Section 5: The Phoenicians and the Lydians

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Section 5 The Phoenicians and the Lydians
Lydian coins
Phoenician Cargo Ship
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The Story Continues
Who was ever silenced like Tyre . . .
? When your merchandise went out on the seas, you
satisfied many nations with your great wealth
and your wares you enriched the kings of the
earth. This passage from the Bible evokes the
splendor of the Phoenician city-state of Tyre at
its height.
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I. The Phoenicians
A. Geography
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A. Geography
Phoenicia lay at the western end of the Fertile
Crescent - modern Israel, Lebanon, and Syria
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A. Geography

• Phoenicia was a loose union of city-states, each
  governed by a king

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A. Geography

• Lacking fertile land and with mountains blocking
  expansion, the Phoenicians began trading on the
  sea

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B. Phoenician Trade

• They became the greatest traders of the ancient
  world and established colonies in Italy, Spain
  and North Africa

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B. Phoenician Trade

• Phoenicians traded cedar from Lebanon, dried
  fish, linen, olive oil, and wine

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B. Phoenician Trade

• They made gold and silver trade goods
• using methods learned from the Egyptians

Bronze Bull covered in gold leaf, from a
Phoenician Temple at Byblos, Phoenicia
Phoenician jewelry
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B. Phoenician Trade

• Phoenicia invented the art of glassblowing and
  traded glass items

Phoenician glass bottles
Phoenician glass bead necklace
Gold bracelet w/glass Phoenician Beads
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B. Phoenician Trade

• Phoenicians made a purple dye (royal purple) from
  a shellfish called the murex

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B. Phoenician Trade

• The cities of Sidon and Tyre became centers of
  the dyeing trade

Sea castle, Sidon
Ruins in Tyre
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C. Phoenician Culture

• The Phoenicians helped to spread Egyptian and
  Babylonian culture throughout the Mediterranean
  region

Phoenicians bireme (a ship with two banks of
oars) ca. 700 BC
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C. Phoenician Culture

• Religion was focused on winning the favor of
  their gods and sometimes involved human sacrifice

Baal The sun-god
Phoenician goddess figurines
Astarte - the supreme female divinity
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C. Phoenician Culture

• The Phoenicians never established a major empire
  their cities were conquered by the Assyrians

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C. Phoenician Culture

• The Greeks and Romans adapted the Phoenician
  alphabet into the one we use today

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A. Geography
II. The Lydians

• Lydia was located in Asia Minor (modern-day
  Turkey)

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B. Lydian Contributions

• They are remembered for inventing money - coins
  made of gold and silver to replace barter

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B. Lydian Contributions

• Lydian traders developed a money economy - a
  system based on money as a measure of value and a
  unit of account

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B. Lydian Contributions

• The Lydians passed this on to the Greeks and
  Persians, who spread the concept to other parts
  of the world