave him to the Fire.' And Qays was among those who committed apostasy during the Ridda, at which time he was killed." This however is not a sound Hadith of the Prophet Muhammad, rather a statement of a religious hypocrite, Qays Ibn Matatiya.  
 
  
According to [[Habib Hassan Touma]] (1996, p.xviii), "An 'Arab', in the modern sense of the word, is one who is a national of an Arab state, has command of the Arabic language, and possesses a fundamental knowledge of Arabian tradition, that is, of the manners, customs, and political and social systems of the culture."
+
Some Lebanese, Syrians, Maltese, Tunisians, Algerians and a small percentage of Somalis, along with certain other island folk in the Mediterranean, still consider themselves descendants of Phoenicians. The [[Melungeons]] are also sometimes claimed to be descendants of the Phoenicians.
  
On its formation in 1946, the [[Arab League]] defined an "Arab" as follows:
+
==The cultural and economic "empire"==
 +
[[Image:Anthropoid sarcophagus discovered at Cadiz - Project Gutenberg eText 15052.png|thumb|180px|left|Phoenician sarcophagus found in Cadiz, [[Spain]]; now in Archaeological Museum of Cádiz. The sarcophagus is thought to have been designed and paid for by a Phoenician merchant, and made in Greece with Egyptian influence.]]
  
<blockquote>"An Arab is a person whose language is Arabic, who lives in an Arabic speaking country, who is in sympathy with the aspirations of the Arabic speaking peoples."</blockquote>
+
[[Fernand Braudel]] remarked in ''The Perspective of the World'' that Phoenicia was an early example of a "world-economy" surrounded by empires. The high point of Phoenician culture and seapower is usually placed ca 1200 – 800 B.C.E..  
  
A definition based on sociological variables is widely used since [[medieval]] times ([[Ibn Khaldun]], for example, does not use the word ''Arab'' to refer to the Arab people as defined by any of those definition, but only to those who are still living a bedouin life;i.e. a nomadic life, which he -Ibn Khaldoun- contrasts with urbanized life at the cities), this definition is still used by many Arabs.
+
Many of the most important Phoenician settlements had been established long before this: Byblos, Tyre, Sidon, Simyra, Aradus and [Berytus (Beirut) all appear in the Amarna tablets; and indeed, the first appearance in archeology of cultural elements clearly identifiable with the Phoenician zenith is sometimes dated as early as the third millennium B.C.E.
  
==Religions==
+
This league of independent [[city-state]] ports, with others on the islands and along other coasts of the [[Mediterranean Sea]], was ideally suited for trade between the Levant area, rich in natural resources, and the rest of the ancient world. Suddenly, during the early [[Iron Age]], in around 1200 B.C.E. an unknown event occurred, historically associated with the appearance of the Sea Peoples from the north who were perhaps driven south by crop failures and mass starvation following the eruption. The powers that had previously dominated the area, notably the [[Ancient Egypt|Egyptians]] and the [[Hittites]], became weakened or destroyed; and in the resulting power vacuum a number of Phoenician cities established themselves as significant maritime powers.
  
The Arabs are mainly Muslim with sizeable Christian followers, and some Arab Jews. Arab Muslim are [[Sunni]], [[Shia]], [[Ibadhite]], [[Alawite]], [[Ismaili]] or [[Druze]]. The [[Druze]] faith is sometimes considered as a religion apart. The [[Arab Christians]] follow generally one of the following [[Eastern Churches]]: [[Coptic]], [[Maronite]], [[Greek Orthodox]], [[Greek Catholic]], or [[Chaldean]].  
+
Authority seems to have stabilized because it derived from three power-bases: the king; the temple and its priests; and councils of elders. [[Byblos]] soon became the predominant center from where they proceeded to dominate the Mediterranean and Erythraean (Red) Sea routes, and it is here that the first inscription in the Phoenician alphabet was found, on the sarcophagus of Ahiram (ca. 1200 B.C.E.). However, by around 1000 B.C.E. Tyre and Sidon had taken its place, and a long hegemony was enjoyed by Tyre beginning with Hiram I (969-936 B.C.E.), who subjected a rebellion in the colony of Utica. The priest Ittobaal (887-856 B.C.E.) ruled Phoenicia as far north as Beirut, and part of Cyprus. [[Carthage]] was founded in 814 B.C.E. under Pygmalion (820-774 B.C.E.). The collection of city-kingdoms constituting Phoenicia came to be characterized by outsiders and the Phoenicians themselves as ''Sidonia'' or ''Tyria,'' and Phoenicians and Canaanites alike came to be called ''Zidonians'' or ''Tyrians,'' as one Phoenician conquest came to prominence after another.
  
Before the coming of [[Islam]], most Arabs followed a religion featuring the worship of a number of deities, including [[Hubal]], [[Wadd]], [[Al-Lat]], [[Manat]], and [[Uzza]], while some tribes had converted to Christianity or Judaism, and a few individuals, the ''[[hanif]]s'', had apparently rejected [[polytheism]] in favor of a vague [[monotheism]]. The most prominent Arab Christian kingdoms were the [[Ghassanid]] and [[Lakhmid]] kingdoms. With the coversion of the [[Himyarite]] kings to [[Judaism]] in the late 4th century the elites of the other prominent Arab kingdom, the [[Kindites]], being Himyirite vassals, appear to have converted (at least partly) to Judaism too. With the expansion of Islam, the majority of Arabs rapidly became Muslims, and the pre-Islamic polytheistic traditions disappeared.
+
==Phoenician trade==
 +
[[Image:PhoenicianTrade.png|right|400px|thumb|Map of Phoenicia and trade routes.]]
 +
In the centuries following 1200 B.C.E., the Phoenicians formed the major naval and trading power of the region. Perhaps it was through these merchants that the Hebrew word ''kena'ani'' ('Canaanite') came to have the secondary, and apt, meaning of "merchant." The Greek term "Tyrian purple" describes the dye they were especially famous for, and their port town Tyre. The Phoenicians also traded cedar for making ships and other things. Phoenician trade was founded on this violet-purple dye derived from the ''Murex'' sea-snail's shell, once profusely available in coastal waters but exploited to local extinction. James B. Pritchard's excavations at Sarepta in Lebanon revealed crushed Murex shells and pottery containers stained with the dye that was being produced at the site. Brilliant textiles were a part of Phoenician wealth. Phoenician [[glass]] was another export ware. Phoenicians seem to have first discovered the technique of producing transparent glass. Phoenicians also shipped tall Lebanon cedars to Egypt, a civilization that consumed more wood than it could produce. Indeed, the Amarna tablets suggest that in this manner the Phoenicians paid tribute to Egypt in the fourteenth century B.C.E..
  
At present, most Arabs are [[Muslim]]s. [[Sunni Islam]] dominates in most areas, overwhelmingly so in North Africa; [[Shia Islam]] is prevalent in [[Bahrain]], southern [[Iraq]] and adjacent parts of [[Saudi Arabia]], southern [[Lebanon]], parts of [[Syria]], and northern [[Yemen]]. The tiny [[Druze]] community, belonging to a secretive offshoot of Islam, is usually considered Arab, but sometimes considered an ethnicity in its own right.
+
They obtained many other materials from distant lands, perhaps the most important being [[tin]] and [[silver]] from [[Spain]] and possibly even from [[Cornwall]] in [[Great Britain]], which together with [[copper]] (from [[Cyprus]]) was used to make [[bronze]]. Trade routes from [[Asia]] converged on the Phoenician coast as well, enabling the Phoenicians to govern trade between Mesopotamia on the one side, and [[Egypt]] and [[Arabia]] on the other.
  
