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PHOENICIAN CIVILIZATION: A HISTORY
FROM BEGINNING TO END
(ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS),
by
HOURLY HISTORY.
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"The Phoenicians lived in a time when the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Egyptians, the Macedonians, and the Persians were the masters of the ancient world at one time or another. Those fierce armies overpowered the existing military forces until, with time, they could no longer maintain their empires and were subjugated by the next mighty army.
"But for the Phoenicians, who built a commercial empire on the strength of the Levant’s craving for glass, bronze, jewels, purple dye, and costly goods, trade seemed to give them immunity against the territorial ambitions of neighboring dynasties and leaders. They built up a profitable network of city-states and colonies by sailing the Mediterranean Sea on ships that were better built and better manned than those belonging to other peoples and tribes. Even the Phoenicians’ rivals conceded that they were unmatched in their navigating skills. The Phoenicians were sufficiently confident of those nautical abilities that they could depart from their coastal cities and venture out into the open waters, the Atlantic, and along the coast of Africa.
"That venturesome spirit was characterized later in their history, but right from the beginning, the Phoenicians were a seafaring people. They made a dramatic first impression in history, coming to the world’s attention as the Canaanites, the tribe famous in Biblical Old Testament lore as the occupants of the land of milk and honey promised by the god of the Israelites to his people. Despite this perceived hostility between the Israelites who came to take the land and the Canaanites who occupied it, the two Semitic groups shared cultural and linguistic roots."
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"The Phoenician innovations advanced the civilizations of the ancient world and, at the same time, advanced their profits as well. They were rich enough to hire mercenaries to fight their battles and rich enough to pay the tribute demanded by conquerors. As one city-state faded in supremacy, another rose to take its place, for the importing and exporting of goods was a matter upon which even enemies were in accord: they felt that they must have what the Phoenicians could provide.
"However, as the centuries advanced, military leaders who had a consuming greed for land and power became more expert in their methods. By the time Alexander the Great left his homeland in search of conquest, the Phoenician city-states were in varying stages of power. When Tyre refused Alexander’s calculated request to be allowed to sacrifice at the temple within their fortified city, he laid siege to the occupants. Seven months later, his Macedonian troops had breached the walls, killing thousands within and enslaving many more.
"Bereft of their far-reaching empire, the remnants of the Phoenicians took refuge in Carthage, a former colony which had become rich in trade. Before long, the Romans had aspirations to conquer, and they set their sights on Carthage. The Punic Wars unfolded over a century of combat that ended with the sacking of Carthage, its people made slaves. So dire was the destruction of the city that some claimed that the Romans had sown the earth around Carthage with salt to render its soil forever unfertile. There is no truth to the legend, but its existence testifies to the bitter legacy that has traveled through the annals of history when the tale of Carthage is told."
................................................................................................
"What is true is that the Phoenicians were an advanced civilization whose contributions to humanity are vast and lasting, touching our lives even today and bridging the distance between the ancient and the modern world."
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................................................................................................
"No one is exactly sure where the Phoenicians came from. Equally uncertain is what they called themselves. They appear in the Old Testament as the Canaanites, a word which also meant “merchants,” a translation which tells us that, even early on, they were known for their commercial talents.
"The Canaanites appeared for the first time on the stage of the ancient world sometime around the year 3000 BCE. They probably originally hailed from the Persian Gulf region but came to settle in the Levant, an area along the eastern Mediterranean Sea comprising modern-day Israel, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon.
"According to scholars, the Canaanites were probably never a united kingdom but were instead composed of different ethnic groups. Archeological evidence obtained from burial sites of the Canaanites during the Late Bronze Age supports this view of a diverse population who observed a wide variety of burial customs. It’s not surprising then that there were various branches of the Canaanites. What they did have in common was language—they spoke Semitic languages which were all closely related.
................................................................................................
"A statue erected by the Pharaoh Merneptah, who ruled from 1213-1203 BCE, attested that Canaan was plundered “into every sort of woe.” Tangentially, the text says that the Pharaoh’s armies had also laid waste to Israel.
"As the Hittites and Amorites rose to power, the Egyptians could not retain their hold on Byblos, which then fell under the invaders’ control. By 1200 BCE, the Canaanites were encountering powerful enemies and were driven out of the countries they had lived in as the Arameans and Neo-Hittites in the north, the Israelites from the south, and the Sea Peoples from the east came for plunder and conquest. As a result, their boundaries were narrowed to a shrunken strip of land in Lebanon."
