A seafaring people

The Phoenicians were an ancient people from modern-day Lebanon and Syria who traveled throughout the Mediterranean world. They called themselves Can’ani (Canaanites). The Greeks called them Phoenicians, which means “purple people”. This was because the Phoenicians were famed for a rare purple dye they made from snail shells. 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 are perhaps best known for creating the first alphabet, which influenced writing systems everywhere. Unfortunately, almost all of their original writings were lost. Historians and archaeologists have had to piece together the story of the Phoenicians from other civilizations’ sources.

Historians think “Phoenicia” was never a unified society. Rather, it was a loose alliance of many city- states that included Tyre, Byblos, Beirut, and Sidon. Phoenician cities were also often controlled by other regional powers like the Egyptians and Assyrians.

Though the Phoenician people didn’t form a powerful empire, they were still influential. They were master seafarers and traders who formed networks across the Mediterranean Sea. Phoenician ships carried technologies and ideas and Phoenician merchant communities absorbed and adapted foreign ideas. They formed critical connections between places that would impact the world for thousands of years.

Masters of the sea

Ancient writers describe the Phoenicians as expert sailors. They were first to venture from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. They were the dominant maritime power between 1200 BCE and 800 BCE. They built commercial colonies in Spain, North Africa and many Mediterranean islands.

Their success was due to their ships, which were known for their speed and their ability to move through harsh seas. Phoenician boats had room for many rowers and were built to sail long distances. Phoenician sailors themselves were also skilled. They were some of the first people to use stars to navigate.

Along with their famous purple dyes, Phoenician sailors traded textiles, wood, glass and metals. They also traded papyrus,¹ a common writing material in the ancient world. In fact, the word “Bible” came from the city of Byblos.

The Phoenician community

Trade was at the center of the Phoenician economy, so merchants were very important people in Phoenician society. They made up the Phoenician senate, which determined the affairs of the city-state.

There was a lot of social mobility in Phoenician communities. Women had more freedom than many other women in the ancient world. Women participated in banquets alongside men. They attended religious events. The culture had many female goddesses. The Phoenicians also had famous female leaders, including Dido, the queen of Carthage.

But social hierarchies did exist. There were many enslaved people in Phoenician society, many of who were captured enemy soldiers. There were reports in the records of Phoenicia’s competitors that they tricked people onto their ships to enslave them. But we should be aware of historical bias from these sources.

Historians have a better understanding of the Phoenicians’ belief system. There were multiple Phoenician gods. People from faraway Phoenician colonies would gather for religious events, like a sacrifice at a temple. Many of these religious beliefs were based on traditions from Mesopotamia, an ancient region in modern-day Iraq.

Phoenicians abroad

The Phoenicians traveled abroad in search of land and resources to feed their growing population. Some of their colonies became larger and more powerful than the original city-states. Carthage, located in modern-day Tunisia, became one of the biggest cities in the world. It had nearly half a million residents in 500 BCE.

These colonies formed important trade networks. The colonies had a lot of ethnic diversity. Phoenicians, native people and migrants from across the Mediterranean and sub-Saharan Africa lived in them.

The Phoenicians didn’t really build an empire because they didn’t directly rule over their large territory. They did have power over the colonized people, though. In Carthage, enslaved people farmed to provide food for the Phoenicians.

A revolutionary script

The Phoenician alphabet revolutionized the written language. The Phoenicians were influenced by the writing systems used in Egypt and Mesopotamia. These systems used pictographs, which are pictures used as symbols. The Phoenicians used symbols to represent sounds.

The Phoenician system greatly simplified writing. The Egyptian system had a thousand different characters. The Phoenicians created a script with only twenty-two characters. Once you learned the sounds symbolized by the letters, you could read without having to know the meanings of countless little pictures. This made literacy a lot easier, and writing a whole lot faster.

The Phoenicians’ system of writing spread across their trade networks. By 800 BCE, the Greeks had adopted it. It therefore influenced Latin and dozens of other languages in Europe, the Middle East and India.

Where did the Phoenicians go?

Historians debate what happened to Phoenician society. The original Phoenician city-states lost power to growing civilizations like the Persian Empire. Eventually, the colonies were the only independent Phoenician societies left.

The Phoenicians had a massive impact on world history. As they traveled and traded, they spread cultural ideas, mixed with local populations, and created innovative technologies.

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