The lost world of the Phoenicians

by Amal Hewavissenthi

Whether or not they reached America, the Phoenicians write a chapter in history that is fabulous enough. They were a people by no means as mysterious as they have been generally regarded, a people who rightly rank beside the Greeks and the Romans as the “builders of the Western world.”

George Rawlinson characterised the Phoenicians as “the great pioneers of civilisation” who by their boldness, their intrepidity and their manual dexterity, prepared the way ... They adventured ... where none had ever gone before ...” Yet in the end, they had to submit.

Assyria, Babylonia and Persia took their tribute and levelled their cities time and again while Alexander in the east and the Romans in the west finally submerged them as an independent nation.

Tradition

As tradition has it, all this occurred nearly 3,000 years ago, in the golden age of an astonishing people who roved the Mediterranean from end to end, who taught the Hebrews how to build temples, the Greeks, to write with phonetic characters and the Romans to fight at sea.

From a small number of tiny city-kingdoms (Tyre, Sidon, Beirut, Bablos), the Phoenicians sailed and rowed the most advanced ships of their period to the boundaries of the known world and beyond. They grew rich on commerce, on hewing the timber from their mountains, on skilful working of bronze and iron and glass, gold and ivory, on dyeing cloth purple with an extract of sea snails. They traded with the Pharaohs of Egypt, brought King Solomon's gold from Ophir, battled for Xerxes against the Greeks, were besieged by Nebuchadnezzar and Alexander the Great and Sent Hannibal to beset the Romans in their own land.

From about 12th century BC, to the razing of Carthage in the 1st century BC, the Phoenicians added to history and legend a 1,000 years, of daring voyages of sure genius in trade and diplomacy. Then they fell sub merged by more militant empires. One great difficulty is that virtually no histories or literature of Phoenicians survive and what is generally known of them comes from others, chiefly from their enemies.

Legend of Elissa

The romantic story of Elissa of Tyre may well be true. As the legend has it, she fled from her murderous brother King Pygmalion and accompanied by priests and temple maidens of Astarte, she sailed west from Cypruss to the Gulf of Tunis, There, on the hill top now called the Byrsa, she founded the city of Carthage.

Elissa was a Phoenician princess and her story is balanced on reality and myth. But the Phoenicians were very real indeed and they were the greatest sailors and the explorers of the world. The first Phoenician city was Byblos which called itself the oldest city in the world and was the most important place which trakes its history as far back as 7,000 years.

Emir Maurice Chehab, Director General of Antiquities of Lebanon says “Then about 1,200 BC, the “mysterious people of the sea” arrived. No one yet knows just who they were. They toppled the Hit-tites, destroyed Ugarit on the Syrian coast and swept South until stopped by Ramesses III Pharaoh of the waning Egypt...” The Phoenicians were a mixture of peoples and they became a nation on their own. It was really a time of independence and energy, of a new form of writing, of long voyages and colonies which had been established as far away as Spain. Until Alexander of Macedon marched into Asia in 334 BC and the Romans rose to power in the west, the Phoenicians prospered and expanded the world's boundaries. They used symbols to write the sounds of their ancient Semitic language and exactly where that alphabet was invented is still a mystery.

The language consisted of 22 symbols each standing for a distinctive sound rather than a word, a thought or a phrase. The use of papyrus however explains why virtually no Phoenician writing, no history, no trading records have come down to us. In their cities by the sea with air and soil damp, papyrus mouldered and rotted away. Thus disappeared the literature of a people who taught the world to write.

Phoenician kingdoms such as Sidon were broadly known in Homer's time. In the epic Iliad, Homer called Phoenicians “well skilled in deft handiwork”.

He described a Phoenician silver bowl as “the goodliest in all the earth”. Later in the Odyssey he was somewhat cynical of Phoenicians.

“Thither came Phoenicians - men famed for their ships, greedy knaves, bringing countless trinkets”.

Phoenicians in pursuit of trade usually hugged coasts choosing landing places on easily defended islands or peninsulas.

During major crossings they steered by sun and stars and once ashore, the Phoenician traders spread out purple cloth, glass trinkets, and perfumed ointments.

Then they withdrew until the inhabitants brought adequate gold or other valuables and the best trading points eventually became Phoenician settlements.

Outbid

Eventually, Phoenicians met their match. The Greeks in the east outbid them in trade and outfought them on the sea. In the west, Romans had Carthaginion vessels as the prototype to build their own navy and finally wiped out Phoenician power in Africa.

Yet even today, Lebanese descendants of the Phoenicians carry on as entrepreneurs in practically every capital of the world.

Phoenician traders (today we call them Lebanese) have flourished through most of the centuries since then and still flourish in such cities as Paris, London, Sao Paulo, Singapore, New York and Sydney.