This lacks clarification, and clarity, both.
What "Sea Peoples from the east", exactly? Not Mongol, since they were not "Sea Peoples", ever. Chinese, or Japanese, extremely unlikely, as too Southeast Asians. So is "sea" referred to in that description is a smaller one, such as Caspian Sea, or Black Sea, or Persian Gulf? The last mentioned was probably part of Persia, so that' too is an unlikely description applying to them.
................................................................................................
"Despite the minimized borders, the Canaanites flourished in the five chief cities where most of the people lived—in Sidon, Tyre, Byblos, Arwad, and Berytus, now Beirut, the capital of Lebanon. These cities became the foundation of the Phoenician power base.
"By this time, one branch of the Bronze Age Canaanites of 3000-1200 BCE had evolved into the Iron Age Phoenicians of 1200-333 BCE, and there appears to be a constant in that evolution: both the name “Canaan” and “Phoenician” refer to a purple-red color, demonstrating that despite the differences in time periods, both the Canaanites and the Phoenicians shared one word in common. That one word, meaning “purple merchant,” refers to one of the Phoenicians’ most celebrated trading items, a dye which created clothing that was the color purple, a color which would eventually come to signify that its wearer was someone of great renown and, eventually, of royalty. Perhaps the color purple was among the first status symbols, and no wonder; the Phoenician traders brought luxury goods from their trade routes to whet the exotic appetites of those who could afford the very best."
Is that the author's personal bias, or one shared generally across West, that "the color purple" is assumed as "the very best"?
................................................................................................
"By the eighth century BCE, the Greeks were introduced to the alphabet that the Phoenicians had created; vowels were added, and other adaptations were made. The most commonly used alphabet today, the Latin alphabet, is derived from the Greek alphabet, which in turn was adapted from the Phoenician alphabet. The Cyrillic scripts used in Eastern Europe and Asia are also derived from the Greek alphabet. Similarly, the Arabic script used in the Middle East and Africa can be traced back to the Aramaic script, which in turn was based on the Phoenician alphabet. Thus, the majority of written languages today have their roots in the ancient Phoenician script."
Hence the never-quite-phonetic nature of all these scripts outside of India, unlike the extremely scientific Devanaagarie script of Sanskrit, used by two other Indian languages since - Marathi and Hindi - although most, not all, Indian languages differ only in appearances of their scripts, not in logic.
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December 30, 2022 - July 20, 2024.
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Table of Contents
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Introduction
Origins
Innovations of the Phoenicians
The Phoenician City-States
The First to Plough the Sea
Phoenician Culture, Art, and Religion
The Alliance with Israel
The Conquerors Come
Carthage
Conclusion
Bibliography
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REVIEW
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Introduction
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................................................................................................
"The Phoenicians lived in a time when the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Egyptians, the Macedonians, and the Persians were the masters of the ancient world at one time or another. Those fierce armies overpowered the existing military forces until, with time, they could no longer maintain their empires and were subjugated by the next mighty army.
"But for the Phoenicians, who built a commercial empire on the strength of the Levant’s craving for glass, bronze, jewels, purple dye, and costly goods, trade seemed to give them immunity against the territorial ambitions of neighboring dynasties and leaders. They built up a profitable network of city-states and colonies by sailing the Mediterranean Sea on ships that were better built and better manned than those belonging to other peoples and tribes. Even the Phoenicians’ rivals conceded that they were unmatched in their navigating skills. The Phoenicians were sufficiently confident of those nautical abilities that they could depart from their coastal cities and venture out into the open waters, the Atlantic, and along the coast of Africa.
"That venturesome spirit was characterized later in their history, but right from the beginning, the Phoenicians were a seafaring people. They made a dramatic first impression in history, coming to the world’s attention as the Canaanites, the tribe famous in Biblical Old Testament lore as the occupants of the land of milk and honey promised by the god of the Israelites to his people. Despite this perceived hostility between the Israelites who came to take the land and the Canaanites who occupied it, the two Semitic groups shared cultural and linguistic roots."
................................................................................................