Reliable estimates of the number of Arab [[Christian]]s, which in any case depends on the definition of "Arab" used, vary. According to [http://arabworld.nitle.org/texts.php?module_id=6&reading_id=63&sequence=4 Fargues 1998], "Today Christians only make up 9.2% of the population of the Near East". In Lebanon they now number about 39% of the population [https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/le.html#People], in Syria they make up about 10 to 15%, in the Palestinian territories the figure is 3.8%, and in Israel Arab Christians constitute 2.1% (or roughly 10% of the [[Israeli Arab]] population). In Egypt, they constitute 5.9% of the population, and in Iraq they presumably comprise 2.9% of the populace. Most [[North America|North]] and [[South America]]n and [[Australia]]n Arabs (about two-thirds) are [[Arab Christians]], particularly from [[Syria]], [[Palestine (region)|Palestine]], and [[Lebanon]].
+
===Colonies and Settlements===
 +
The Phoenicians established commercial outposts throughout the Mediterranean, the most strategically important ones being [[Carthage]] in North Africa, and directly across the narrow straits in [[Sicily]]—carefully selected with the design of monopolizing the Mediterranean trade beyond that point and keeping their rivals from passing through. Other colonies were planted in [[Cyprus]], [[Corsica]], [[Sardinia]], the Iberian Peninsula, and elsewhere.<ref>
 +
[http://wps.ablongman.com/wps/media/objects/262/268312/art/figures/KISH_04_77.gif Greek and Phoenician Colonies and Trade], Pearson Education. Retrieved May 28, 2013.</ref> They also founded innumerable small outposts a day's sail away from each other all along the North African coast on the route to Spain's mineral wealth. The name ''Spain'' comes from the Phoenician word ''I-Shaphan,'' meaning, thanks to an early double misidentification, 'island of hyraxes'.
  
[[Jew]]s from Arab countries - mainly [[Mizrahi Jews]] and [[Yemenite Jews]] - are today usually not categorised as Arab. Sociologist Philip Mendes asserts that before the anti-Jewish actions of the 1930s and 1940s, overall [[Iraqi Jews]] "viewed themselves as Arabs of the Jewish faith, rather than as a separate race or nationality". [http://www.labyrinth.net.au/~ajds/mendes_refugees.htm] Prior to the emergence of the term ''Mizrahi'', the term "[[Arab Jews]]" (''Yehudim ‘Áravim'', יהודים ערבים) was sometimes used to describe Jews of the [[Arab world]]. The term is rarely used today. The few remaining Jews in the Arab countries reside mostly in Morocco and Tunisia. Between the late 1940s and early 1960s, following the creation of the state of [[Israel]], most of these Jews left or were expelled from their countries of birth and are now mostly concentrated in Israel. Some also immigrated to [[France]] (where they form the largest Jewish community, outnumbering [[Ashkenazi Jews|European Jews]]), but relatively few to the [[United States]]. (see [[Jewish exodus from Arab lands]]).
+
The date when many of these cities were founded has been very controversial. Greek sources put the foundation of many cities very early. Cadiz in Spain was traditionally founded in 1110 B.C.E..E., while Utica in Africa was supposedly founded in 1101 B.C.E. However, no archaeological remains have been dated to such a remote era. The traditional dates may reflect the establishment of rudimentary way stations that left little archaeological trace, and only grew into full cities centuries later.<ref>Sabatino Moscati, ''The World of the Phoenicians'' (Phoenix Giant, 1999, ISBN 978-0753807460). </ref> Alternatively, the early dates may reflect Greek historians' belief that the legends of [[Troy]] (mentioning these cities) were historically reliable.
  
==History==
+
Phoenician ships used to ply the coast of southern Spain and along the coast of present-day Portugal. The fishermen of Nazaré and Aveiro in Portugal are traditionally of Phoenician descent. This can be seen today in the unusual and ancient design of their boats, which have soaring pointed bows and are painted with mystical symbols. It is often mentioned that Phoenicians ventured north into the Atlantic ocean as far as Great Britain, where the tin mines in what is now Cornwall provided them with important materials, although no archaeological evidence supports this belief. They also sailed south along the coast of [[Africa]]. A Carthaginian expedition led by [[Hanno the Navigator]] explored and colonized the Atlantic coast of Africa as far as the Gulf of Guinea; and according to [[Herodotus]], a Phoenician expedition sent down the [[Red Sea]] by Pharaoh Necho II of Egypt (c. 600 B.C.E.) even circumnavigated Africa and returned through the Pillars of Hercules in three years.
The first written attestation of the ethnonym "Arab" occurs in an [[Assyria]]n inscription of [[853 B.C.E.]], where [[Shalmaneser III]] lists a King [[Gindibu]] of ''mâtu arbâi'' (Arab land) as among the people he defeated at the [[Battle of Qarqar]]. Some of the names given in these texts are Aramaic, while others are the first attestations of Proto-Arabic dialects. The [[Hebrew Bible]] likewise refers occasionally to peoples called ''`Arvi'' (or variants thereof), translated as "Arab" or "Arabian". The scope of the Hebrew term at this early stage is unclear, but it seems to have referred to various desert-dwelling [[Semitic]] tribes in the [[Syrian Desert]] and [[Arabia]]. Its earliest attested use referring to the southern "[[Qahtanite]]" Arabs is much later.  
 
  
Proto-Arabic, or Ancient North Arabian, texts give a clearer picture of the Arabs' emergence into history. The earliest such texts are written not in the modern Arabic alphabet, nor in its Nabataean ancestor, but in variants of the Epigraphic South Arabian ''[[musnad]]'', beginning in the 8th century B.C.E. with the [[Al-Hasa|Hasaean]] inscriptions of eastern Saudi Arabia, and continuing from the 6th century B.C.E. on with the [[Lihyanite]] texts (in southeastern Saudi Arabia) and the [[Thamudic]] texts (found throughout Arabia and the Sinai, and not in reality connected with [[Thamud]]). Later come the [[Safaitic]] inscriptions (beginning in the 1st century B.C.E.) and the many Arabic personal names attested in [[Nabataean]] inscriptions (which are, however, written in Aramaic.) From about the 2nd century B.C.E., a few inscriptions from [[Qaryat al-Faw]] (near [[Sulayyil]]) reveal a dialect which is no longer considered "Proto-Arabic", but Pre-Classical Arabic.
+
The Phoenicians were not an agricultural people, because most of the land was not arable; therefore, they focused on commerce and trading instead. They did, however, raise sheep and sold them and their wool.
  
By the fourth century AD, the Arab kingdoms of the [[Lakhmids]] in southern [[Iraq]] and [[Ghassanids]] in southern [[Syria]] had emerged just south of the [[Fertile Crescent]] and ended up allying respectively with the [[Sassanid]] and [[Byzantine Empire|Byzantine]] Empires. In addition to this the [[Kindite]] Kingdom emerged in Central Arabia that allied with the [[Himyarite]] Empire of South Arabia. Thus they were constantly at war with each other on behalf of their imperial patrons. However, their courts were responsible for some notable examples of pre-Islamic Arabic poetry, and for some of the few surviving [[pre-Islamic Arabic inscriptions]] in the Arabic alphabet. The Lakhmid kingdom was dissolved by the Sassanids in 602, while the Ghassanids would hold out until engulfed by the expansion of [[Islam]].
+
The Phoenicians exerted considerable influence on the other groups around the Mediterranean, notably the Greeks, who later became their main commercial rivals. They appear in Greek mythology. Traditionally, the city of [[Thebes]] was founded by a Phoenician prince named Cadmus when he set out to look for his sister Europa, who had been kidnapped by Zeus.
  
In the [[Qur'an]], the word ''{{ArabDIN|ʿarab}}'' does not appear, only the [[nisba]] adjective, ''{{ArabDIN|ʿarabiyyun}}'': The Qur'an is referring to itself as ''{{ArabDIN|ʿarabiyyun}}'' "Arabic" and ''{{ArabDIN|mubinun}}'' "clear". The two qualities are connected, for example in ayat [[Az-Zukhruf|43]].2-3, "By the ''clear'' Book: We have made it an ''Arabic'' recitation in order that you may understand", and the Qur'an came to be regarded as the prime example of the ''{{ArabDIN|al-ʿarabiyyatu}}'', the language of the Arabs. The term ''[[I`rab|{{ArabDIN|ʾiʿrāb}}]]'' is from the same root, referring to a particularly clear and correct mode of speech. The plural noun ''{{ArabDIN|ʾaʿrāb}}'' refers to the [[Bedouin]] tribes of the desert who resisted Muhammad, for example in ayat [[At-Tawba|9]].97,
+
The Phoenician alphabet was developed around 1200 B.C.E. from an earlier Semitic prototype that also gave rise to the Ugaritic alphabet. It was used mainly for commercial notes. The Greek alphabet, that forms the basis of all European alphabets, was derived from the Phoenician one. The alphabets of the Middle East and [[India]] are also thought to derive, directly or indirectly, from the Phoenician alphabet. Ironically, the Phoenicians themselves are mostly silent on their own history, possibly because they wrote on perishable materials, [[papyrus]] or skins. Other than the stone inscriptions, Phoenician writing has largely perished. There are a very few writers such as Sanchuniathon quoted only in later works, and the Phoenicians were described by Sallust and [[Augustine of Hippo|Augustine]] as having possessed an extensive literature, but of this, only a single work survives, in Latin translation: Mago's ''Agriculture.'' What is known of them comes mainly from their neighbors, the Greeks and Hebrews.
:''{{ArabDIN|ʾaʿrābu ʾašaddu kufrān wanifāqān}}'' "the Bedouin are the worst in [[kafir|disbelief]] and hypocrisy".
 
