Phoenicia was an ancient civilization in the north of ancient Canaan, with its heartland along the coastal plain of what is now Lebanon, between the Lebanon Mountains and the Mediterranean Sea. Phoenician civilization was an enterprising maritime trading culture that spread right across the Mediterranean during the first millennium BC. 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 Ph ...

Including:

• Phoenicia - Origins
• Phoenicia - The cultural and economic empire
• Phoenicia - Phoenician trade
• Phoenicia - Decline
• Phoenicia - Persian and Hellenistic Phoenicia
• Phoenicia - Important Phoenician cities and colonies
• Phoenicia - Language and literature
• Phoenicia - External links
• Phoenicia - Phoenicians in the Bible

Read more here: » Phoenicia: Encyclopedia - Phoenicia

Please remove this notice after the article has been expanded. Details are on this talk page or at Wikipedia:Requests for expansion. Phoenicia accepted rule by the Persians. Cyrus the Great conquered Phoenicia in 538 BC. Phoenician influence declined and later the culture that they were known for disappeared entirely in the motherland. However, its North African offspring, Carthage, continued to flourish until it was destroyed by Rome ca. 149 BC, and it is also reasonable to suppose that much of the Lebanese population ...

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Phoenicia, Phoenicia - Origins, Phoenicia - The cultural and economic empire, Phoenicia - Phoenician trade, Phoenicia - Decline, Phoenicia - Persian and Hellenistic Phoenicia, Phoenicia - Important Phoenician cities and colonies, Phoenicia - Language and literature, Phoenicia - External links, Phoenicia - Phoenicians in the Bible

Read more here: » Phoenicia: Encyclopedia II - Phoenicia - Decline

Herodotus's account (written c. 440 BC) refers to a faint memory from 1000 years earlier, and so may be subject to question (History, I:1): "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 ...

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Phoenicia, Phoenicia - Origins, Phoenicia - The cultural and economic empire, Phoenicia - Phoenician trade, Phoenicia - Decline, Phoenicia - Persian and Hellenistic Phoenicia, Phoenicia - Important Phoenician cities and colonies, Phoenicia - Language and literature, Phoenicia - External links, Phoenicia - Phoenicians in the Bible

Read more here: » Phoenicia: Encyclopedia II - Phoenicia - Origins

See main articles: Phoenician language, Phoenician alphabet, Alphabet. The Phoenicians are credited with developing the Phoenician alphabet. The Phoenician alphabet arose around 1400 BC from a need to communicate with the diverse languages of their trading partners that encircled the Mediterranean Sea. Their 22-letter alphabet based on sound was widely received, as opposed to the myriad of symbols in cuneiform or hieroglyphics prevalent at the time. The Phoenician alphabet served as the origin of the Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and ...

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Phoenicia, Phoenicia - Origins, Phoenicia - The cultural and economic empire, Phoenicia - Phoenician trade, Phoenicia - Decline, Phoenicia - Persian and Hellenistic Phoenicia, Phoenicia - Important Phoenician cities and colonies, Phoenicia - Language and literature, Phoenicia - External links, Phoenicia - Phoenicians in the Bible

Read more here: » Phoenicia: Encyclopedia II - Phoenicia - Language and literature

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 ti ...

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Phoenicia, Phoenicia - Origins, Phoenicia - The cultural and economic empire, Phoenicia - Phoenician trade, Phoenicia - Decline, Phoenicia - Persian and Hellenistic Phoenicia, Phoenicia - Important Phoenician cities and colonies, Phoenicia - Language and literature, Phoenicia - External links, Phoenicia - Phoenicians in the Bible

Read more here: » Phoenicia: Encyclopedia II - Phoenicia - Phoenicians in the Bible

From the 10th century BC, their expansive culture established cities and colonies throughout the Mediterranean. Canaanite deities like Baal and Astarte were being worshipped from Cyprus to Sardinia, Malta, Sicily, and most notably at Carthage in modern Tunisia. In the Phoenician homeland: Arka Arwad Batroun Berut (Greek Βηρυτος; Latin Berytus; Arabic بيروت; English Beirut) Byblos Safita ...