"Unlike most empires, the Phoenicians belonged to city-states rather than a unified country like the Egyptians or the Persians. Their city-states, a collection of ports where commerce flourished, were celebrated for their wares: Byblos, Arwad, Sidon, and Tyre were preeminent as centers of finance, learning, culture, and trade. The Phoenicians were so adept at sailing and trade that it was only natural for them to establish colonies along their routes; Spain, Sicily, and Carthage (Tunisia) soon joined the pantheon of profitmaking which characterized the Phoenicians’ merchant prowess in the lands of antiquity.
"The Phoenicians were able to turn their trade routes into a uniquely versatile vehicle to exchange not only trade but learning as well. When they refined the cumbersome Egyptian hieroglyphs into a streamlined alphabet that could easily be used for accounting purposes throughout their trade network, they brought this innovative means of communication to all their various stops. The Greeks would later add vowels to the Phoenician consonants, and the alphabet would evolve for the forthcoming generations to use."
................................................................................................
"The Phoenician innovations advanced the civilizations of the ancient world and, at the same time, advanced their profits as well. They were rich enough to hire mercenaries to fight their battles and rich enough to pay the tribute demanded by conquerors. As one city-state faded in supremacy, another rose to take its place, for the importing and exporting of goods was a matter upon which even enemies were in accord: they felt that they must have what the Phoenicians could provide.
"However, as the centuries advanced, military leaders who had a consuming greed for land and power became more expert in their methods. By the time Alexander the Great left his homeland in search of conquest, the Phoenician city-states were in varying stages of power. When Tyre refused Alexander’s calculated request to be allowed to sacrifice at the temple within their fortified city, he laid siege to the occupants. Seven months later, his Macedonian troops had breached the walls, killing thousands within and enslaving many more.
"Bereft of their far-reaching empire, the remnants of the Phoenicians took refuge in Carthage, a former colony which had become rich in trade. Before long, the Romans had aspirations to conquer, and they set their sights on Carthage. The Punic Wars unfolded over a century of combat that ended with the sacking of Carthage, its people made slaves. So dire was the destruction of the city that some claimed that the Romans had sown the earth around Carthage with salt to render its soil forever unfertile. There is no truth to the legend, but its existence testifies to the bitter legacy that has traveled through the annals of history when the tale of Carthage is told."
................................................................................................
"What is true is that the Phoenicians were an advanced civilization whose contributions to humanity are vast and lasting, touching our lives even today and bridging the distance between the ancient and the modern world."
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July 20, 2024 - July 20, 2024.
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Chapter 1. Origins
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................................................................................................
"No one is exactly sure where the Phoenicians came from. Equally uncertain is what they called themselves. They appear in the Old Testament as the Canaanites, a word which also meant “merchants,” a translation which tells us that, even early on, they were known for their commercial talents.
"The Canaanites appeared for the first time on the stage of the ancient world sometime around the year 3000 BCE. They probably originally hailed from the Persian Gulf region but came to settle in the Levant, an area along the eastern Mediterranean Sea comprising modern-day Israel, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon.
"According to scholars, the Canaanites were probably never a united kingdom but were instead composed of different ethnic groups. Archeological evidence obtained from burial sites of the Canaanites during the Late Bronze Age supports this view of a diverse population who observed a wide variety of burial customs. It’s not surprising then that there were various branches of the Canaanites. What they did have in common was language—they spoke Semitic languages which were all closely related.
................................................................................................
"During the sixteenth century BCE, Egypt was a dominant power in the Mediterranean region. The Egyptians cast a covetous eye upon the flourishing Canaanite cities. Finally, Pharaoh Thutmose III, who ruled from 1479-1425 BCE, captured the cities of Byblos, Arwad, and Ullasa, thereby gaining access to profitable trading routes, as well as products such as the magnificent cedarwood, which the Egyptians did not have in their own land.
"By the middle of the fourteenth century BCE, the Canaanite city-states were envied throughout the Mediterranean for their prosperity and autonomy. Byblos, a major center of bronze craftsmanship, was a wealthy port where precious goods from afar were shipped to other parts of the region. Sidon and Tyre, meanwhile, were economic rivals, each attracting profits and trade.