Based on this, in early Islamic terminology, ''{{ArabDIN|ʿarab}}'' referred to sedentary Arabs, living in cities such as Mecca and Medina, and ''{{ArabDIN|ʾaʿrāb}}'' referred to the Arab Bedouins, carrying a negative connotation due to the Qur'anic verdict just cited. Following the [[Islamic conquest]] of the [[8th century]], however, the language of the nomadic Arabs came to be regarded as preserving the highest purity by the grammarians following [[Abi Ishaq]], and the term {{ArabDIN|kalam al-ʿArab}} "language of the Arabs" came to denote the uncontaminated language of the Bedouins.
 
  
The relation of ''{{ArabDIN|ʿarab}}'' and ''{{ArabDIN|ʾaʿrāb}}'' is complicated further by the notion of "lost Arabs" ''{{ArabDIN|al-ʿArab al-ba'ida}}'' mentioned in the Qur'an as punished for their disbelief. All contemporary Arabs were considered as descended from two ancestors, [[Qahtan]] and [[Adnan]], of which Qahtan was related to the "lost Arabs", and the [[Southern Arabs]] were identified as of his lineage, regarded as the "real Arabs", ''{{ArabDIN|al-ʿArab al-ʿariba}}'', while the Northern Arabs, including the tribes of Mecca, were considered the descendants of Adnan, in Islamic tradition traced back to [[Ismail]] son of [[Abraham]], said to have been arabized at a later period.
+
With the rise of [[Assyria]], the Phoenician cities one by one lost their independence; however the city of Tyre, situated just off the mainland and protected by powerful fleets, proved impossible to take by the Assyrians, and many others after them. The Phoenician cities were later dominated by Babylonia, then [[Persia]]. They remained very important, however, and provided these powers with their main source of naval strength. The stacked warships, such as triremes and quinqueremes, were probably Phoenician inventions, though eagerly adopted by the Greeks.
  
Versteegh (1997) is uncertain whether to ascribe this distinction to the memory of a real difference of origin of the two groups, but it is certain that the difference was strongly felt in early Islamic times, even in [[Al-Andalus|Islamic Spain]], there was enmity between the Qays of the Northern and the Kalb of the Southern group. The so-called [[Himyarite language]] described by [[Al-Hamdani]] (died [[946]]) appears to be a special case of language contact between the two groups, an originally North Arabic dialect spoken in the South, and influenced by [[Old South Arabic]].
+
==Did the Phoenicians 'Discover' America?==
 +
The possibility that the Phoenician's may have made a pre-Columbian voyage or voyages to the Americas has been explored by several scholars from as early as T. C Johnston's 1892 book, ''Did the Phoenicians Discover America?''. Work on Phoenician [[coin]]s carried out by Mark McMenamin suggests that gold coins minted in Carthage between 350 and 320 B.C.E. may depict a map of the Americas.<ref>[http://phoenicia.org/america.html The Phoenician coin presumed to contain a map of the ancient world]. ''Did the Phoenicians Discover the New World?'' Retrieved May 9, 2013.</ref> Some have speculated that the Phoenicians may even have colonized the Americas. [[Thor Heyerdahl]]'s Ra I and Ra I expeditions were designed to prove that Egyptian ships could have crossed the Atlantic but could also be applied to the Phoenicians, who were renowned for their seamanship and who were often employed as sailors and explorers by the Egyptians. Some first century peruvian pottery resembles Phoenician pottery. Wreckage of Phoenician ships and an inscription on a rock in Brazil suggests Phoenicians had visited there.
  
During the [[8th century|8th]] and [[9th century|9th]] centuries, the Arabs (specifically the [[Umayyad]]s, and later [[Abbasids]]) forged an empire whose borders touched southern [[France]] in the west, [[China]] in the east, [[Asia Minor]] in the north, and the [[Sudan]] in the south. This was one of the largest land empires in history. Throughout much of this area, the Arabs spread the religion of [[Islam]] and the Arabic language (the language of the [[Qur'an]]) through [[conversion]] and [[cultural assimilation|assimilation]]. Many groups came to be known as "Arabs" not through descent but through this process of [[Arabization]]. Thus, over time, the term ''Arab'' came to carry a broader meaning than the original ethnic term: ''cultural'' Arab vs. ''ethnic'' Arab. People in [[Sudan]], [[Egypt]], [[Culture of Morocco|Morocco]], [[Algeria]] and elsewhere became Arab through [[Arabization]].
+
==Decline==
 +
[[Cyrus the Great]] conquered Phoenicia in 538 B.C.E. Phoenicia was divided into four vassal kingdoms by the Persians: Sidon, Tyre, Arwad, and Byblos, and they prospered, furnishing fleets for the Persian kings. However, Phoenician influence declined after this. It is also reasonable to suppose that much of the Phoenician population migrated to [[Carthage]] and other colonies following the Persian conquest, as it is roughly then (under King Hanno) that historical records identify Carthage as a powerful maritime entity. In 350 or 345 B.C.E. a rebellion in Sidon led by Tennes was crushed by [[Artaxerxes III]], and its destruction was described, perhaps too dramatically, by Diodorus Siculus.  
  
[[Arab nationalism]] declares that Arabs are united in a shared history, culture and language. Arab nationalists believe that Arab identity encompasses more than outward physical characteristics, [[race]] or [[religion]]. A related ideology, [[Pan-Arabism]], calls for all Arab lands to be united as one [[state]]. Arab nationalism has often competed for existence with regional and ethnic nationalisms in the Middle East, such as Lebanese and Egyptian.
+
[[Alexander the Great]] took Tyre in 332 B.C.E. following the Siege of Tyre. Alexander was exceptionally harsh to Tyre, executing 2,000 of the leading citizens, but he maintained the king in power. He gained control of the other cities peacefully: the ruler of Aradus submitted; the king of Sidon was overthrown. The rise of Hellenistic Greece gradually ousted the remnants of Phoenicia's former dominance over the Eastern Mediterranean trade routes, and Phoenician culture disappeared entirely in the motherland. However, its North African offspring, [[Carthage]], continued to flourish, mining iron and precious metals from Iberia, and using its considerable naval power and mercenary armies to protect its commercial interests, until it was finally destroyed by Rome in 149 B.C.E. at the end of the Punic Wars.
  
==Traditional genealogy==
+
As for the Phoenician homeland, following Alexander it was controlled by a succession of Hellenistic rulers: Laomedon of Mytilene (323 B.C.E.), Ptolemy I (320 B.C.E.), Antigonus II (315 B.C.E.), Demetrius I of Macedon (301 B.C.E.), and Seleucus I Nicator (296 B.C.E.).  Between 286 and 197 B.C.E., Phoenicia (except for Aradus) fell to the Ptolemies of Egypt, who intalled the high priests of [[Astarte]] as vassal rulers in Sidon (Eshmunazar I, Tabnit, Eshmunazar II). In 197 B.C.E., Phoenicia along with Syria reverted to the [[Seleucids]], and the region became increasingly Hellenized, although Tyre actually became autonomous in 126 B.C.E., followed by Sidon in 111. Syrian lands, including Phoenicia, were seized by king Tigranes the Great from 82 until 69 B.C.E.. when he was defeated by Lucullus, and in 65 B.C.E. [[Pompey]] finally incorporated it as part of the Roman province of Syria.
Medieval Arab [[genealogist]]s divided the Arabs into three groups:
 
*the "ancient Arabs", tribes that had vanished or been destroyed, such as [['Ad]] and [[Thamud]]; they are often alluded to in the [[Qur'an]] as examples of God's power to destroy wicked peoples.
 
*the "Pure Arabs" of South Arabia, descending from [[Qahtan]]. The [[Qahtanite]]s (Qahtanis) are said to have migrated the land of [[Yemen]] following the destruction of the [[Ma'rib Dam]] (''sadd Ma'rib'').
 
