The main occupations of Phenicia. Occupations of the Phoenicians

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TOPIC 16. ANCIENT PHENICIA.

What were the natural and geographical conditions of Phoenicia.
What were the occupations of the Phoenicians.
How and where the Phoenicians sailed the seas.
How and with whom did the people of Phoenicia trade?
How did the ancient alphabet originate?
What were the religious beliefs of the Phoenicians.
How the richest cities of Phoenicia were arranged.

1. Natural and geographical conditions of Phenicia and its population.

On the eastern coast of the Mediterranean, between the mountains that run parallel to the shore and the sea, lies a narrow strip of land that is today called Lebanon. From the IV millennium BC. people settled here, whom the ancient Greeks would call Phoenicians, which meant "reddish", "swarthy". Hence, the name of the whole country - Phenicia - came from. The Phoenicians themselves called themselves Canaanites, and called their lands Canaan 1 . The Phoenicians belonged to a group of West Semitic tribes who at the same time inhabited many neighboring lands.

Phoenicia was fenced off from the rest of Asia Minor by the high mountain range of Lebanon with cedar forests, meadows and snowy peaks. The originality of the natural conditions of Phoenicia is reflected even in the names of the most important settlements. So, for example, the name of the city of Byblos (in Phoenician sounds like Gebal) means “mountain”, the city of Tyre (in Phoenician - Tzur) - “rock”.

Phenicia, sandwiched between the Great Sea of Sunset and the Lebanese mountains, was located at the crossroads of the most important trade routes. In Phoenicia, the paths of land caravans 2 and all sea routes closed. Her lands seemed to have been created specifically for trade. The coast here is replete with small bays sheltered by capes protruding into the sea. Therefore, the population could easily defend itself against attacks both from land and from the sea. In addition, there were many islands close enough to the coast that provided shelter for the ships of the Phoenicians.

^ 2. Occupations of the Phoenicians.

Numerous sources testify that, initially, like all Semites, the Phoenicians were not engaged in trade at all, but in cattle breeding. The narrow coastal strip, protected from the sultry east winds, was convenient for the development of horticulture. In their gardens, the Phoenicians grew olives, dates, and grapes. They made wonderful olive oil and thick unusual wine, highly valued in the world. The opportunity to engage in arable farming was limited due to the lack of good land.

From ancient times, the inhabitants of Canaan were engaged in fishing, which is natural for the sea people. It is no coincidence that the name of one of the Phoenician cities is Sidon, which means “place of fishing”. In their small boats they went to sea and soon became very skilled sailors. Boats usually moved by oars, the sail was rarely used.

Gradually, they learned to navigate by the stars and began to make quite long journeys. especially helped them polar Star located in the constellation Ursa Minor. She always indicated the direction to the north, and the Phoenicians often used her as a guide. In ancient times it was called Phoenician star.

Great wealth for the country was represented by the forests of mountainous Lebanon, which abounded with cedar, spruce and other valuable species of wood. The Phoenicians in ancient times began to trade timber with neighboring countries, which were in great need of wood. The forest that grew on the slopes of the mountains was in special demand. From the thousand-year-old Lebanese cedar, the Egyptians built excellent ships, which were called "byblos", since the city of Byblos or Byblos was the main supplier of such ships.

The Phoenicians actively sold not only the forest. One of their ships brought more goods than a caravan of donkeys or camels. Most of the goods were created by the hands of skilled artisans of Phoenicia - jewelers, wood and ivory carvers, weavers. They created fine jewelry, mostly in gold and silver. The Phoenicians kept the secrets of glass making and were the first to make it transparent. By heating a mixture of white sand and soda to an enormous temperature, a hot, pliable mass was obtained, from which various objects were molded. Phoenician glass vessels were famous all over the world, made using glass blowing technique, when the master blew inside the red-hot glass mass through a long hollow tube while simultaneously turning it from side to side, achieving a perfect shape. These containers were very expensive. But the Phoenicians were especially famous not for luxurious jewelry and glass, but for fabrics.

