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Phoenician language, Northwest Semitic language spoken in ancient times on the coast of the Levant in Tyre, Sidon, Byblos, and other areas. It is very close to Hebrew and Moabite, with which it forms the Canaanite language subgroup. The Phoenician alphabet had profound impact on the development of alphabets.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Nov 21, 2023 · Why is the Phoenician alphabet important? The Phoenician alphabet is important because it connected the spoken language to the written language. This created a more universal way of communication ...
- Who created the Phoenician alphabet?The ancient Phoenician civilization created the Phoenician alphabet. They used an earlier version from the Pro-Canaanites and adapted it into a wri...
- What is the first alphabet?There are earlier writing systems such as Cuneiform and Hieroglyphics, however the first known letter system of an alphabet is thought to have orig...
- Why is the Phoenician alphabet important?The Phoenician alphabet is important because it connected the spoken language to the written language. This created a more universal way of communi...
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- Overview
- First read: preview and skimming for gist
- Second read: key ideas and understanding content
- Third read: evaluating and corroborating
- Phoenicians: Masters of the Sea
- A seafaring people
- Masters of the sea
- The Phoenician community
- Phoenicians abroad
- A revolutionary script
The Phoenicians were master seafarers and traders who created a robust network across—and beyond—the Mediterranean Sea, spreading technologies and ideas as they traveled.
The article below uses “Three Close Reads”. If you want to learn more about this strategy, click here.
Fill out the Skimming for Gist section of the Three Close Reads Worksheet as you complete your first close read. As a reminder, this should be a quick process!
For this reading, you should be looking for unfamiliar vocabulary words, the major claim and key supporting details, and analysis and evidence. By the end of the second close read, you should be able to answer the following questions:
1.How do historians know about Phoenician society?
2.What system of production and distribution sustained Phoenician society?
3.What aspects of Phoenician sailing technology helped them become “masters of the sea?”
4.Describe women’s roles in Phoenician society, according to the author.
5.What’s the significance of Phoenician colonies?
At the end of the third close read, respond to the following questions:
1.How was Phoenician community organization unique compared to other states during this era? How was it similar?
2.Phoenicia was a complex society, with a state structure, and it arguably even became an empire. But it had an unusual system of production and distribution. How does this fit with the narrative of most complex societies during this era?
Now that you know what to look for, it’s time to read! Remember to return to these questions once you’ve finished reading.
By Eman M. Elshaikh
The Phoenicians were master seafarers and traders who created a robust network across—and beyond—the Mediterranean Sea, spreading technologies and ideas as they traveled.
When we think about societies that had a massive impact on world history, we often forget about the "purple people." The Greeks gave this name to their seafaring trade partners, the Phoenicians, because of the rare purple dye they made from snail shells. And although the Phoenicians called themselves Can'ani (Canaanites), the name the Greeks gave them seems to have stuck.
This is partly because historians mainly used Greek, Assyrian, and Latin sources along with Biblical references to learn about Phoenician society. The Phoenicians are perhaps best known for creating the first alphabet, which influenced writing systems everywhere. The Phoenicians used this alphabet to record their histories on papyrus1 . Unfortunately, almost all of their original writings were lost due to changing environmental conditions and multiple migrations and invasions. Still, historians and archaeologists are able to piece together a story about the Phoenicians.
Historians think "Phoenicia" was never a unified society. Rather, it was a loose alliance of many city-states in modern-day Lebanon and Syria, including Tyre, Byblos, Beirut, and Sidon. Phoenician cities were also often controlled by other regional powers like the Egyptians and Assyrians.
Though the Phoenician people didn't form a powerful empire, they were still incredibly influential. As master seafarers and traders, they created a robust network across and beyond the Mediterranean Sea. Phoenician ships carried technologies and ideas. As a result, Phoenician merchant communities absorbed and adapted foreign ideas. They formed critical connections between places, and drove cultural exchanges that would impact the world for millennia.
Driven to the coast, probably by their aggressive Assyrian neighbors, Phoenicians were not able to develop extensive farming. The environmental conditions inland were not favorable to large-scale agriculture. Living in a narrow coastal corridor that connected Asia to Africa, Phoenicians took advantage of their location to foster trade.
Ancient writers describe the Phoenicians as expert sailors. They were first to venture from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. By 1200 BCE, they were the dominant maritime power, and they continued to dominate until around 800 BCE. They built commercial colonies in Rhodes, Cyprus, Sicily, Sardinia, Spain, and north Africa. This gave them a network of ports in the Mediterranean. There's also evidence that they ventured far west to what is now Spain and beyond to the Atlantic coast of Africa. According to ancient Greek historian Herodotus, they traveled as far as South Africa!
Their success was due to their ships. They were known for their speed and their ability to maneuver harsh seas. In fact, the ancient Egyptians called boats that could travel in the deep seas "Byblos boats," after the Phoenician city-state. Phoenician boats had room for many rowers and were built to sail long distances. One key ship technology was the cutwater, a sharp point that allowed ships to, well, cut through water. Phoenician ships were so advanced that both Persian and Assyrian royalty used Phoenician ships to sail. Phoenician sailors themselves were also skilled. They were some of the first people to use stars to navigate.
