Phoenicians

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Phoenicians
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History of Lebanon

• 2 Centuries after Hammurabis reign, Babylonian
  empire fell to Nomadic Warriors
• Fertile Crescent broke into small kingdoms
• New people moved into the regions

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Phoenician Location

• Present day Lebanon
• 33.50º North
• 35.50º East
• Popular cities
• Tyre
• Byblos
• Sidon

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Geography

• Narrow coastal planes
• Beeka Valley separates
• Borders Israel Syria

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Climate

• Mediterranean
• Mild to cool
• Wet winters
• Dry, hot summers
• Mountains ? heavy rain snow

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Resources

• Snails - most valuable dye
• 60,000 snails to 1 pound
• Cedar trees- hard, usable wood

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Wealth from Trade

• Purple dye
• Cedar trees

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Relying on Trade

• Cedar is other valuable resource
• Relied on Trade
• Traded goods from other lands
• Own colonies too
• Competed with other city-states
• Interacted through trade

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Excellence in Sailing

• Desired trade
• Traveled Mediterranean Coasts
• Narrow, single sailed vessels with longs oars

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Colonies

• 1100-700 BCE, founded trading colonies
• 300 cities in Africas Med. Coast
• Carthage was greatest

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The Alphabet

• Only 22 symbols
• First appeared around 900 BCE
• Passed on to other cities
• Many common people could master
• Literacy became widespread

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Culture

• Shared collected ideas
• Purple dye for royalty
• Based on trade ships
• Alphabet

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Technology Tools

• Boats single-sailed vessels with long oars
• Alphabet started with the Phoenicians
• Weapons, cloth, wine, slaves, glass, and ivory

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Peace and War

• Peaceful society
• Focused on trade

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Law Order

• Hierarchy Status
• Kings and Priests still had much more power of
  the trades.
• Alphabet Laws

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Social Status

• King Priests
• Wealthy Commoners
• Free Commoners
• Slaves
• Typical Social Status

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Summary

• Most powerful traders in Mesopotamia area
• Invented alphabet
• Started the importance of sailing
• Created the royal purple color

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Fun Facts

• Purple dye- made from the squeezing of 60,000
  smelly snail glands
• Traded- anything and everything believed valuable
• Later, Carthage rivaled Rome in power.

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Location

• Phoenicia was centered in the north of ancient
  Canaan
• It was a coastal area along the Mediterranean Sea
• Modern Day Lebanon, Syria, Palestinian
  Territories and Israel

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Important cities

• Tripoli
• Baalbek
• Carthage

• Arvad
• Byblos
• Berytus
• Sidon
• Tyre
• Caesarea

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Government

• Individual city-states
• Each city-state had an independent government
• The king, the temple priests, and the council of
  wealthy merchants were the main sources of power

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religion

• They worshipped gods and goddesses sacred to
  specific city-states
• Each god and goddess represented a different
  aspect of life

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FAMILY LIFE

• The men had control over the family
• Men could sell their wives or the children to pay
  off debts
• Women were held high in the family

• Only priests and scribes could read and write

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Economic system

• They had a trade-based economy
• Their main good was a purple dye derived from
  snails found on the Tyre island
• Due to the dyes scarcity and the time in which
  it took to make, it became very expensive

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Economic system

• They established trading colonies along the
  Mediterranean coast
• They also traded
• Wine
• Glass
• Timber
• Olive oil
• Precious metals

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Social classes
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Cultural Development

• Spoke a Semitic language
• A seagoing culture where trade was the center of
  civilization
• Were skilled architects
• Wealthy trading towns whose centers were the
  temples

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City Structure

• Urban, small trading towns along the
  Mediterranean coast
• Temple was the center of the city
• Built buildings up to 6 stories high

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Rights of slaves

• Laws protected slaves from mistreatment
• Slaves could earn their own money, purchase
  property, and own their own freedom
• A freed slave could reach high office in the
  community

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Rights of women

• No evidence of polygamy
• In the case of divorce, the woman was given her
  possessions
• Had fundamental rights
• Women could press charges, make trading
  contracts, invest in trading, and adopt heirs

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Technology

• The Phoenician Empire had many advancements in
• shipbuilding
• pottery
• iron-working
• literature
• alphabet

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Phoenician alphabet

• First appeared around 900 B.C.
• Made an alphabet with 22 symbols
• The Greeks adopted the alphabet and added 4
  symbols

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Human-environment interactions

• Phoenicias location on the coast of the
  Mediterranean Sea enabled trade with other
  coastal regions
• Also, Phoenicias lack of natural resources
  encouraged its people to trade goods for
  necessary items

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COOPERATION

• Phoenicians were never interested in conquest
• They focused on autonomy and trade
• Became the naval and trading power in the region

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cooperation

• The Phoenicians initial trading partners were the
  Greeks
• Established strategic commercial trading outposts
• They chose peace over war but were defensive

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CONFLICT

• They were successively conquered by the
  Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians,
  Greeks, and Romans
• The rise of Greece destroyed Phoenicias eastern
  Mediterranean trade routes

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conflict

• The Persians then conquered the Phoenicians
  because of the loss of trade power
• Phoenicians retreated to Carthage
• There they prospered until the were destroyed by
  Romans in the Punic Wars

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Fall of Phoenicia

• The Phoenician empire fell when Alexander the
  Great defeated Persia.
• Over time all of the city states were conquered
• Phoenicia and its culture disappeared
• It later became Syria

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Summary

• They failed to use all of their elements of
  national power
• They succeeded economically, but did not use
  their wealth to protect their own borders
• They made contributions which were fundamental in
  future civilizations