*The "Arabized Arabs" (''musta`ribah'') of North Arabia, descending from [[Adnan]].
 
  
The [[Arabic language]] spoken today in classical Quranic form was the result of a mix between the original Arabic of Qahtan and northern Arabic which shares a great deal with northern Semitic languages from the [[Levant]]. The Arabs take a great pride in their language and its survival as a usable and comprehensible language over thousands of years.
+
==Important Phoenician cities and colonies==
 +
[[File:Towns of aram.jpg|thumb|300px|Detailed map of Phoenicia]]
 +
From the tenth century B.C.E., their expansive culture established cities and colonies throughout the Mediterranean. Canaanite deities like [[Baal]] and [[`Ashtart|Astarte]] were being worshiped from Cyprus to Sardinia, Malta, Sicily, and most notably at Carthage in modern Tunisia.
  
In Jewish and Christian traditions the [[Ishmaelites]] were described as an "Arabian people" at least by the time of Josephus, which became standard centuries prior to Islam (in which the term ''Hagarenes'', a pun on the Arabic ''[[muhajir]]'' and the name of [[Hagar]], was commonly used). Efforts to reconcile the Biblical and Arab genealogies later led to conflicting attempts to trace Adnan to [[Ishmael]] (Ismail), the eldest son of [[Abraham]] and [[Hagar]]. [[Joktan]] was identified with Qahtan, probably due to his Biblical identification as the ancestor of Hazarmaveth ([[Hadramawt]]) and [[Sheba]].
+
In the Phoenician homeland:
  
==Etymology==
+
* [[Arka]]
{{main|Etymology of the word Arab}}
+
* [[Arwad]] (Classical Aradus)
The term "Arab" or "Arabian" (and cognates in other languages) has been used to translate several different but similar sounding names of ancient peoples of the Middle East which do not necessarily have the same meaning or origin. The etymology of the term is of course closely linked to that of the place name "Arabia". The root of the word has many meanings in Semitic languages including "west / sunset", "desert", "mingle", "merchant", "raven", "comprehensible" all of which appear to have some relevance to the emergence of the name.
+
* [[Batroun]]
 +
* [[Beirut]] (''Greek'' Βηρυτός; ''Latin'' Berytus;<br/>''Arabic'' بيروت; ''English'' Beirut)
 +
* [[Byblos]]
 +
* [[Safita]]
 +
* [[Sidon]]
 +
* [[Tripoli]], Lebanon
 +
* [[Tyre]]
 +
* [[Ugarit]]
 +
* [[Zemar]] (Sumur)
  
==References==
 
<references/>
 
  
==Sources==
+
Phoenician colonies, including some unimportant ones (this list may be incomplete):
*[http://www.harthi.org Harthi.org]
+
{{col-begin}}
*Touma, Habib Hassan. ''The Music of the Arabs''. Portland, Oregon: Amadeus P, 1996. ISBN 0931340888.
+
{{col-break}}
*Lipinski, Edward. ''Semitic Languages: Outlines of a Comparative Grammar'', 2nd ed., Orientalia Lovanensia Analecta: Leuven 2001
+
* Located in modern [[Algeria]]
*Kees Versteegh, ''The Arabic Language'', Edinburgh University Press (1997) [http://arabworld.nitle.org/texts.php?module_id=1&reading_id=36]
+
** Hippo Regius (modern Annaba)
*[http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01663a.htm The Catholic Encyclopedia, Robert Appleton Company, 1907, Online Edition, K. Night 2003: article Arabia]
+
** Icosium (modern Algiers)
*[https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/le.html#People]
+
** Iol Caesarea (modern Cherchell)
*History of Arabic language, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd. [http://www.paklinks.com/gs/archive/index.php/t-4130.html]. Retrieved Feb.17, 2006
+
* Located in modern [[Cyprus]]
*The Arabic language, National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education web page (2006) [http://arabworld.nitle.org/texts.php?module_id=1&reading_id=36]. Retrieved Jun. 14, 2006
+
** Kition (modern Larnaca)
*Hooker, Richard. "Pre-Islamic Arabic Culture." WSU Web Site. 6 June 1999. Washington State University. 5 July 2006 <http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/ISLAM/PRE.HTM>.
+
* Located in modern [[Italy]]
 +
** [[Sardinia]]
 +
*** Karalis (modern Cagliari)
 +
*** Nora, [[Italy]]
 +
*** Olbia
 +
*** Sulci
 +
*** Tharros
 +
** [[Sicily]]
 +
*** Ziz, Classical Lilybeaum (modern Marsala)
 +
*** Motya
 +
*** Panormos (modern Palermo)
 +
*** Solus (modern Solunto)
 +
* Located in modern [[Libya]]
 +
** Leptis Magna
 +
** Oea (modern Tripoli)
 +
** Sabratha
 +
* Located in modern [[Mauritania]]
 +
** Cerne
 +
* Located in modern [[Morocco]]
 +
** Acra
 +
** Arambys
 +
** Caricus Murus
 +
** Gytta
 +
** Lixus (modern Larache)
 +
** Tingis (modern [[Tangier]])
 +
{{col-break}}
 +
* Located in modern [[Spain]]
 +
** bdera (modern Adra)
 +
** Abyla (modern Ceuta)
 +
** Akra Leuke (modern Alicante)
 +
** Gadir (modern [[Cádiz]])
 +
** Ibossim (modern [[Ibiza]])
 +
** Malaca (modern Málaga)
 +
** Onoba (modern Huelva)
 +
** Qart Hadašt (''Greek'' Νέα Καρχηδόνα; ''Latin'' Carthago Nova; ''Spanish'' Cartagena)
 +
** Rusadir (modern Melilla)
 +
** Sexi (modern Almuñécar)
 +
* Located in modern [[Tunisia]]
 +
** Hadrumetum (modern Susat)
 +
** Hippo Diarrhytos (modern Bizerte)
 +
** Qart Hadašt(''Greek'' Καρχηδόνα; ''Latin'' Carthago; ''English'' [[Carthage]])
 +
** Thapsus (near modern Bekalta)
 +
** Utica
 +
* Located in modern [[Turkey]]
 +
** Phoenicus (modern [[Finike]])
 +
* Other colonies
 +
** Calpe (modern [[Gibraltar]])
 +
** Gunugu
 +
** Thenae
 +
** Tipassa
 +
{{col-end}}
 +
 
 +
==Language and literature==
 +
{{readout||left|250px|The Phoenicians are credited with spreading the [[Phoenician alphabet]] throughout the [[Mediterranean]] world, so that it became one of the most widely used [[writing system]]s}}
 +
The Phoenicians are credited with spreading the [[Phoenician alphabet]] throughout the Mediterranean world. It was a variant of the Semitic alphabet of the Canaanite area developed centuries earlier in the [[Sinai]] region, or in central Egypt. Phoenician traders disseminated this [[writing system]] along Aegean trade routes, to coastal Anatolia (Turkey), the [[Minoan civilization]] of [[Crete]], [[Mycenean Greece]], and throughout the Mediterranean. Classical Greeks remembered that the [[alphabet]] arrived in Greece with the mythical founder of [[Thebes]], [[Cadmus]].
 +
 
 +
This alphabet has been termed an ''[[abjad]]'' or a script that contains no [[vowel]]s. A [[cuneiform]] ''abjad'' originated to the north in Ugarit, a Canaanite city of northern Syria, in the fourteenth century B.C.E.. Their language, "Phoenician," is commonly classified as in the the Canaanite subgroup of Northwest Semitic. Its later descendant in North Africa is termed "Punic."
 +
 
 +
The earliest known inscriptions in Phoenician come from [[Byblos]] and date back to ca. 1000 B.C.E. Phoenician inscriptions are found in [[Lebanon]], [[Syria]], [[Israel]], [[Cyprus]], and other locations, as late as the early centuries of the Christian Era. Punic, a language that developed from Phoenician in Phoenician colonies around the western Mediterranean beginning in the ninth century B.C.E., slowly supplanted Phoenician there, similar to the way Italian supplanted Latin. Punic Phoenician was still spoken in the fifth century C.E.: [[Augustine of Hippo|St. Augustine]], for example, grew up in North Africa and was familiar with the language. The Phoenicians are said to have had a rich literature. Unfortunately, nothing of this has survived. They have been described as "cultural middlemen," often mediating ideas from one culture to others. They have even been credited with sparking off a 'cultural revival in Greece, one which led to the Greeks' Golden Age and hence the birth of Western civilization' itself.<ref>Rick Gore, [http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0410/feature2/index.html "Who Were the Phoenicians?] ''National Geographic'' magazine online. Retrieved November 6, 2007. </ref>
 +
 
