History - The Phoenicians

The Phoenicians - 1,500 to 550 BC

by Gisela Radant Wood

The Phoenicians (fenicios in Spanish)were a Semitic people who called themselves the ‘Canaan’ and lived in city-states on the coastal strip of what is today Lebanon. The Greeks called these people ‘Phoenician’ which is Greek for the Tyrian purple dye from the Murex mollusc that the Phoenicians traded. Tyre was their main territory but it would be difficult to call Tyre the capital of Phoenicia in the modern sense as all Phoenician city-states had their own kings or rulers — rather like the city-states in Greece. They enjoyed an advanced culture and stable civilisation, but they could not grow enough food on their own lands to sustain their robust and growing population. In front of them was the Mediterranean Sea. Behind them was the Assyrian empire. They looked seaward, took to boats and went trading. They had luxury items sought after by the wealthy, high-ranking and aristocratic classes; glass, wine, ceramics, slaves and most valuable of all they had powdered Tyrian purple dye. The Phoenicians sought gold, silver, tin, other metals and wood with which to craft their luxury goods. They also wanted food, especially cereals.

The Phoenicians traded with Egypt who had papyrus and linen and with Assyria who had no coastline and wanted everything. Trade amongst these empires and peoples involved prestigious items very often given as gifts in order to gain influence. These gifts were also handed on by wealthy, powerful people to gain further influence or to impress or reward the recipient. Trade of a more commercial kind was carried on in the Aegean Sea where Greeks and Phoenicians established a mutually beneficial trade agreement early on in their histories.

By 1,200 BC in the late Bronze Age, the Phoenicians were the most important and powerful sea-farers and traders in the Mediterranean. They used astronomy to help them navigate and had maps. Their principal city, Tyre, was founded in 1,191 BC and like the other Phoenician cities it was independent. They were organised in their account keeping and their alphabet and system of writing spread along Mediterranean coasts and was taken up and/or adapted by many other peoples.

The Phoenicians arrive in Iberia

Around 1,050BC the Phoenicians reached the southern coasts of the Iberian peninsula. They pushed on and sailed further and further westward in search of trade and eventually made a leap of faith, sailed through the Pillars of Hercules and into the Atlantic Ocean. They turned north (they also turned south but that is another story), sailed up the coast and founded their trading port of Gadir, which is today’s Cádiz. Cadiz is known for being the oldest, continuously inhabited city in Western Europe. Its foundation is traditionally dated to 80 years after the Trojan War; 1,004BC or 1,003BC.

The Phoenicians founded other cities and ports around the Mediterranean including a colony in Cyprus called Kition, present day Larnaca, in the 900s BC. In 814 BC they founded Carthage (near modern day Tunis), their most important independent city-state, on the North African coast.

All the colonies that Phoenicia founded were independent city-states — exactly like the home cities of Tyre and its sister-cities, Sidon and Byblos. The colonies may have looked to Phoenicia for continuing trade and support but they were independent. Apart from any private trading activities, power resided with the monarchy and the religious class and both of these, the palaces and temples, were Phoenician institutions. Although monarchy was an ancient institution and hereditary, the rise of the merchant class, with their wealth, diminished the power of the monarchy somewhat. The king was advised by a counsel of ancients from the city. This may have been consultative or had stronger powers but we really cannot be sure.

Phoenician traders and merchants were generally people of an elevated status. They may have been landowners and they certainly had social prestige. Sometimes they were members of a royal family. They were used to negotiations and were instrumental in establishing good relations between the countries in which Phoenicia wanted to trade. Right from the start the merchant oligarchy were very organised and their strong trading ethos drove Phoenicia to prosperity. Importantly, as already stated, the Phoenicians had writing and left evidence of their history and of places they traded with, founded and colonised.

Cadiz

The most powerful god of the Phoenicians was Melqart and Astarte, a goddess. Melqart was the principal god of Tyre and he became important throughout the whole of the Phoenician-Carthaginian world from Lebanon to Iberia. Wherever the Phoenicians founded a colony the first thing they did was to build a temple to Melqart and the one in Cádiz, built on the island of Sancti Petri, was the oldest on the Iberian peninsula. It was active until Roman times many hundreds of years after the Phoenicians had left the city. Melqart was later Romanised, in the traditional Roman way of assimilating local gods. Cadiz was identified with Hercules. More about Phoenicians in Cadiz city.

Next: Phoenicians to Carthaginians in Andalucia

 

 

Phoenician Archaelogical Sites in Andalucia

Most of the Phonecian sites in Andalucia were built on by later civilisations. Phoenician artefacts are preserved in Musums.