The Legacy of Phoenicia

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The Legacy of Phoenicia
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Purple Dye Murex Snail
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Inspired by Egypt, obelisks punctuate a temple in
Byblos, Lebanon, that was likely dedicated to the
god Reshef about 1800 b.c
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• By that time Egypt had already been trading with
  the cities of the eastern Mediterranean for at
  least a thousand years, importing luxuries such
  as wine, olive oil, and cedar timbers. In return
  the Phoenicians acquired Egyptian articles such
  as gold, scarabs, and stone vases, which have
  survived as votive articles buried at temples.
  Egyptian papyrus, on which the Phoenicians kept
  their records, crumbled to dust long ago.

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Winged Sphinx - Phoenician, 9th-8th century
BCFound at Fort Shalmaneser, Nimrud (ancient
Kalhu), northern Iraq
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Phoenician art lacks unique characteristics that
might distinguish it from its contemporaries.
This is due to its being highly influenced by
foreign artistic cultures primarily Egypt,
Greece and Assyria. Phoenicians who were taught
on the banks of the Nile and the Euphrates gained
a wide artistic experience and finally came to
create their own art, which was an amalgam of
foreign models and perspectives.
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The Phoenician city-state of Sidon emerged as the
source of the glass trade. Many civilizations,
including the Greeks, believed that Sidon
invented the technology of creating glass because
of its unusual beauty.
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• Thousands of Phoenician glass bottles were made
  to hold oil, wine and other liquids and they were
  often square-shaped so that they could be packed
  together conveniently. Glass for ordinary use
  often had a pleasant blue, green or brown tinge
  because, although the glassmakers could make
  clear glass, it was very expensive. One of the
  oldest glass making techniques ever used was the
  core-formed method. Molten glass was trailed or
  gathered around a core of animal dung mixed with
  clay and supported by a rod. After forming and
  cooling, the object is removed from the rod and
  the core scraped out. Core-Formed Blue glass
  Aryballos, the two handles with marbled turquoise
  and navy blue feather bands

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This is SO COOL!!! People still make and sell
Phoenician Glassware today!

• Phoenician Glass Carafe and Phoenician Glass
  Goblet
• Hand-blown and skillfully colored in the
  tradition of Phoenician Glass, this Hebron
  glassware delights the senses. Made from recycled
  glass, each piece is fairly tradedbenefiting
  artisan collectives in the West Bankand one of a
  kind. Carafe - 79.95 and Goblet - 39.95
• Ten Thousand VillagesSeattle 6417 Roosevelt Way
  NE, Ste. 101206-524-9223,seattle.tenthousandvill
  ages.com

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Glass Pendant (about 1 x ½) 400-200 BCE
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Glass bead necklace 500-300 BCE
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Phoenician Grinning Mask, Sardinia, 500 BCE
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• Acting as cultural middlemen, the Phoenicians
  disseminated ideas, myths, and knowledge from the
  powerful Assyrian and Babylonian worlds in what
  is now Syria and Iraq to their contacts in the
  Aegean. Those ideas helped spark a cultural
  revival in Greece, one which led to the Greeks'
  Golden Age and hence the birth of Western
  civilization. The Phoenicians imported so much
  papyrus from Egypt that the Greeks used their
  name for the first great Phoenician port, Byblos,
  to refer to the ancient paper. The name Bible, or
  "the book," also derives from Byblos.