 +
==Phoenicians in the Bible==
 +
In the Old Testament there is no reference to the Greek term ''Phoenicia''; instead, the inhabitants of the coastal are identified by their city of origin, most often as Sidonians (Gen. x. 15; Judges iii. 3; x. 6, xviii. 7; I Kings v. 20, xvi. 31). Early relations between Israelites and the Canaanites were cordial: Hiram of Tyre, a Phoenician by modern assessment, furnished architects, workmen and cedar timbers for the temple of his ally [[Solomon]] at Jerusalem. The Phoenician language was largely mutually intelligible with the Hebrew language, and cultural similarities between the two peoples were significant, leading to the worship of Phoenician gods like [[Baal]] by some Jews during the time of Prophet [[Elijah]].
 +
 
 +
Of course there is another Hiram (also spelled Huran) associated with the building of the temple.
 +
:" The son of a woman of the daughters of Dan, and his father [was] a man of Tyre, skilful to work in gold, and in silver, in brass, in iron, in stone, and in timber, in purple, in blue, and in fine linen, and in crimson; also to grave any manner of graving, and to find out every device which shall be put to him…"  (2 Ch 2:14)
 +
This is the architect of the Temple, Hiram Abiff of Masonic lore. They are vastly famous for their purple dye.
 +
 
 +
Later, reforming prophets railed against the practice of drawing royal wives from among foreigners: [[Elijah]] execrated Jezebel, the princess from Tyre who became a consort of King Ahab and introduced the worship of her gods.
 +
 
 +
In the Bible, King Hiram I of Tyre is mentioned as co-operating with [[Solomon]] in mounting an expedition on the [[Red Sea]] and on building the temple. The Temple of Solomon is considered to be built according to Phoenician design, and its description is considered the best description of what a Phoenician temple looked like. Phoenicians from Syria were also called "Syrophenicians."
 +
 
 +
Long after Phoenician culture had flourished, or Phoenicia had existed as any political entity, Hellenized natives of the region where Canaanites still lived were referred to as "Syro-Phoenician," as in the ''[[Mark, Gospel of|Gospel of Mark]]'' 7:26: "The woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth…"
  
==See also==
+
The word ''Bible'' itself ultimately derives (through Latin and Greek) from Byblos, the Phoenician city. Because of its papyri, Byblos was also the source of the Greek word for book and, hence, of the name of the Bible.
*[[Arabia]]
 
*[[Arabic culture]]
 
*[[Arab League]]
 
*[[Arab World]]
 
*[[Arabic alphabet]]
 
*[[Arabic language]]
 
*[[Arab Brazilian]]
 
*[[Arabs of North America]]
 
*[[Bedouin]]
 
*[[Nabataeans]]
 
*[[Pan-Arabism]]
 
*[[Semitic]]
 
*[[Philip the Arab]]
 
*[[North Africa]]
 
*[[Middle East]]
 
*[[Qahtanite]]
 
*[[Adnan]]
 
*[[Arab Singaporean]]
 
*[[Arabs of Khuzestan]]
 
*[[Arab Christians]]
 
  
==External links==
+
==Notes==
 +
<references/>
  
*[http://www.albawaba.com News from Arabic countries]
+
==References==
*[http://www.ameinfo.com Business news from Arab countries]
 
*[http://nabataea.net/arabia.html Arabia in ancient history] - with a discussion of the ancient usage of the word ''Arab''
 
*[http://arabworld.nitle.org An Online Resource on Arab Culture and Civilization]
 
*[http://www.geocities.com/martinkramerorg/ArabNationalism.htm Arab Nationalism: Mistaken Identity] by [[Martin Kramer]]
 
*[http://www.al-islam.org/al-tawhid/arabnationalism.htm A Criticism of the Idea of Arab Nationalism]
 
*[http://arabworld.nitle.org/ NITLE Arab World Resource Site]
 
*[http://www.araboo.com/ Araboo.com] - Arab World Directory
 
*Arab lineage Tree available at:  [http://www.harthi.org/ArabTree-I.pdf]
 
  
[[Category:Arab|*]]
+
*Aubet, Maria Eugenia, translated by Mary Turton. ''The Phoenicians and the West: Politics, Colonies and Trade.'' Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN 0521791618 ([http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/2003/2003-12-17.html ''Bryn Mawr Classical Review,'' Dec. 17, 2001 review)] Retrieved November 6, 2007.
 +
*Braudel, Fernand, translated by Sian Reynolds. ''The Perspective of the World: Civilization & Capitalism, 15th - 18th Century,'' Volume 3. HarperCollins Publishers, 1984. ISBN 978=0060153175
 +
*Holst, Sanford. ''Phoenicians, Lebanon's Epic Heritage.''  Los Angeles, CA: Cambridge; and Boston Press, 2005. ISBN 1887263306
 +
*Johnston, Thomas Crawford. ''Did the Phoenicians Discover America?'' London: J. Nisbet, (original 1892); reprinted 1913; Houston, TX: St. Thomas Press, 1965. ISBN 0686050428
 +
*Moscati, Sabatino. ''The World of the Phoenicians''. Phoenix Giant, 1999. ISBN 978-0753807460
 +
*Project Gutenberg, [http://digital.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=2331 ''The History of Phoenicia.''] (original 1889) by George Rawlinson. Retrieved May 9, 2013. Rawlinson's nineteenth century text needs updating for modern improvements in historical understanding.
  
[[als:Araber]]
+
==External links==
[[ar:عرب]]
+
All links retrieved April 26, 2015.
[[bg:Араби]]
+
*Salim George Khalaf [http://phoenicia.org/index.shtml Encyclopedia Phoeniciana website] (largest and most comprehensive website on Phoenicia about 1,200 pages).
[[cs:Arabové]]
+
*[http://www.penn.museum/sites/Canaan/Phoenicians.html University of Pennsylvania Museum] offers simplified but unbiased information on Canaan and Phoenicians, emphasizing common aspects of culture among Israel and the other kingdoms in Canaan.
[[de:Araber]]
+
*Cambridge & Boston Press [http://www.phoenician.org Phoenician Experience] presents recent research on the Phoenicians, and traces their ancient legends.
[[et:Araablased]]
+
*[http://www.lost-civilizations.net/phoenicians-overview.html Phoenicians overview] by Genry Joil.
[[eo:Araboj]]
+
*[http://phoenicia.org/america.html Did Phoenicians discover the New World?] Phoenician research.
[[fa:عرب]]
 
[[fr:Arabes]]
 
[[ko:아랍인]]
 
[[hr:Arapi]]
 
[[id:Bangsa Arab]]
 
[[it:Arabo]]
 
[[he:ערבים]]
 
[[la:Arabi]]
 
[[hu:Arabok]]
 
[[ms:Arab]]
 
[[nl:Arabieren]]
 
[[ja:アラブ人]]
 
[[no:Arabere]]
 
[[pl:Arabowie]]
 
[[pt:Árabes]]
 
[[ro:Arab]]
 
[[ru:Арабы]]
 
[[simple:Arab]]
 
[[sl:Arabci]]
 
[[fi:Arabit]]
 
[[sv:Araber]]
 
[[tt:Ğäräp xalqı]]
 
[[tr:Araplar]]
 
[[yi:אראבער]]
 
[[zh:阿拉伯人]]
 
  
 +
{{Credit|82298404}}
  
{{Credit|68360779}}
+
[[Category:History]]

Revision as of 22:27, 26 April 2015


Phoenicia was an ancient civilization centered in the north of ancient Canaan, with its heartland along the coastal plains of what is now Lebanon. Phoenician civilization was an enterprising maritime trading culture that spread across the Mediterranean during the first millennium B.C.E. Though ancient boundaries of such city-centered cultures fluctuated, the city of Tyre seems to have been the southernmost. Sarepta between Sidon and Tyre, is the most thoroughly excavated city of the Phoenician homeland. Although the people of the region most likely called themselves the kena'ani, the name Phoenicia became common because of the Greeks who called the land Phoiniki - Φοινίκη). This term had been borrowed from Ancient Egyptian Fnkhw "Syrians." Due to phonetic similarity, the Greek word for Phoenician was synonymous with the color purple or crimson, φοῖνιξ (phoînix), through its close association with the famous dye Tyrian purple. The dye was used in ancient textile trade, and highly desired. The Phoenicians became known as the 'Purple People'. The Phoenicians often traded by means of a galley, a man-powered sailing vessel. They were the first civilization to create the bireme. Carthage which rivaled Rome until its defeat was originally a Phoenician colony. They dominated sea trade for at least 3,000 years. They were a conduit through which many ideas were passed on from Asia into Europe, especially into the Greek world. The word 'Bible' is almost certainly derived from Phoenician.