Brave divers, descending hundreds of times under the water, looked for special small shells of a rare mollusk at the bottom of the sea. A few tiny drops of purple-red liquid were squeezed out of each shell. With this natural dye, experienced craftsmen evenly dyed white woolen and linen fabrics in an unusually beautiful purple color. Such a fabric cost thousands of times more than ordinary white matter, because all over the world the color of purple was considered the color of power, and only the richest and noblest people in Egypt, Mesopotamia and Asia Minor could afford to buy clothes from the purple fabric of the Phoenicians. The ancient Romans would even call the Phoenicians "Punians", which roughly translates to "People of the Purple".

Large, fast ships with a good crew and strong slave rowers were always ready for the services of merchants. The Phoenicians were famous in antiquity as brave and courageous sailors. They were skilled shipbuilders and experienced sailors, but they never sailed across the open sea, always keeping to the coastline. The ships of the Phoenicians easily capsized even in a light storm, so as soon as a strong wind rose, they landed on the shore in order to wait out the bad weather.

The inhabitants of Phoenicia traded not only with powerful neighboring states, their ships from the III millennium BC. they also landed on the wild, then still little inhabited shores of Italy, Greece and the islands of the Aegean, Adriatic, Tyrrhenian and Ionian seas. (All these seas are parts of the Mediterranean Sea and wash the shores of large peninsulas - the Apennine, Balkan and Asia Minor). Here they exchanged their many goods with local cattle breeders - copper tools, jewelry, fabrics, bread from Egypt, wine and oil for wool, animal skins, and various products. To the Phoenicians, these lands seemed to be a gloomy, cold country. They named her Erebus(literally translated " lying at sunset"). It is believed that the name originated from this name - Europe.

The Phoenicians were the first to sail north of the Atlantic, to the shores of modern England. From here they brought tin, which was so necessary for alloying with copper, and bright unusual amber, highly valued in the countries of the East. Their ships went out even through strait of Gibraltar in Atlantic Ocean . The brave sailors of Phoenicia around 600 BC made the first voyage around Africa. The most outstanding sea expeditions, the memory of which has been preserved by ancient history, were made by the Phoenicians.
The trade of the Phoenicians was barter , that is, one commodity was exchanged for a certain amount of another commodity. Usually dealing with uncivilized peoples, they unloaded their goods and laid them out on the shore, then lit a fire to raise a column of smoke, and retired to their ships. The natives went ashore, inspected the goods, laid next to them as much gold as they considered fair, and retired to their hiding places located nearby. If the Phoenicians were satisfied with the offered price, they swam to the shore, took the ashes and set off. If the payment seemed insufficient, then the Phoenicians again returned to their ships and waited there until the natives deposited as much gold as the Carthaginians desired. “Never did either side act dishonestly towards the other side, the Carthaginians did not touch gold until it corresponded to the price of their goods, and the natives never took goods until the gold was carried away,” – wrote the ancient Greek historian Herodotus. However, he also talked about how the Phoenicians lured Greek women who wanted to buy fabrics from them for their ships and deceived them, depriving them of their freedom, then sold them into slavery in Egypt. Indeed, the Phoenicians were known in the ancient world as ruthless slave traders. Phoenician navigators were considered not only merchants, but also pirates - hunters for people.

Although the first money in history appeared in the country Lydia , on the shores of Asia Minor in the VIII century BC, it is believed that, and the Phoenicians were among the first to use coins. Prior to this, precious metals were often used in calculations, but they had to be weighed for a long time. The Phoenicians, following the inhabitants of Lydia, began to issue coins from precious metals with a certain weight. To avoid forgery, a special brand was put on the coins, indicating the city that minted this coin, indicating its price.

^ 4. Phoenician alphabet.

The largest contribution of the Phoenicians to world culture is the invention of the alphabet. Today it is even difficult for us to imagine how it was possible to do without letters. But the path to the emergence of the alphabet was long and difficult.

The traditions of all the "peoples of the book" testify that writing ("silent speech") was a "gift of the gods." This gift was available to few. Ancient writing systems - hieroglyphs, cuneiform - were very complex. Mastering them was not easy, and it took a lot of time to learn.

The Phoenician traders knew that the Egyptians wrote in hieroglyphs. From the merchants who came from the East, from Mesopotamia, they learned about cuneiform writing. Initially, the inhabitants of Phoenicia began to use cuneiform, adapting it to their language. With the growth of navigation, with the development of wide trade, in which a significant part of the population was employed, a simple, generally accessible writing was required, and not one that could be studied only by a few priests or scribes. The first monument that has come down to us, fixing the Phoenician alphabet, is the inscription on the sarcophagus of the Phoenician king Ahiram from Byblos (c. 1000 BC).

