Phoenicians: Masters of the Sea
A seafaring people
Dyed purple fabric with their corresponding sea snail, Museum of Natural History, Vienna. By Eigenes Werk, CC BY-SA 4.0.
The Phoenicians were an ancient people. They called themselves Can’ani (Canaanites). The Greeks named them Phoenicians. The name the Greeks gave them stuck. This is partly because historians mainly used Greek, Assyrian, and Latin sources along with Biblical references to learn about Phoenician society.
The Phoenicians were expert sailors who traveled across the Mediterranean Sea. They formed many colonies around the Mediterranean, including in Spain and North Africa.
“Phoenicia” was not an empire or a unified society. It was a collection of city-states in modern-day Lebanon and Syria that included Tyre, Byblos, Beirut, and Sidon. Phoenician cities were also often controlled by other regional powers like the Egyptians and Assyrians.
The Phoenician people had a large effect on the world. They spread technologies and ideas. They are most famous for creating the first alphabet. The Phoenicians used this alphabet to record their histories on papyrus.1 Unfortunately, almost all of their writings were lost. Historians have had to learn about the Phoenicians from reading what civilizations said about them.
Map of Phoenicia and its trade routes and colonies. By Rodrigo, CC BY-SA 3.0.
A satellite image of Carthage, in modern-day Tunisia, jutting into the Mediterranean Sea. By NASA Earth Observatory, public domain.
Masters of the sea
The Phoenicians did not have land that was good for large-scale farming. Their location on the Mediterranean Sea did allow them to become expert sailors. They were the first to sail from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. They controlled the seas between 1200 and 800 BCE.
The Phoenicians built trading colonies in Spain, North Africa, and on many islands in the Mediterranean. Their success was because they had very advanced ships. They were fast and could sail through rough water.
Phoenician sailors traded many things, including their famous purple dyes. They traded textiles, wood, glass, metals, and food. They also traded papyrus, a common writing material in the ancient world.
Assyrian warship (probably built by Phoenicians) with two rows of oars, relief from Nineveh, c. 700 BC. CC BY-SA 3.0.
Papyrus with Greek writing from the second century CE, public domain.
The Phoenician community
Merchants were very important people in Phoenician society. They made up the Phoenician senate. People were able to move up in society and become leaders.
Dido and Aeneas, from a Roman fresco, Pompeii, Italy (10 BCE – 45 CE). By Stefano Bolognini, public domain.
Figure of the god Ba’al with raised arm, 14th–12th century BCE, found at ancient Ugarit (Ras Shamra site), a city at the far north of the Phoenician coast. By Jastrow, public domain.
Women had more freedom than in other ancient societies. The Phoenicians had famous female leaders. One was Dido, the queen of Carthage.
The Phoenicians had multiple gods, including many respected female gods. People from different colonies would gather for religious events. Many of their beliefs were based on traditions from Mesopotamia. This was an ancient society located where modern-day Iraq is.
Phoenicians abroad
The Phoenicians used their colonies to bring in food. Some colonies became larger than the city-states. Carthage was a colony in modern-day Tunisia. It became one of the biggest cities in the world.
The colonies had people from different ethnic groups. Phoenicians mixed with the local people. There were also migrants from around the Mediterranean and Africa.
The Phoenicians didn’t really have an empire. They didn’t directly rule over their territories. They did have power over the colonized people. They had enslaved people in the colonies who farmed to provide food for the Phoenicians.
A revolutionary script
The Phoenicians created the first alphabet. They were inspired by other ancient writing systems. The Egyptians used a thousand different pictures as symbols. The Phoenicians used symbols to mean sounds.
The Phoenician system made writing a lot simpler. Their alphabet had twenty-two characters. It was easier to learn than a thousand little pictures. It made reading and writing much easier. It was copied by the Greeks. Many writing systems can be traced back to Phoenician system.
The Kish tablet, a limestone tablet from Kish with pictographic, early cuneiform, writing, 3500 BCE. Possibly the earliest known example of writing. Ashmolean Museum. By José-Manuel Benit, public domain
Where did the Phoenicians go?
Historians question what happened to Phoenician society. The city-states lost power to empires like Persia. Phoenician colonies lasted longer than the city-states.
The Phoenicians had a big impact on world history. They mixed with many civilizations as they traveled. They spread new ideas and technologies.
1 Ancient societies like the Phoenicians, Egyptians, and Greeks used papyrus or paper made from plant fibers. They used them for writing and record keeping.
Sources
Aubet, Maria Eugenia. The Phoenicians and the West: Politics, Colonies, and Trade. Second Edition. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Bulliet, Richard W. The Earth and Its Peoples: A Global History. Boston, MA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2011.
Cole, Joshua. Western Civilizations: Their History & Their Culture. Edited by Carol Symes. Eighteenth edition. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2014.
“Did the Phoenicians Even Exist?” Haaretz, July 28, 2016. https://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/did-the-phoenicians-even-exist-1.5417395.
Markoe, Glenn E. Peoples of the Past: Phoenicians. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2000.
Roberts, J. M. The Penguin History of the World. Edited by Odd Arne. Westad. 6th ed., 2014.
Eman M. Elshaikh
The author of this article is Eman M. Elshaikh. She is a writer, researcher, and teacher who has taught K-12 and undergraduates in the United States and in the Middle East and written for many different audiences. She teaches writing at the University of Chicago, where she also completed her master’s in social sciences and is currently pursuing her PhD. She was previously a World History Fellow at Khan Academy, where she worked closely with the College Board to develop curriculum for AP World History.
Image credits
This work is licensed under CC BY 4.0 except for the following:
Cover: Ancient Phoenician galley, wood engraving, published in 1880 © ZU_09 / DigitalVision Vectors / Getty Images
Dyed purple fabric with their corresponding sea snail, Museum of Natural History, Vienna. By Eigenes Werk, CC BY-SA 4.0. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Purple_Purpur.jpg#/media/Datei:Purple_Purpur.jpg
Map of Phoenicia and its trade routes and colonies. By Rodrigo, CC BY-SA 3.0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenicia#/media/File:Phoenician_trade_routes_(eng).svg
A satellite image of Carthage, in modern-day Tunisia, jutting into the Mediterranean Sea. By NASA Earth Observatory, public domain. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Carthage,_Tunisia_EO-1.jpg#/media/File:Carthage,_Tunisia_EO-1.jpg
Assyrian warship (probably built by Phoenicians) with two rows of oars, relief from Nineveh, c. 700 BC. CC BY-SA 3.0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenicia#/media/File:AssyrianWarship.jpg
Papyrus with Greek writing from the second century CE, public domain. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Papyrus#/media/File:P._Oxy._VI_932_private_letter_on_papyrus_from_Oxyrhynchus,_written_in_a_Greek_hand_of_the_second_century_AD.jpg
Dido and Aeneas, from a Roman fresco, Pompeii, Italy (10 BCE – 45 CE). By Stefano Bolognini. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dido#/media/File:Affresco_romano_-_Enea_e_di.jpg
Figure of the god Ba’al with raised arm, 14th–12th century BCE, found at ancient Ugarit (Ras Shamra site), a city at the far north of the Phoenician coast. By Jastrow, public domain. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenicia#/media/File:Baal_Ugarit_Louvre_AO17329.jpg
The Kish tablet, a limestone tablet from Kish with pictographic, early cuneiform, writing, 3500 BCE. Possibly the earliest known example of writing. Ashmolean Museum. By José-Manuel Benit, public domain. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuneiform#/ media/File:Tableta_con_trillo.png
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