A seafaring people

The Phoenicians were an ancient people from modern- day Lebanon and Syria. They called themselves Can’ani (Canaanites). The Greeks named them Phoenicians. The name the Greeks gave them seems to have stuck, partly because historians mainly used Greek, Assyrian, and Latin sources along with Biblical references to learn about Phoenician society.

The Phoenicians created 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.

“Phoenicia” was not an empire or a unified society. It was a collection of city-states that included Tyre, Byblos, Beirut, and Sidon. Phoenician cities were also often controlled by other regional powers like the Egyptians and Assyrians.

The Phoenicians were master sailors and traders. They built colonies across the Mediterranean Sea. They spread technologies and ideas. They formed connections between the Middle East, Europe and North Africa. They would impact the world for thousands of years.

Masters of the sea

The Phoenicians did not live on land that was suitable to large-scale farming. Their location, however, allowed the Phoenicians to become expert sailors. They were first to travel from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. They controlled the seas between 1200 BCE and 800 BCE. They built trading colonies in Spain, North Africa and many Mediterranean islands.

Their success was due to their advanced ships. They were fast and could move through rough seas. Phoenician ships were so advanced that both Persian and Assyrian royalty used their ships. Phoenician sailors were some of the first people to use stars to navigate.

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.

The Phoenician community

Merchants were very important people in Phoenician society. People were able to move up in society and become leaders.

Women had more freedom than other women in the ancient world. The Phoenicians also had famous female leaders. One was Dido, the queen of Carthage.

There were many enslaved people in Phoenician society. Many of these enslaved people were enemy soldiers who were captured.

The Phoenicians had multiple 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 in modern-day Iraq.

Phoenicians abroad

The Phoenicians traveled to find land and resources to feed their people. There were enslaved people in the colonies. They farmed to provide food for the Phoenicians.

Some of their colonies became larger than the city- states. Carthage was a Phoenician colony located in modern-day Tunisia. It became one of the biggest cities in the world.

Phoenician colonies formed important trade networks. The colonies had people from different ethnic backgrounds. The Phoenicians lived alongside local people and migrants from Europe and Africa.

A revolutionary script

The Phoenicians created the first alphabet. It changed written language forever. There were earlier writing systems in Egypt and Mesopotamia. These systems used pictographs, which are pictures used as symbols. The Egyptian system had a thousand different characters.

The Phoenicians were influenced by these systems. They created their own and used symbols to represent sounds. Their alphabet had twenty-two characters. They didn’t have to learn the meanings of countless little pictures. This made reading and writing a lot simpler and easier to learn.

The Phoenicians’ system of writing spread through the Mediterranean. By 800 BCE, the Greeks had copied it. The Phoenician alphabet would shape many writing systems used in Europe and Western Asia.

Where did the Phoenicians go?

Historians question what happened to Phoenician society. The city-states lost power to large empires like Persia. Eventually, the colonies were the only independent Phoenician societies left.

The Phoenicians had a large effect on world history. As they traveled and traded, they influenced many civilizations. They spread cultural ideas and created new technologies.

1 Ancient societies like the Phoenicians, Egyptians, and Greeks used papyrus or paper made from plant fibers for writing and record keeping.