According to one version, the characters of the alphabet were originally created to determine the days of the lunar month. In selecting different names for each day of the month (the name of an animal, object, and so on), the ancients came up with a system of 30 words, originally used for calendar designations and mathematical calculations. Among the Arabs, letters also had a numerical value; the number of letters in the alphabet was twenty-eight, as was the number of days in the lunar month. Later they discovered that other words can be formed from the first sounds of "calendar words". Thus the alphabet was born.

According to another version, the names of the letters of the alphabet were taken from the ancient lunar zodiac. The Phoenicians were excellent seafarers and traders, so it's easy to imagine how they compiled a calendar based on their practical knowledge of the constellations. Obviously, the calendar could be useful to merchants as a system of numerical designations. According to scientists, it was only at a later stage that the 29 or 30 symbols of the calendar began to be used as a means of displaying oral speech.

Today we know that any language of the world can be divided into a certain number of characteristic sounds, usually from 25 to 35. The first alphabet in the history of the world also met this requirement. Each icon corresponded to a separate sound, that is, it was a letter. There were only 22 of them, and they expressed 22 consonants.

Each letter of the Phoenician alphabet had a special name (“aleph”, “beta”, etc.; hence the word “alphabet” comes from the Greeks, whose letter was created on the basis of the Phoenician script).

The disadvantage of the alphabet created by the Phoenicians was that it conveyed only consonants; various additional, explanatory signs were not used, with the help of which, for example, the Egyptians made it easier to read a text written also with only consonants. Therefore, reading was still not easy, and the understanding of more complex texts was sometimes difficult.

The Phoenician alphabet is the basis of almost all alphabetic systems in the world, the progenitor of modern Arabic and Hebrew letters, Greek and Latin alphabets, Glagolitic and Cyrillic.
^ 4. Religious beliefs of the ancient Phoenicians.

Like other ancient peoples, the Phoenicians worshiped many gods who personified various natural elements.

^ Baal was the supreme god the god of the storm, lightning and the sun, the embodiment of the highest power acting in all matters on people and deities. He was called "the father of people", "merciful" and "merciful". He always makes decisions for the benefit of man. He was depicted as a bull, sometimes appears as a sun god. The main motive of all the myths about Baal was the story of his victory over chaos. Vaal is forever young and energetic. His victories kept the world stable. The Phoenicians considered Baal the master of rains and thunderstorms, the god of fertility and vegetation.

^ Baal will send abundant rains,

Along with the snow will come a lot of moisture,

And he will burst into lightning.

Baal constantly fought with his enemies - the gods of Chaos and Death. And every time in the battle, the enemies of the mighty Baal managed to get the better of him at first.

^ They stood, glaring at each other,

Two equally mighty giants,

They grappled like wild bulls;

Two equally mighty giants,

They bit each other like snakes

Two equally mighty giants,

They beat each other like stallions

Death below, Baal above it.

Death imprisoned Baal in the underworld, and then all vegetation on earth died. At the beginning of the rainy season, Baal, thanks to the help of his wife, the goddess of motherhood Astarte, awakened to new life and was released from the realm of the dead, so that the vegetation flourished again.

What myth do you already know that reminds you of? How, in your opinion, can this similarity of mythological plots be explained?

Warlike wife of Baal, Astarte was the goddess of the sky and the moon, motherhood, growth, fertility, love and war. She was depicted as a woman sitting on a lion. The goddess was served only by women - priestesses who dressed in battle armor. The cult of the mother goddess among farmers is closely connected with the veneration of the earth - a huge mother's womb that gives birth to a new crop.

God was also revered Reshev, "lord of arrows", god of light associated with the desert. He was a god - the destroyer, who destroyed people during wars and epidemics. God Melqart was the god of theft and robbery, trade and navigation, he patronized all travelers, sailors, merchants and thieves. In addition, Melqart was the chief god of Carthage.

As everywhere in antiquity, there were quite a lot of local cults. The Phoenicians built temples and shrines to the gods. Priests, scribes and musicians constantly lived in the temples.