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Phoenicia, Phoenicia - Origins, Phoenicia - The cultural and economic empire, Phoenicia - Phoenician trade, Phoenicia - Decline, Phoenicia - Persian and Hellenistic Phoenicia, Phoenicia - Important Phoenician cities and colonies, Phoenicia - Language and literature, Phoenicia - External links, Phoenicia - Phoenicians in the Bible

Read more here: » Phoenicia: Encyclopedia II - Phoenicia - Important Phoenician cities and colonies

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 BC. Many of the most important Phoenician settlements had been established long before this: Byblos, Tyre, Sidon, Simyra, Aradus and Berytus all appear in the Amarna tablets; and indeed, the first appearance in archaeology of cultural elements clearly identifiable with the Phoenician ...

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Phoenicia, Phoenicia - Origins, Phoenicia - The cultural and economic empire, Phoenicia - Phoenician trade, Phoenicia - Decline, Phoenicia - Persian and Hellenistic Phoenicia, Phoenicia - Important Phoenician cities and colonies, Phoenicia - Language and literature, Phoenicia - External links, Phoenicia - Phoenicians in the Bible

Read more here: » Phoenicia: Encyclopedia II - Phoenicia - The cultural and economic empire

In the centuries following 1200 BC, 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. 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 ...

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Phoenicia, Phoenicia - Origins, Phoenicia - The cultural and economic empire, Phoenicia - Phoenician trade, Phoenicia - Decline, Phoenicia - Persian and Hellenistic Phoenicia, Phoenicia - Important Phoenician cities and colonies, Phoenicia - Language and literature, Phoenicia - External links, Phoenicia - Phoenicians in the Bible

Read more here: » Phoenicia: Encyclopedia II - Phoenicia - Phoenician trade

Information on Phoenician cities and their hinterlands under the Achaemenid Persians is sparse. The famous event is the revolt of Sidon against Achaemenid rule in 345 BC and its destruction, dramatically (perhaps too dramatically) described by Diodorus Siculus. The arrival of Alexander the Great in 333 – 332 BC is the main turning point, for Hellenistic Phoenicia lost its influential mercantile role, and the distinctive culture of its cities was Hellenized under Alexander and his Macedonian successors. The responses of the individua ...

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Phoenicia, Phoenicia - Origins, Phoenicia - The cultural and economic empire, Phoenicia - Phoenician trade, Phoenicia - Decline, Phoenicia - Persian and Hellenistic Phoenicia, Phoenicia - Important Phoenician cities and colonies, Phoenicia - Language and literature, Phoenicia - External links, Phoenicia - Phoenicians in the Bible

Read more here: » Phoenicia: Encyclopedia II - Phoenicia - Persian and Hellenistic Phoenicia

See main articles: Phoenician language, Phoenician alphabet, Alphabet. Though the Phoenicians are credited with developing the Phoenician alphabet, their alphabet is actually what is termed an abjad (different from an alphabet, in that it contains no vowels). The Phoenician abjad, first making its appearance in the 11th century BC, evolved out of the proto-Canaanite abjad, that originated around the 17th century BC. A cuneiform abjad originated to the north in Ugarit, a Canaanite city of northern Syr ...

See also:

Phoenicia, Phoenicia - Origins, Phoenicia - The cultural and economic empire, Phoenicia - Phoenician trade, Phoenicia - Decline, Phoenicia - Persian and Hellenistic Phoenicia, Phoenicia - Important Phoenician cities and colonies, Phoenicia - Language and literature, Phoenicia - External links, Phoenicia - Phoenicians in the Bible

Read more here: » Phoenicia: Encyclopedia II - Phoenicia - Language and literature