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Technology

• The Alphabet, Bireme, and Glass

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The Alphabet

• First used Cuneiform
• Began using alphabet around 1050 BCE
• Quicker to learn and easier to use for trading

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Bireme

• Ships important to Phoenician society
• Made improvements on Unireme to make the Bireme
• 1st appeared in 8th century BCE

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Glass

• Egyptians first to use glass beads,
  produced naturally
• Phoenicians developed techniques
  make it artifically
• Developed even better technique,
  glass-blowing, under Roman rule

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Economy

• Maritime Trade, Trade Empire, Exports

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Maritime Trade

• Most of trade conducted across Mediterranean Sea
  at ports
• Many colonies became trade centers, such as
  Carthage

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Trade Empire

• Phoenicians controlled trade around Mediterranean
  between 1200-800 BCE
• Many city-states continued to be predominant
  powers long after this

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Exports

• Main Export Tyrian Purple powder
• Manufactured in Sarepta and Mogador from the
  Murex snail shells
• Trading Partners with Greece
• Traded slaves, wood, glass and purple powder

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Human-Environment Interaction

• The Sea, Dyes

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The Sea

• The Phoenicians were particularly good when it
  came to the sea
• Because of this they became a strong naval and
  trading power of the region

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Dyes

• The Phoenicians became famous and wealthy for
  their dyes, specifically for
• Reds- from kermes, tiny bugs that live in oak
  trees
• Blues- African indigos
• Royal Purple- most famous and important, came
  from the Murex sea-snail's shells

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Important Individuals

• The Kings of the Phoenicians

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The Kings of the Phoenicians

• Many kings stood out in the Phoenician empire
• Hiram I developed the city Tyre into one of the
  most important cities of the Phoenician empire
• Ithobal I expanded much of the Phoenician
  empire and established colonies overseas

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Kings (cont.)

• Elulaios Assyria captured Tyre under his riegn
  but he headed many revolts against the Assyrians
• Baal-Eser II was ruler when Phoenicia was at
  its height of influence and exceeded any other
  empire
• Pygmalion built the colonies Kition, Cyprus,
  and Carthage also shifted Phoenicias trade from
  the middle east to the Mediterranean

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Social Instiutions

• Religion and Sciences, Government

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Religion and Sciences

• The Phoenicians were polytheists and they built
  many temples to worship their gods
• They were also great administrators, accountants,
  and engineers.
• They built the first temple in Jerusalem in the
  mid-900s

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Government

• The Phoenicians had three different power bases
  to maintain control
• First came the kings
• Followed by the temple and the priests
• And finally the councils of elders

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Conflicts

• Early Wars, The Punic Wars

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Early Wars

• Phoenicia was split into many city-states, which
  fought for control of the seas and trade
• In 675 and 640 BCE, the Assyrians invaded and
  defeated the city-states Tyre and Sidon on the
  Eastern Mediterranean
• The Babylonians attacked Tyre in 585 BCE ,13
  years of fighting, ended with compromise in 572
  BCE

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Early Wars

• The Eastern Phoenicians allied with Greeks
  against Persia and Egypt
• Persia and Egypt won the fighting in 539 BCE
• The Eastern city-states thus went under control
  of Cyrus the Great, emperor of Persia

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The Punic Wars

• The Punic Wars were a series of three wars fought
  between Rome and Carthage between 264 and 146 BCE
• In 813 BCE, the Phoenicians founded Carthage, a
  colony in North Africa which became a predominant
  city-state
• Carthage and Rome were powerful cities in the
  200s and 100s which led to their conflicts in the
  Punic Wars

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The Punic Wars

• The First Punic War was a conflict
  over the control of Sicily between
  264 and 241 BCE
• The Second Punic War was a series
  of campaigns led by Hannibal,
  leader of Carthage, against Roman
  Italy from 218 to 201 BCE
• The Third Punic War was the Siege of Carthage by
  the Romans from 149 to 146 BCE

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Bibliography

• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenicia
• http//phoenicia.org/trade.html
• http//phoenicia.org/cities.html
• http//www.geocities.com/soho/lofts/2938/histcult.
  html
• http//www.democracyinlebanon.org/Documents/CDL-Do
  cumentaries/Phoenicians(NatGeo).htm
• http//store.fantazpets.com/images/puzzles/boats/p
  hoenician.jpg
• http//www.oldandsold.com/a1photos/grecian_urns_ar
  ticles15_pottery_rs.jpg
• http//www.unrv.com/provinces/syria.php
• http//www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0860355.htm
  l
• Saggs, H.W.F. The Babylonians
• Heath, D.C. World History

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Bibliography

• Gore, Rick, and Robert Clark. "Who were the
  Phoenicians?" National Geographic. National
  Geographic. 11 Nov. 2008 lthttp//ngm.nationalgeogr
  aphic.com/ngm/0410/feature2/?fswww3.nationalgeogr
  aphic.comgt.
• "Lebenon." The World Factbook. 6 Nov. 2008.
  Central Intelligence Agency. 11 Nov. 2008
  lthttps//www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-worl
  d-factbook/geos/le.htmlgt.
• Phoenician. Merriam-Websters Collegiate
  Encyclopedia. Steven, Mark A. ed. 1 vol.
  Massachusetts Springfield 2000.
• Khalaf, Salim G. "A Bequest Unearthed,
  Phoenicia,." Phoenician Encyclopedia. Sept. 1996.
  Encyclopedia Phoeniciana. 11 Nov. 2008
  lthttp//www.phoenicia.org/gt.