At the temples, which were an open area, in the center of which there was an altar, there were numerous colleges of priests. All the gods were sacrificed on the tops of the mountains. The purpose of these sacrifices was to ensure the safety and well-being of the people. The deities lead such a way of life, which is considered happy on earth: they spend a lot of time in celebrations and feasts, so that Baal gets drunk to the point of intoxication.

In Phenicia, human sacrifices were preserved for a very long time, and sometimes the most valuable thing for the people was sacrificed - children and especially the firstborn. Human sacrifices were made at a time of grave danger to the state, in dry years. So the merciless gods of the sky and the sun were propitiated when the stones symbolizing them were doused with human blood. When archaeologists took up the excavations of Carthage, they found a huge amount of charred children's bones - traces of terrible sacrifices.

The world of images and ideas of a person is closely connected with his way of life. The life of a plowman depends entirely on the land to which he is tied. The fate of the harvest, and hence the life of the farmer, in ancient times was entirely in the power of nature. Natural spirits were called upon to tame and cajole rural folk magic. The propitiation of the touchy gods of heaven and earth was supposed to guarantee a high harvest, and hence the continuation of the life of the farmer.

^ 5. City-states of the Phoenicians and their colonies.

The powerful development of the economy based on craft and trade already in the III millennium BC. led the Phoenicians from primitive to civilization. Numerous city-states appeared that never united, because it was simply not profitable for them, because they were trade competitors. That's why Phoenicia has never been a unified state.

Five cities located on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, the sea in places convenient for the mooring of ships, have become major trading centers in the Middle East. These were - Arvad, Ugarit, Sidon, Tire and Byblos . These port cities had well-equipped harbors and powerful fortifications.

For the convenience of trade, the Phoenicians founded numerous colonies on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. In the 9th century BC. was founded by people from Tire Carthage , which soon became a large trading city. Gradually, Carthage turned into the richest city, which became the center of a powerful state. Gradually, not only the neighboring Phoenician colonial cities, but also some peoples living in Africa and Spain submitted to him.

The Phoenician colonies became a meeting place for many peoples. The variety of languages found on the tablets proves this. The Phoenicians, moving west, did not hate foreigners, and therefore their trade was so successful, and people of many nationalities settled in their land. Not only Africans, but also Italians, Etruscans, Greeks, and probably even Egyptians came to engage in crafts and trade in the colony of Phoenicia.

All Phoenician cities and their colonies, regardless of their size, were surrounded by fortified walls. The mud and brick buildings were predominantly two-story, although there were also six-story houses with magnificent bathrooms, the floors of which were paved with pink cement interspersed with small marble cubes. Magnificent temples and palaces were erected in the cities.

The city-states of Phoenicia zealously sought to maintain their political independence. It should be especially noted that the Phoenicians themselves did not even consider themselves a single people and did not have a single self-name, denoting themselves "the people of such and such a city." Each large city had its own separate king, and with him there was a council of the most noble inhabitants of this city. The king and the council ruled the city and its surrounding area. Without the permission of the council, the king could not make important decisions. As a result of such disunity, the cities of Phoenicia could not withstand numerous conquerors. The riches of the Phoenicians attracted the greedy eyes of their neighbors, and first the Egyptians, and then the Assyrians, Persians, Greeks and Romans dominated the cities of Phoenicia.

City ^ Bible(Byblos) or as the Phoenicians called it Gebal is considered the oldest city in the world. He is estimated to be about 7,000 years old. He was the first to establish maritime trade with Egypt and, having submitted to the "country of Hapi", became the main center of Egyptian influence in the Middle East. Back in the III millennium BC. the export of Phoenician goods to Egypt was carried out mainly through Byblos. It was the merchants of Byblos who later began to supply Greece with papyrus, the main writing material of that time. In the Greek language then appeared the words "biblion" - "book" and "bible" - "books". The Greeks began to call Gubla Byblos or Byblos. Byblos is noted even in the myths of neighboring peoples, it seemed to them such an eternal stronghold. So in one of the versions of the Egyptian myth about the change of seasons, it was in Byblos that the suffering Isis found one of the parts of the body of the god Osiris cut off by Set.