The Phoenician language is counted among the Canaanite languages in the Semitic language family. In addition to their many inscriptions, the Phoenicians, contrary to some reports, wrote many books, which have not survived. Evangelical Preparation by Eusebius of Caesarea quotes extensively from Philo of Byblos and Sanchuniathon. Furthermore, the Phoenician Punic colonies of North Africa continued to be a source of knowledge about the Phoenicians. Saint Augustine knew at least a smattering of Punic and occasionally uses it to explain cognate words found in Hebrew. The name of his mother, Saint Monica, is said to be of Punic origin as well. Many European, North African and Middle Eastern cities can trace themselves back to Phoenician origins. Although overshadowed by the legacy of Greece and of Rome, the Phoenicians opened up trade and commerce and communication on a grand scale, from which all subsequent Empires continued to benefit. The Phonenicians made a substantial contribution to the development of human civilization.

Origins

Recent DNA (Y chromosome) studies conducted by the National Geographic Magazine on the bones of ancient Phoenicians and living people from Syria, Lebanon and elsewhere in the Mediterranean have shown that the modern peoples carry the same ancient Phoenician genetic material. Further, the Phoenician bloodline has been proven to come from an ancient Mediterranean sub-stratum. [1] Stories of their emigrating from various places to the eastern Mediterranean are unfounded. Hence, Herodotus' account (written c. 440 B.C.E.) refers to a faint memory from 1,000 years earlier, and so may be subject to question. This is a legendary introduction to Herodotus' brief retelling of some mythical Hellene-Phoenician interactions; few modern archaeologists would confuse this myth with history:

According to the Persians best informed in history, the Phoenicians began to quarrel. This people, who had formerly reached the shores of the Erythraean Sea, having migrated to the Mediterranean from an unknown origin and settled in the parts which they now inhabit, began at once, they say, to adventure on long voyages, freighting their vessels with the wares of Egypt and Assyria.[2]

This 4th century B.C.E. 1/8 shekel silver coin depicts a phoenician ship on the obverse

In terms of archeology, language, and religion, there is little to set the Phoenicians apart as markedly different from other local cultures of Canaan, because they were Canaanites themselves. However, they are unique in their remarkable seafaring achievements. Indeed, in the Amarna tablets of the fourteenth century B.C.E. they call themselves Kenaani or Kinaani (Canaanites); and even much later in the sixth century B.C.E. Hecataeus writes that Phoenicia was formerly called χνα, a name Philo of Byblos later adopted into his mythology as his eponym for the Phoenicians: "Khna who was afterwards called Phoinix." Egyptian seafaring expeditions had already been made to Byblos to bring back "cedars of Lebanon" as early as the third millennium B.C.E.

To many archaeologists therefore, the Phoenicians are simply indistinguishable from the descendants of coastal-dwelling Canaanites, who over the centuries developed a particular seagoing culture and skills. But others believe equally firmly, with Herodotus, that Phoenician culture must have been inspired from an external source. All manner of suggestions have been made: that the Phoenicians were sea-traders from the Land of Punt who co-opted the Canaanite population; or that they were connected with the Minoans, or the Sea Peoples or the Philistines further south; or even that they represent the maritime activities of supposed coastal Israelite tribes like Dan.

While the Semitic language of the Phoenicians, and some evidence of invasion at the site of Byblos, suggest origins in the wave of Semitic migration that hit the Fertile Crescent between ca. 2300 and 2100 B.C.E., some scholars, including Sabatino Moscati believe that the Phoenicians' ethnogenesis included prior non-Semitic people of the area, suggesting a mixture between two populations. Both Sumerian and Akkadian armies had reached the Mediterranean in this area from the beginning of recorded history, but very little is known of Phoenicia before it was conquered by Tutmoses III of Egypt around 1500 B.C.E. The Amarna correspondence (ca. 1411-1358 B.C.E.) reveals that Amorites and Hittites were defeating the Phoenician cities that had been vassals to Egypt, especially Rib-Addi of Byblos and Abimelech of Tyre, but between 1350 B.C.E. and 1300 B.C.E. Phoenicia was reconquered by Egypt. Over the next century Ugarit flourished, but was permanently destroyed at the end of it (ca. 1200 B.C.E.).

Historian Gerhard Herm asserts that, because the Phoenicians' legendary sailing abilities are not well attested before the invasions of the Sea Peoples around 1200 B.C.E., that these Sea Peoples would have merged with the local population to produce the Phoenicians, who he says gained these abilities rather suddenly at that time. There is also archaeological evidence that the Philistines, often thought of as related to the Sea Peoples, were culturally linked to Mycenaean Greeks, who were also known to be great sailors even in this period.

The question of the Phoenicians' origin persists. Professional archaeologists have pursued the origin of the Phoenicians for generations, basing their analyzes on excavated sites, the remains of material culture, contemporary texts set into contemporary contexts, as well as linguistics. In some cases, the debate is characterized by modern cultural agendas. Ultimately, the origins of the Phoenicians are still unclear: where they came from and just when (or if) they arrived, and under what circumstances, are all still energetically disputed.

Some Lebanese, Syrians, Maltese, Tunisians, Algerians and a small percentage of Somalis, along with certain other island folk in the Mediterranean, still consider themselves descendants of Phoenicians. The Melungeons are also sometimes claimed to be descendants of the Phoenicians.

The cultural and economic "empire"

Phoenician sarcophagus found in Cadiz, Spain; now in Archaeological Museum of Cádiz. The sarcophagus is thought to have been designed and paid for by a Phoenician merchant, and made in Greece with Egyptian influence.

Fernand Braudel remarked in The Perspective of the World that Phoenicia was an early example of a "world-economy" surrounded by empires. The high point of Phoenician culture and seapower is usually placed ca 1200 – 800 B.C.E.

Many of the most important Phoenician settlements had been established long before this: Byblos, Tyre, Sidon, Simyra, Aradus and [Berytus (Beirut) all appear in the Amarna tablets; and indeed, the first appearance in archeology of cultural elements clearly identifiable with the Phoenician zenith is sometimes dated as early as the third millennium B.C.E.

This league of independent city-state ports, with others on the islands and along other coasts of the Mediterranean Sea, was ideally suited for trade between the Levant area, rich in natural resources, and the rest of the ancient world. Suddenly, during the early Iron Age, in around 1200 B.C.E. an unknown event occurred, historically associated with the appearance of the Sea Peoples from the north who were perhaps driven south by crop failures and mass starvation following the eruption. The powers that had previously dominated the area, notably the Egyptians and the Hittites, became weakened or destroyed; and in the resulting power vacuum a number of Phoenician cities established themselves as significant maritime powers.

Authority seems to have stabilized because it derived from three power-bases: the king; the temple and its priests; and councils of elders. Byblos soon became the predominant center from where they proceeded to dominate the Mediterranean and Erythraean (Red) Sea routes, and it is here that the first inscription in the Phoenician alphabet was found, on the sarcophagus of Ahiram (ca. 1200 B.C.E.). However, by around 1000 B.C.E. Tyre and Sidon had taken its place, and a long hegemony was enjoyed by Tyre beginning with Hiram I (969-936 B.C.E.), who subjected a rebellion in the colony of Utica. The priest Ittobaal (887-856 B.C.E.) ruled Phoenicia as far north as Beirut, and part of Cyprus. Carthage was founded in 814 B.C.E. under Pygmalion (820-774 B.C.E.). The collection of city-kingdoms constituting Phoenicia came to be characterized by outsiders and the Phoenicians themselves as Sidonia or Tyria, and Phoenicians and Canaanites alike came to be called Zidonians or Tyrians, as one Phoenician conquest came to prominence after another.

Phoenician trade

Map of Phoenicia and trade routes.