Along with their famous purple dyes, Phoenician sailors traded textiles, wood, glass, metals, incense, papyrus, and carved ivory. In fact, the word "Bible," from the Greek biblion, or book, came from the city of Byblos. It was a center of the trade of papyrus, a common writing material in the ancient world. They also traded wine, spices, salted fish and other food.
Trade was at the center of the Phoenician economy, so merchants were at the center of the political structure and community. Merchant families made up the Phoenician senate, which determined the affairs of the city-state. This created a kind of merchant aristocracy (upper class). But unlike other aristocracies, this wasn't a closed group for those of noble birth.
In general, there was a lot of social mobility in Phoenician communities. Phoenicians frequently married non- Phoenicians, and women had more freedom than many other women in the ancient world. There are few sources about Phoenician life in general and even less about women. But evidence suggests that women had a seat at the table—literally. Carvings and inscriptions show women at banquets and large gatherings alongside their male family members. They are also seen at religious events. There were many respected female deities (gods). The Phoenicians also had famous female leaders, including Dido, the Queen of Carthage.
But hierarchies did exist. There were many enslaved people in Phoenician society. Many of these slaves were captured enemy soldiers. There were also reports that Phoenician sailors tricked people onto ships, pretending to show them goods, then capturing them as slaves. But since these reports came from Phoenicia's competitors, we should be aware of historical bias from these sources.
Historians have a better understanding of Phoenician's belief system. This may be because it's one of the main things uniting the many Phoenician communities. Even the faraway colony of Carthage in modern-day Tunisia sent people back to Tyre annually to participate in a sacrifice at the temple of the god Melqart. There were multiple Phoenician deities. Like the Greek gods, they were seen as powerful and unpredictable.
Phoenicians were often under pressure by aggressive neighbors. Without enough land to feed their growing population, Phoenicians ventured abroad looking for land, resources, and trading partners. Some colonies, most notably Carthage, came to be more powerful than the original city-states. By 500 BCE, Carthage was one of the biggest cities in the world, with nearly half a million residents.
These colonies played a critical role in the production and distribution of goods. They formed the basis of a lively trade network. Over two dozen ports and colonies were strung together, linking Mediterranean and Atlantic trade. Colonies were ethnically diverse. Phoenicians, indigenous people, and migrants from across the Mediterranean and sub-Saharan Africa lived in them. Though the Phoenicians built colonies, they didn't really build an empire, because they didn't directly rule over a large territory. However, they did have power over the colonized people. For example, in fertile Carthage, enslaved people and indigenous peasants farmed to provide a stable food supply. Carthage also had a powerful military. It was therefore the most empire-like of the Phoenician city-states.
The twenty-two characters of the Phoenician script revolutionized the written language. But where did it come from, and why was it so revolutionary? The Phoenician alphabet basically simplified writing. Both Egyptian and Mesopotamian early systems of writing used pictographs, which are pictures used as symbols. And there's evidence that Phoenicians were drawing on both of these systems of writing. But instead of using pictures to represent things, Phoenicians used symbols to represent sounds. This might sound pretty unexciting, but it was a huge leap. Once you learned the sounds symbolized by the letters, you could read without having to know the meanings of countless little pictures. This made literacy a lot easier, and writing a whole lot faster.
This simplified alphabet made trade and accounting easier. As Phoenicians traveled across their networks, their system of writing moved with them. By 800 BCE, the Greeks had adopted it, adding vowels to make it even more efficient. It formed the basis of the Greek, Aramaic, and Etruscan systems of writing. By extension, it influenced Latin and dozens of other Indo-European languages. It influenced a big fraction of ancient writing systems, with the notable exception of East Asian writing.
Aug 4, 2023 · The Phoenicians, originating from the region of modern-day Lebanon, were renowned for their prowess as skilled maritime traders and naval fighters. Their historical significance extends beyond commerce, as they introduced the earliest form of the alphabet to the ancient world. Their maritime trade networks extended along the North African and ...
Mar 15, 2022 · Our first examples of the Phoenician alphabet—technically an abjad, containing only consonants—appear around the 11th century B.C.E. It was not the first writing system of this kind: 200 years earlier, the people of Ugarit a little further up the Syrian coast used a cuneiform alphabet (including some indication of vowels) to write their ...
The Phoenician phonetic alphabet is generally believed to be at least the partial ancestor of almost all modern alphabets. The most important Phoenician trade routes and cities in the Mediterranean Basin. From a traditional linguistic perspective, Phoenician was composed of a variety of dialects.
Mar 19, 2018 · Herodotus cites Phoenicia as the birthplace of the alphabet, stating that it was brought to Greece by the Phoenician Kadmus (sometime before the 8th century BCE) and that, prior to that, the Greeks had no alphabet. The Phoenician alphabet is the basis for most western languages written today and their city of Gebal (called by the Greeks 'Byblos ...