To the north of Byblos was a city Ugarit . He was near the mouth of the river. Orontes , directly opposite the northeastern tip of the island Cyprus and at the crossroads of sea routes from the Aegean Sea and Asia Minor to Egypt and Asia Minor. It was a fortified seaside city, where, along with valuable material monuments, numerous tablets were found dating back to the middle of the 2nd millennium BC, with texts written in the ancient cuneiform alphabet, consisting of 29 letters.

The southernmost cities of Phoenicia were constantly at war with each other. ^ Sidon and Tire, located close to each other. Both cities were protected by rocks from the attack of external enemies. The safest location was Tyre, the southernmost of the Phoenician cities. 3 thousand years ago Tire was on the island, and its suburbs and cemeteries on the mainland. According to some legends, the foundation of the city is attributed to the goddess Astarte , according to others - her son the sea god Melqart , whom the goddess gave birth to on an island under an olive tree. The Phoenicians came here on ships that this god of the sea taught them to build. All the inhabitants of Tire moved to its island part in the event of an enemy invasion, when it was impossible to save the mainland part of the settlement from destruction. With the help of the fleet, the island could be supplied with water. Thus, Tire was inaccessible to the enemy army, which did not have a strong fleet.

The neighboring city of Sidon was founded in the III millennium BC. For a long time it was owned by Egypt. Under the pharaohs, Sidon was the main city of Phoenicia, so all Phoenicians were often called Sidonians.

None of the Phoenician city-states had the power to unite all of Phoenicia under a single state. For centuries, the struggle was only for the predominance of one or another Phoenician city; so, in the middle of the II millennium BC. in the north, the city of Ugarit prevailed, and in the center - Byblos. In the first half of the XIV century BC. Ugarit lost its significance and, in the end, it was subordinated to the Hittite king and became part of the Hittite state. Byblos at the same time was defeated in an unbearable struggle with the neighboring city-states united against him, since the Pharaoh of Egypt Akhenaten left him without his help. Since then, power has passed to the city of Sidon, although Byblos subsequently continued to play a significant role. However, the triumph of Sidon was not long, for about 1200 BC. it was destroyed by the "peoples of the sea", who, after the defeat of the Hittite state, devastated all of Phoenicia and the coast of Palestine.
DICTIONARY:

Competition- rivalry, the struggle to achieve the greatest benefits, advantages.

^ Letter- a sign corresponding to a sound or a simple combination of sounds.

Alphabet- a set of letters arranged in a certain order.
QUESTIONS:

How did the lifestyle of the Phoenicians differ from that of the Egyptians or Babylonians? How did the cities of Phoenicia differ from the cities of Egypt and Mesopotamia?
Why did the Phoenician cities begin to grow rich rapidly in the II-I millennium BC?
Why did the Phoenicians establish colonies?
Some scholars believe that the word "Phoenicia" has roots in the Greek language (from the Greek "foins" - crimson people); others prove the Egyptian origin of the name of the country (from the word "fenehu" - shipbuilders). Why did the Greeks and Egyptians call the Phoenicians differently? Which of the versions seems to you the most convincing?
Using a map, explain why the inhabitants of the city of Ugarit, in addition to Phoenician, used Greek and Hittite, and the inhabitants of Byblos spoke and wrote Egyptian.
There is an assumption that the Phoenician navigators were able to visit the shores of distant America. Do you think it was possible?
Remember what the god Melkart patronized. Think about what caused such a strange combination of functions in one god.

^ TOPIC 17. HISTORY OF THE ANCIENT JEWS.

In the paragraphs of this topic you can find answers to the questions:

What were the natural and geographical conditions of Palestine.
What peoples lived in Palestine.
How did the oldest monotheistic religion in the world.
How the kingdom of Israel was created.
What was the picture of the world of the ancient Jews.