In the centuries following 1200 B.C.E., the Phoenicians formed the major naval and trading power of the region. Perhaps it was through these merchants that the Hebrew word kena'ani ('Canaanite') came to have the secondary, and apt, meaning of "merchant." The Greek term "Tyrian purple" describes the dye they were especially famous for, and their port town Tyre. The Phoenicians also traded cedar for making ships and other things. Phoenician trade was founded on this violet-purple dye derived from the Murex sea-snail's shell, once profusely available in coastal waters but exploited to local extinction. James B. Pritchard's excavations at Sarepta in Lebanon revealed crushed Murex shells and pottery containers stained with the dye that was being produced at the site. Brilliant textiles were a part of Phoenician wealth. Phoenician glass was another export ware. Phoenicians seem to have first discovered the technique of producing transparent glass. Phoenicians also shipped tall Lebanon cedars to Egypt, a civilization that consumed more wood than it could produce. Indeed, the Amarna tablets suggest that in this manner the Phoenicians paid tribute to Egypt in the fourteenth century B.C.E.

They obtained many other materials from distant lands, perhaps the most important being tin and silver from Spain and possibly even from Cornwall in Great Britain, which together with copper (from Cyprus) was used to make bronze. Trade routes from Asia converged on the Phoenician coast as well, enabling the Phoenicians to govern trade between Mesopotamia on the one side, and Egypt and Arabia on the other.

Colonies and Settlements

The Phoenicians established commercial outposts throughout the Mediterranean, the most strategically important ones being Carthage in North Africa, and directly across the narrow straits in Sicily—carefully selected with the design of monopolizing the Mediterranean trade beyond that point and keeping their rivals from passing through. Other colonies were planted in Cyprus, Corsica, Sardinia, the Iberian Peninsula, and elsewhere.[3] They also founded innumerable small outposts a day's sail away from each other all along the North African coast on the route to Spain's mineral wealth. The name Spain comes from the Phoenician word I-Shaphan, meaning, thanks to an early double misidentification, 'island of hyraxes'.

The date when many of these cities were founded has been very controversial. Greek sources put the foundation of many cities very early. Cadiz in Spain was traditionally founded in 1110 B.C.E., while Utica in Africa was supposedly founded in 1101 B.C.E. However, no archaeological remains have been dated to such a remote era. The traditional dates may reflect the establishment of rudimentary way stations that left little archaeological trace, and only grew into full cities centuries later.[4] Alternatively, the early dates may reflect Greek historians' belief that the legends of Troy (mentioning these cities) were historically reliable.

Phoenician ships used to ply the coast of southern Spain and along the coast of present-day Portugal. The fishermen of Nazaré and Aveiro in Portugal are traditionally of Phoenician descent. This can be seen today in the unusual and ancient design of their boats, which have soaring pointed bows and are painted with mystical symbols. It is often mentioned that Phoenicians ventured north into the Atlantic ocean as far as Great Britain, where the tin mines in what is now Cornwall provided them with important materials, although no archaeological evidence supports this belief. They also sailed south along the coast of Africa. A Carthaginian expedition led by Hanno the Navigator explored and colonized the Atlantic coast of Africa as far as the Gulf of Guinea; and according to Herodotus, a Phoenician expedition sent down the Red Sea by Pharaoh Necho II of Egypt (c. 600 B.C.E.) even circumnavigated Africa and returned through the Pillars of Hercules in three years.

The Phoenicians were not an agricultural people, because most of the land was not arable; therefore, they focused on commerce and trading instead. They did, however, raise sheep and sold them and their wool.

The Phoenicians exerted considerable influence on the other groups around the Mediterranean, notably the Greeks, who later became their main commercial rivals. They appear in Greek mythology. Traditionally, the city of Thebes was founded by a Phoenician prince named Cadmus when he set out to look for his sister Europa, who had been kidnapped by Zeus.

The Phoenician alphabet was developed around 1200 B.C.E. from an earlier Semitic prototype that also gave rise to the Ugaritic alphabet. It was used mainly for commercial notes. The Greek alphabet, that forms the basis of all European alphabets, was derived from the Phoenician one. The alphabets of the Middle East and India are also thought to derive, directly or indirectly, from the Phoenician alphabet. Ironically, the Phoenicians themselves are mostly silent on their own history, possibly because they wrote on perishable materials, papyrus or skins. Other than the stone inscriptions, Phoenician writing has largely perished. There are a very few writers such as Sanchuniathon quoted only in later works, and the Phoenicians were described by Sallust and Augustine as having possessed an extensive literature, but of this, only a single work survives, in Latin translation: Mago's Agriculture. What is known of them comes mainly from their neighbors, the Greeks and Hebrews.

With the rise of Assyria, the Phoenician cities one by one lost their independence; however the city of Tyre, situated just off the mainland and protected by powerful fleets, proved impossible to take by the Assyrians, and many others after them. The Phoenician cities were later dominated by Babylonia, then Persia. They remained very important, however, and provided these powers with their main source of naval strength. The stacked warships, such as triremes and quinqueremes, were probably Phoenician inventions, though eagerly adopted by the Greeks.

Did the Phoenicians 'Discover' America?

The possibility that the Phoenician's may have made a pre-Columbian voyage or voyages to the Americas has been explored by several scholars from as early as T. C Johnston's 1892 book, Did the Phoenicians Discover America?. Work on Phoenician coins carried out by Mark McMenamin suggests that gold coins minted in Carthage between 350 and 320 B.C.E. may depict a map of the Americas.[5] Some have speculated that the Phoenicians may even have colonized the Americas. Thor Heyerdahl's Ra I and Ra I expeditions were designed to prove that Egyptian ships could have crossed the Atlantic but could also be applied to the Phoenicians, who were renowned for their seamanship and who were often employed as sailors and explorers by the Egyptians. Some first century peruvian pottery resembles Phoenician pottery. Wreckage of Phoenician ships and an inscription on a rock in Brazil suggests Phoenicians had visited there.

Decline

Cyrus the Great conquered Phoenicia in 538 B.C.E. Phoenicia was divided into four vassal kingdoms by the Persians: Sidon, Tyre, Arwad, and Byblos, and they prospered, furnishing fleets for the Persian kings. However, Phoenician influence declined after this. It is also reasonable to suppose that much of the Phoenician population migrated to Carthage and other colonies following the Persian conquest, as it is roughly then (under King Hanno) that historical records identify Carthage as a powerful maritime entity. In 350 or 345 B.C.E. a rebellion in Sidon led by Tennes was crushed by Artaxerxes III, and its destruction was described, perhaps too dramatically, by Diodorus Siculus.

Alexander the Great took Tyre in 332 B.C.E. following the Siege of Tyre. Alexander was exceptionally harsh to Tyre, executing 2,000 of the leading citizens, but he maintained the king in power. He gained control of the other cities peacefully: the ruler of Aradus submitted; the king of Sidon was overthrown. The rise of Hellenistic Greece gradually ousted the remnants of Phoenicia's former dominance over the Eastern Mediterranean trade routes, and Phoenician culture disappeared entirely in the motherland. However, its North African offspring, Carthage, continued to flourish, mining iron and precious metals from Iberia, and using its considerable naval power and mercenary armies to protect its commercial interests, until it was finally destroyed by Rome in 149 B.C.E. at the end of the Punic Wars.

As for the Phoenician homeland, following Alexander it was controlled by a succession of Hellenistic rulers: Laomedon of Mytilene (323 B.C.E.), Ptolemy I (320 B.C.E.), Antigonus II (315 B.C.E.), Demetrius I of Macedon (301 B.C.E.), and Seleucus I Nicator (296 B.C.E.). Between 286 and 197 B.C.E., Phoenicia (except for Aradus) fell to the Ptolemies of Egypt, who intalled the high priests of Astarte as vassal rulers in Sidon (Eshmunazar I, Tabnit, Eshmunazar II). In 197 B.C.E., Phoenicia along with Syria reverted to the Seleucids, and the region became increasingly Hellenized, although Tyre actually became autonomous in 126 B.C.E., followed by Sidon in 111. Syrian lands, including Phoenicia, were seized by king Tigranes the Great from 82 until 69 B.C.E. when he was defeated by Lucullus, and in 65 B.C.E. Pompey finally incorporated it as part of the Roman province of Syria.