"Documentation concerning the Canaanites continued to appear in official writings from Egyptian antiquity. One specific reference comes from findings at Amarna, which was the capital of Egypt under the rule of Akhenaten from 1353-1336 BCE. Correspondence from this era and location include mention of several different Canaanite kings. One diplomatic pass by the king of Mitanni in northern Syria instructs the “kings of the land of Canaan” to allow the royal messenger to safely travel through the region to Egypt. No one, the message warns, is to detain him. It was not a message likely to be flouted by the Canaanite kings because, at that time, the Egyptian New Kingdom remained powerful in the region."
................................................................................................
"A statue erected by the Pharaoh Merneptah, who ruled from 1213-1203 BCE, attested that Canaan was plundered “into every sort of woe.” Tangentially, the text says that the Pharaoh’s armies had also laid waste to Israel.
"As the Hittites and Amorites rose to power, the Egyptians could not retain their hold on Byblos, which then fell under the invaders’ control. By 1200 BCE, the Canaanites were encountering powerful enemies and were driven out of the countries they had lived in as the Arameans and Neo-Hittites in the north, the Israelites from the south, and the Sea Peoples from the east came for plunder and conquest. As a result, their boundaries were narrowed to a shrunken strip of land in Lebanon."
This lacks clarification, and clarity, both.
What "Sea Peoples from the east", exactly? Not Mongol, since they were not "Sea Peoples", ever. Chinese, or Japanese, extremely unlikely, as too Southeast Asians. So is "sea" referred to in that description is a smaller one, such as Caspian Sea, or Black Sea, or Persian Gulf? The last mentioned was probably part of Persia, so that' too is an unlikely description applying to them.
................................................................................................
"Despite the minimized borders, the Canaanites flourished in the five chief cities where most of the people lived—in Sidon, Tyre, Byblos, Arwad, and Berytus, now Beirut, the capital of Lebanon. These cities became the foundation of the Phoenician power base.
"By this time, one branch of the Bronze Age Canaanites of 3000-1200 BCE had evolved into the Iron Age Phoenicians of 1200-333 BCE, and there appears to be a constant in that evolution: both the name “Canaan” and “Phoenician” refer to a purple-red color, demonstrating that despite the differences in time periods, both the Canaanites and the Phoenicians shared one word in common. That one word, meaning “purple merchant,” refers to one of the Phoenicians’ most celebrated trading items, a dye which created clothing that was the color purple, a color which would eventually come to signify that its wearer was someone of great renown and, eventually, of royalty. Perhaps the color purple was among the first status symbols, and no wonder; the Phoenician traders brought luxury goods from their trade routes to whet the exotic appetites of those who could afford the very best."
Is that the author's personal bias, or one shared generally across West, that "the color purple" is assumed as "the very best"?
................................................................................................
"As the eleventh century BCE came to a close, the Phoenicians were well on their way to building an empire through their trade networks and establishing colonies along the routes in Cyprus, Sardinia, Sicily, North Africa, Malta, and the south of Spain. The Phoenicians were extraordinary, for in a time of martial exploits, they built their empire through commerce. It would turn out to be an empire of long duration, lasting more than one thousand years.
"The Phoenicians would encounter the armies of Assyria, Babylon, Persia, and Macedonia, but still, for the most part, the Phoenician cities and later colonies would survive. It would take Rome—that juggernaut of organization, ambition, and military superiority—to finally subdue the Phoenicians."
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July 20, 2024 - July 20, 2024.
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Chapter 2. Innovations of the Phoenicians
................................................................................................
................................................................................................
"By the eighth century BCE, the Greeks were introduced to the alphabet that the Phoenicians had created; vowels were added, and other adaptations were made. The most commonly used alphabet today, the Latin alphabet, is derived from the Greek alphabet, which in turn was adapted from the Phoenician alphabet. The Cyrillic scripts used in Eastern Europe and Asia are also derived from the Greek alphabet. Similarly, the Arabic script used in the Middle East and Africa can be traced back to the Aramaic script, which in turn was based on the Phoenician alphabet. Thus, the majority of written languages today have their roots in the ancient Phoenician script."
Hence the never-quite-phonetic nature of all these scripts outside of India, unlike the extremely scientific Devanaagarie script of Sanskrit, used by two other Indian languages since - Marathi and Hindi - although most, not all, Indian languages differ only in appearances of their scripts, not in logic.