The trade of the Phoenicians was barter, that is, one commodity was exchanged for a certain amount of another commodity. Usually dealing with uncivilized peoples, they unloaded their goods and laid them out on the shore, then lit a fire to raise a column of smoke, and retired to their ships. The natives went ashore, inspected the goods, laid next to them as much gold as they considered fair, and retired to their hiding places located nearby. If the Phoenicians were satisfied with the offered price, they swam to the shore, took the ashes and set off. If the payment seemed insufficient, then the Phoenicians again returned to their ships and waited there until the natives deposited as much gold as the Carthaginians desired. “Never did either side act dishonestly towards the other side, the Carthaginians did not touch gold until it corresponded to the price of their goods, and the natives never took goods until the gold was carried away,” – wrote the ancient Greek historian Herodotus. However, he also talked about how the Phoenicians lured Greek women who wanted to buy fabrics from them for their ships and deceived them, depriving them of their freedom, then sold them into slavery in Egypt. Indeed, the Phoenicians were known in the ancient world as ruthless slave traders. Phoenician navigators were considered not only merchants, but also pirates - hunters for people.

Although the first money in history appeared in the country Lydia , on the shores of Asia Minor in the VIII century BC, it is believed that, and the Phoenicians were among the first to use coins. Prior to this, precious metals were often used in calculations, but they had to be weighed for a long time. The Phoenicians, following the inhabitants of Lydia, began to issue coins from precious metals with a certain weight. To avoid forgery, a special brand was put on the coins, indicating the city that minted this coin, indicating its price.

Answer from SerezhaL[guru]

Another outstanding achievement of the Phoenicians was the creation of the first alphabet in the history of mankind. It consisted of 22 letters, converted from hieroglyphs and cuneiform signs. The word "alphabet" itself is a combination of the first two letters and means aleph - "bull", bet - "house". But there were no vowels in the alphabet, and only consonants were written. Most of the world's alphabets, including the Cyrillic alphabet we use, are derived from Phoenician.

Answer from Yatiana[guru]
Due to the lack of good arable land, agriculture was not widespread. Horticulture was more widespread, olives were grown (from which olive oil was also made), dates, and grapes. Trade played an important role in the life of the Phoenicians - and not only trade in local goods, but also transit trade. The Phoenicians did not disdain piracy either. Great success was achieved in winemaking - the Phoenicians traded in high quality wine. Like all coastal peoples, the Phoenicians were engaged in fishing. The purple dye obtained by the Phoenicians from shellfish was a great success in the ancient world. However, the extremely high price allowed only very rich people to acquire it. The Phoenicians also traded in Lebanese cedar and oak, which grew in the Lebanese mountains. Of the crafts, jewelry and glass-blowing have achieved great success.
link

Answer from Seryoga vorfolomeev[newbie]
THX

Answer from Iafael Karaulshchikov[newbie]
seafaring

Answer from Natusha Best[newbie]
The main occupation of the Phoenicians is sailing.

Answer from Vika zakharova[newbie]
The main occupation of the Phoenicians was sailing.

Answer from Yergey Veremeev[newbie]
navigation and agriculture

Answer from Mikhail Bobreshov[active]
Crafts and trade.
Possible: 1. The name of the fruit of dates from the palm most likely came from the name of the Phoenicians, and not vice versa. 2. Phenicia is Greek for purple. And the sails of the ships of the Phoenician sailors were purple. They obtained purple from a natural dye - mollusks from sea shells, for dyeing fabrics for clothes, sails, etc. 3. The Phoenicians are the people of the Slavic Antes, who had their own written language and were able to smelt metal and glass and make various products from them.
In Miller's atlas of 1519, Phoenicia still existed in Asia Minor. The Swedish court master of ceremonies Sparvenfeld called himself in a speech from 1697 "a true bitter-hearted date."
And now there are, almost imperceptible, traces of Phenicia in Turkey. This is a small town Finike, between Demre and Kumluca. Not far from the place of settlement in the old days, the Ants people - Antalya.

Answer from Nikita Miller[newbie]
The Phoenicians did most of their trading by sea. Since they were located in a very convenient place that had access to the sea.

Answer from Tera ter[newbie]
navigation

Answer from Vladislav Kadyrov[newbie]
The main occupation of the Phoenicians was maritime trade. In navigation and shipbuilding, the Phoenicians had no equal in the ancient world. All sea routes ran along the coast, where sailors landed to replenish supplies, the Phoenicians founded colonies. Thanks to the colonies, the Phoenician ships by the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. e. could reach any point of the Mediterranean coast and even West Africa. After the conquest of Phenicia by the Assyrians, Carthage, a colony on the northwestern coast of Africa, became the richest independent Phoenician city.
The most valuable commodity is Lebanese cedar. From Africa, Spain, Cyprus they brought gold, silver, ivory, copper, and later iron, from Egypt - wheat, linen, papyrus, incense. Special items of income for the Phoenicians were maritime slave trade and piracy.
Sometimes they traveled around Africa, went for tin, lead and amber to Northern Europe, for gold, mahogany and precious stones - to India.
Crafts were also developed in Phoenicia. Only here at that time they made transparent and colored glass. From sea shells, the Phoenicians obtained a liquid that dyed clothing made of sheep or goat hair purple. To dye one cloak, it was necessary to collect thousands of shells from the seabed. Due to the price, such a robe was available only to kings and the most noble nobles. Phoenician jewelers were also widely known.
Another outstanding achievement of the Phoenicians was the creation of the first alphabet in the history of mankind. It consisted of 22 letters, converted from hieroglyphs and cuneiform signs. The word "alphabet" itself is a combination of the first two letters and means aleph - "bull", bet - "house". But there were no vowels in the alphabet, and only consonants were written. Most of the world's alphabets, including the Cyrillic alphabet we use, are derived from Phoenician.

Phoenicians

The Phoenicians are a Semitic people inhabiting part of the eastern Mediterranean coast in 3 - 1 thousand BC. In 332. BC. Phoenicia was captured by Alexander the Great and from that moment began to rapidly lose its cultural identity, falling into the orbit of Greek influence. Politically, Phenicia was a conglomerate of independent city-states, often at war with each other. The Phoenicians did not even have a single self-name and identified themselves with the names of the cities - states to which they belonged.

Nature

Ancient Phoenicia was located on a coastal strip along the northern part of the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea and was surrounded from the east by the Lebanese mountains. The relief of Phenicia was predominantly mountainous and hilly.

Lessons

Due to the lack of good arable land, agriculture was not widespread. Horticulture was more widespread, olives were grown (from which olive oil was also made), dates, and grapes. Trade played an important role in the life of the Phoenicians - and not only trade in local goods, but also transit trade. The Phoenicians did not disdain piracy either. Great success was achieved in winemaking - the Phoenicians traded in high quality wine. Like all coastal peoples, the Phoenicians were engaged in fishing. The purple dye obtained by the Phoenicians from shellfish was a great success in the ancient world. However, the extremely high price allowed only very rich people to acquire it. The Phoenicians also traded in Lebanese cedar and oak, which grew in the Lebanese mountains. Of the crafts, jewelry and glass-blowing have achieved great success.

Means of transport

The Phoenicians were skilled seafarers. Their ships were built from durable Lebanese cedar. On land, the Phoenicians equipped camel trade caravans, and over time they managed (with the help of hired Indians) to tame African elephants.

Architecture

Little is known about Phoenician architecture. Actually the Phoenician architectural style (if it existed) is unknown to us. The monumental Phoenician tombs (in which the nobility were buried) bear the imprint of Egyptian and Mesopotamian influence.

Warfare

As merchants, the Phoenicians were good diplomats and often successfully resolved conflicts through diplomacy. However, in case of a siege, the Phoenician city-states were well fortified. Little is known about the land army of the Phoenicians. The Phoenician fleet included not only merchant ships, but also warships. Many states of the ancient world used the Phoenicians as mercenaries during wars at sea.

Art and literature

The art of the Phoenicians was applied in nature. The Phoenicians were engaged in ivory carving and the manufacture of enameled ceramics. The Phoenicians invented the alphabet - however, the actual Phoenician records are known to us mainly only from tombstones. The Phoenicians used papyrus for writing, which was stored for a relatively short time in a humid climate. Even the mythical plots of the Phoenicians are known to us in the retellings of Greek scientists.

The science

The Phoenicians had developed navigation, astronomy and geography (in the sense of research expeditions). The Phoenicians also made a certain contribution to the development of ancient philosophy.

Religion

Due to political fragmentation, a common Phoenician religion (as a system of myths) never took shape. The sky god was the main god in Phoenicia and bore a common noun, not a proper one. He was called "lord" (Baal), "king of the city" (Melkart), "power" (Moloch), or simply "god" (El). The wife of the sky god was called Astarte (options - Ashtart, Asherat). However, each city-state had its own priests, its own temples and its own gods. There were human sacrifices.

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