Important Phoenician cities and colonies

Detailed map of Phoenicia

From the tenth century B.C.E., their expansive culture established cities and colonies throughout the Mediterranean. Canaanite deities like Baal and Astarte were being worshiped from Cyprus to Sardinia, Malta, Sicily, and most notably at Carthage in modern Tunisia.

In the Phoenician homeland:

  • Arka
  • Arwad (Classical Aradus)
  • Batroun
  • Beirut (Greek Βηρυτός; Latin Berytus;
    Arabic بيروت; English Beirut)
  • Byblos
  • Safita
  • Sidon
  • Tripoli, Lebanon
  • Tyre
  • Ugarit
  • Zemar (Sumur)


Phoenician colonies, including some unimportant ones (this list may be incomplete):

  • Located in modern Algeria
    • Hippo Regius (modern Annaba)
    • Icosium (modern Algiers)
    • Iol Caesarea (modern Cherchell)
  • Located in modern Cyprus
    • Kition (modern Larnaca)
  • Located in modern Italy
    • Sardinia
      • Karalis (modern Cagliari)
      • Nora, Italy
      • Olbia
      • Sulci
      • Tharros
    • Sicily
      • Ziz, Classical Lilybeaum (modern Marsala)
      • Motya
      • Panormos (modern Palermo)
      • Solus (modern Solunto)
  • Located in modern Libya
    • Leptis Magna
    • Oea (modern Tripoli)
    • Sabratha
  • Located in modern Mauritania
    • Cerne
  • Located in modern Morocco
    • Acra
    • Arambys
    • Caricus Murus
    • Gytta
    • Lixus (modern Larache)
    • Tingis (modern Tangier)

  • Located in modern Spain
    • bdera (modern Adra)
    • Abyla (modern Ceuta)
    • Akra Leuke (modern Alicante)
    • Gadir (modern Cádiz)
    • Ibossim (modern Ibiza)
    • Malaca (modern Málaga)
    • Onoba (modern Huelva)
    • Qart Hadašt (Greek Νέα Καρχηδόνα; Latin Carthago Nova; Spanish Cartagena)
    • Rusadir (modern Melilla)
    • Sexi (modern Almuñécar)
  • Located in modern Tunisia
    • Hadrumetum (modern Susat)
    • Hippo Diarrhytos (modern Bizerte)
    • Qart Hadašt(Greek Καρχηδόνα; Latin Carthago; English Carthage)
    • Thapsus (near modern Bekalta)
    • Utica
  • Located in modern Turkey
    • Phoenicus (modern Finike)
  • Other colonies
    • Calpe (modern Gibraltar)
    • Gunugu
    • Thenae
    • Tipassa

Language and literature

Did you know?
The Phoenicians are credited with spreading the Phoenician alphabet throughout the Mediterranean world, so that it became one of the most widely used writing systems

The Phoenicians are credited with spreading the Phoenician alphabet throughout the Mediterranean world. It was a variant of the Semitic alphabet of the Canaanite area developed centuries earlier in the Sinai region, or in central Egypt. Phoenician traders disseminated this writing system along Aegean trade routes, to coastal Anatolia (Turkey), the Minoan civilization of Crete, Mycenean Greece, and throughout the Mediterranean. Classical Greeks remembered that the alphabet arrived in Greece with the mythical founder of Thebes, Cadmus.

This alphabet has been termed an abjad or a script that contains no vowels. A cuneiform abjad originated to the north in Ugarit, a Canaanite city of northern Syria, in the fourteenth century B.C.E. Their language, "Phoenician," is commonly classified as in the the Canaanite subgroup of Northwest Semitic. Its later descendant in North Africa is termed "Punic."

The earliest known inscriptions in Phoenician come from Byblos and date back to ca. 1000 B.C.E. Phoenician inscriptions are found in Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Cyprus, and other locations, as late as the early centuries of the Christian Era. Punic, a language that developed from Phoenician in Phoenician colonies around the western Mediterranean beginning in the ninth century B.C.E., slowly supplanted Phoenician there, similar to the way Italian supplanted Latin. Punic Phoenician was still spoken in the fifth century C.E.: St. Augustine, for example, grew up in North Africa and was familiar with the language. The Phoenicians are said to have had a rich literature. Unfortunately, nothing of this has survived. They have been described as "cultural middlemen," often mediating ideas from one culture to others. They have even been credited with sparking off a 'cultural revival in Greece, one which led to the Greeks' Golden Age and hence the birth of Western civilization' itself.[6]

Phoenicians in the Bible

In the Old Testament there is no reference to the Greek term Phoenicia; instead, the inhabitants of the coastal are identified by their city of origin, most often as Sidonians (Gen. x. 15; Judges iii. 3; x. 6, xviii. 7; I Kings v. 20, xvi. 31). Early relations between Israelites and the Canaanites were cordial: Hiram of Tyre, a Phoenician by modern assessment, furnished architects, workmen and cedar timbers for the temple of his ally Solomon at Jerusalem. The Phoenician language was largely mutually intelligible with the Hebrew language, and cultural similarities between the two peoples were significant, leading to the worship of Phoenician gods like Baal by some Jews during the time of Prophet Elijah.

Of course there is another Hiram (also spelled Huran) associated with the building of the temple.

" The son of a woman of the daughters of Dan, and his father [was] a man of Tyre, skilful to work in gold, and in silver, in brass, in iron, in stone, and in timber, in purple, in blue, and in fine linen, and in crimson; also to grave any manner of graving, and to find out every device which shall be put to him…" (2 Ch 2:14)

This is the architect of the Temple, Hiram Abiff of Masonic lore. They are vastly famous for their purple dye.

Later, reforming prophets railed against the practice of drawing royal wives from among foreigners: Elijah execrated Jezebel, the princess from Tyre who became a consort of King Ahab and introduced the worship of her gods.

In the Bible, King Hiram I of Tyre is mentioned as co-operating with Solomon in mounting an expedition on the Red Sea and on building the temple. The Temple of Solomon is considered to be built according to Phoenician design, and its description is considered the best description of what a Phoenician temple looked like. Phoenicians from Syria were also called "Syrophenicians."

Long after Phoenician culture had flourished, or Phoenicia had existed as any political entity, Hellenized natives of the region where Canaanites still lived were referred to as "Syro-Phoenician," as in the Gospel of Mark 7:26: "The woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth…"

The word Bible itself ultimately derives (through Latin and Greek) from Byblos, the Phoenician city. Because of its papyri, Byblos was also the source of the Greek word for book and, hence, of the name of the Bible.

Notes

  1. Arniaz-Villena, et al., "HLA genes in Macedonians…." Tissue Antigens, 57(2) (February 2001): 118-120.
  2. Herodotus, The Histories (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2008, ISBN 978-0199535668).
  3. Greek and Phoenician Colonies and Trade, Pearson Education. Retrieved May 28, 2013.
  4. Sabatino Moscati, The World of the Phoenicians (Phoenix Giant, 1999, ISBN 978-0753807460).
  5. The Phoenician coin presumed to contain a map of the ancient world. Did the Phoenicians Discover the New World? Retrieved May 9, 2013.
  6. Rick Gore, "Who Were the Phoenicians? National Geographic magazine online. Retrieved November 6, 2007.

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

  • Aubet, Maria Eugenia, translated by Mary Turton. The Phoenicians and the West: Politics, Colonies and Trade. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN 0521791618 (Bryn Mawr Classical Review, Dec. 17, 2001 review) Retrieved November 6, 2007.
  • Braudel, Fernand, translated by Sian Reynolds. The Perspective of the World: Civilization & Capitalism, 15th - 18th Century, Volume 3. HarperCollins Publishers, 1984. ISBN 978=0060153175
  • Holst, Sanford. Phoenicians, Lebanon's Epic Heritage. Los Angeles, CA: Cambridge; and Boston Press, 2005. ISBN 1887263306
  • Johnston, Thomas Crawford. Did the Phoenicians Discover America? London: J. Nisbet, (original 1892); reprinted 1913; Houston, TX: St. Thomas Press, 1965. ISBN 0686050428
  • Moscati, Sabatino. The World of the Phoenicians. Phoenix Giant, 1999. ISBN 978-0753807460
  • Project Gutenberg, The History of Phoenicia. (original 1889) by George Rawlinson. Retrieved May 9, 2013. Rawlinson's nineteenth century text needs updating for modern improvements in historical understanding.

External links

All links retrieved April 26, 2015.

Credits

New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here:

The history of this article since it was imported to New World Encyclopedia:

Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed.