The Phoenicians, most likely a Semitic people, spoke the Phoenician language, later called Punic since the Roman word for purple was Puniceus. In addition to their many inscriptions, the Phoenicians, contrary to some reports, wrote many books that have not survived. Evangelical Preparation by Eusebius of Caesarea quotes extensively from Philo of Byblos and Sanchuniathon. Furthermore, the Phoenician Punic colonies of North Africa continued to be a source of knowledge about the Phoenicians. Saint Augustine (who spoke Punic, and calls it "our language") refers to their books as containing much wisdom.
But this is merely a legendary introduction to Herodotus' brief retelling of some mythic Hellene-Phoenician interactions: he follows directly with succinct accounts of the abduction of Io from Pylos, and the retaliatory abduction of Europa by the Cretans. "The Cretans say that it was not they who did this act, but, rather, Zeus, enamored of the fair Europa, who disguised himself as a bull, gained the maiden's affections, and thence carried her off to Crete, where she bore three sons by Zeus: Sarpedon, Rhadamanthys, and Minos, later king of all Crete." Few modern archaeologists would confuse this myth with history.
In terms of archaeology, language, and religion, there is little to set the Phoenicians apart as markedly different from other local cultures of Canaan. However, they are unique in their remarkable seafaring achievements. Indeed, in the Amarna tablets of the 14th century BC they call themselves Kenaani or Kinaani (Canaanites); and even much later in the 6th century BC, Hecataeus writes that Phoenicia was formerly called χνα, a name Philo of Byblos later adopted into his mythology as his eponym for the Phoenicians: "Khna who was afterwards called Phoinix".
To many archaeologists therefore, the Phoenicians are simply indistinguishable from the descendants of coastal-dwelling Canaanites, who over the centuries developed a particular seagoing culture and skills. But others believe equally firmly, like Herodotus, that the Phoenician culture must have been inspired from an external source. All manner of suggestions have been made: that the Phoenicians were sea-traders from the Land of Punt who co-opted the Canaanite population; or that they were connected with the Minoans; or the Sea Peoples or the Philistines further south; or on the other side of the fence, that they represent the activities of supposed coastal maritime Israelite tribes like Dan.
While the Semitic language of the Phoenicians, and some evidence of invasion at the site of Byblos, suggest origins in the wave of Semitic migration that hit the Fertile Crescent between 2300 and 2100 BC, many scholars, including Sabatino Moscati believe that the Phoenicians evolved from a prior non-Semitic people of the area, suggesting a mixture between the two populations. Historian Gerhard Herm further asserts that, because the Phoenicians' legendary sailing abilities are not well attested before the invasions of the Sea Peoples around 1200 BC, that these Sea Peoples would have merged with the local population to produce the Phoenicians, who seemingly gained these abilities rather suddenly at that time. This idea is backed up by archaeological evidence that the Philistines, often thought of as related to the Sea Peoples, were culturally linked to Mycenaean Greeks, who were also known to be great sailors even in this period.
And so the debate has persisted. Professional archaeologists have now been at work on the origins of the Phoenicians for generations, basing their analysis in the mainstream of excavated sites, the remains of material culture, contemporary texts set into contemporary contexts, and the even more slippery slopes of Linguistics. Modern cultural agendas, both personal and national, have been brought to bear. But ultimately, the origins of the Phoenicians are still unknown: where they came from and just when (or if) they arrived, and under what circumstances, are all still energetically disputed.
Some Lebanese, Syrians, Maltese, Tunisians, Algerians and a small percentage of Somalis, along with certain other island folk in the Mediterranean, still consider themselves descendants of Phoenicians.
Many of the most important Phoenician settlements had been established long before this: Byblos, Tyre, Sidon, Simyra, Aradus and Berytus all appear in the Amarna tablets; and indeed, the first appearance in archaeology of cultural elements clearly identifiable with the Phoenician zenith is sometimes dated as early as the third millennium BC.
This league of independent City-state ports, with others on the islands and along other coasts of the Mediterranean Sea, was ideally suited for trade between the Levant area, rich in natural resources, and the rest of the ancient world. Suddenly, during the early Iron Age, in around 1200 BC, an unknown event occurred, historically associated with the appearance of the Sea Peoples. The powers that had previously dominated the area, notably the Egyptians and the Hittites, became weakened or destroyed; and in the resulting power vacuum a number of Phoenician cities established themselves as significant maritime powers.
Authority seems to have stabilized because it derived from three power-bases: the king; the temple and its priests; and councils of elders. Byblos soon became the predominant centre from where they proceeded to dominate the Mediterranean and Erythraean (Red) Sea routes. However, Byblos was attacked by successive invaders, and by around 1000 BC Tyre and Sidon had taken its place. The collection of city-kingdoms constituting Phoenicia came to be characterized by outsiders and the Phoenicians themselves as Sidonia or Tyria, and Phoenicians and Canaanites alike came to be called Zidonians or Tyrians, as one Phoenician conquest came to prominence after another.
From elsewhere they got many other materials, perhaps the most important being tin from Spain and from Cornwall in Britain, that together with Copper (from Cyprus) was used to make Bronze. Trade routes from Asia converged on the Phoenician coast as well, enabling the Phoenicians to govern trade between Mesopotamia on the one side, and Egypt and Arabia on the other.
The Phoenicians established commercial outposts throughout the Mediterranean, the most notable being Carthage in North Africa, with others in Cyprus, Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia, Spain, and elsewhere. (The name Spain comes from the Phoenician word I-Shaphan, meaning, thanks to an early double misidentification, 'island of hyraxes'.) The date when many of these cities were founded has been very controversial. Greek sources put the foundation of many cities very early. Gades (Cadiz) in Spain was traditionally founded in 1110 BC, while Utica in Africa was supposedly founded in 1101. However, no archaeological remains have been dated to such a remote era. The traditional dates may reflect the establishment of rudimentary way stations that left little archaeological trace, and only grew into full cities centuries later. (The World of the Phoenicians, Sabatino Moscati, 1965). Alternatively, the early dates may reflect Greek historians' belief that the legends of Troy (mentioning these cities) were historically reliable.
Phoenician ships used to ply the coast southern Spain up along the coast of present-day Portugal. The fishermen of Nazaré and Aveiro in Portugal are traditionally of Phoenician descent. This can be seen today in the unusual and ancient design of their boats ‑ soaring pointed bows with mystical symbols painted on. Other ventured north into the Atlantic ocean as far as Britain, where the tin mines in what is now Cornwall provided them with important materials. They also sailed south along the coast of Africa. A Carthaginian expedition led by Hanno the Navigator explored and colonized the Atlantic coast of Africa as far as the Gulf of Guinea; and according to Herodotus, a Phoenician expedition sent out by pharaoh Necho II of Egypt even circumnavigated Africa.
The Phoenicians were not an agricultural people, because most of the land was not arable; therefore, they focused on commerce and trading instead. They did, however, raise Sheep and sell them and their wool.
The Phoenicians exerted considerable influence on the other groups around the Mediterranean, notably the Greeks, who later became their main commercial rivals. They appear in Greek mythology. Traditionally, the city of Thebes was founded by a Phoenician prince named Cadmus when he set out to look for his sister Europa, who had been kidnapped by Zeus.
In the Bible, king Hiram I of Tyre is mentioned as co-operating with Solomon in mounting an expedition on the Red Sea and on building the temple. The temple of Solomon is considered to be built according to Phoenician design, and its description is considered the best description of what a Phoenician temple looked like. Phoenicians from Syria were also called Syrophenicians.
The Phoenician alphabet was developed around 1200 BC from an earlier Semitic prototype that also gave rise to the Ugaritic alphabet. It was used mainly for commercial notes. The Greek alphabet, that forms the basis of all European alphabets, was derived from the Phoenician. The alphabets of the Middle East and India are also thought to derive, indirectly, from the Phoenician alphabet. Ironically, the Phoenicians themselves are largely silent on their own history. Other than inscriptions on stone, Phoenician writing has largely perished. They are described by Sallust and Augustine as possessing an extensive literature, but of this only a single work survives, in Latin translation: Mago's Agriculture. What we know of them comes mainly from their neighbors, the Greeks and Hebrews.
With the rise of Assyria, the Phoenician cities one by one lost their independence, and were afterwards dominated by Babylonia and then Persia. They remained very important, however, and provided these powers with their main source of naval strength. The stacked warships, such as triremes and quinqueremes, were probably Phoenician inventions, though eagerly adopted by the Greeks.
In 287 - 225 BC, after decades of meaningless violence and small empty victories that simply ravaged the countryside, the Ptolemies regained some stabilized control of the cities (except for Aradus), and the last of the old Phoenician city-kings disappeared. In their new forms, the cities were scarcely different from the Greek cities interspersed along the coastal plain - all nominal republics with a very limited suffrage, and autonomy that was formal and local, while they were ruled from a distance by a great king at Alexandria. The center of Phoenician power had shifted westward to the Tyrian colony of Carthage, that had not merely gained its independence, but had become a major power in the Western Mediterranean in its own right. At the beginning of the 2nd century BC, the Seleucid monarchy had finally reasserted its primacy on the former Phoenician coast, but the last Seleucid kings' local power was increasingly a fiction, as the cities, now thoroughly Hellenistic, regained local independence.
In the Phoenician homeland:
Phoenician colonies (this list is very incomplete):
Though the Phoenicians are credited with developing the Phoenician alphabet, their alphabet is actually what is termed an Abjad (different from an alphabet, in that it contains no vowels). The Phoenician abjad, first making its appearance in the 11th century BC, evolved out of the proto-Canaanite abjad, that originated around the 17th century BC. A cuneiform abjad originated to the north in Ugarit, a Canaanite city of northern Syria, in the 14th century BC. Phoenician traders disseminated the concept along Aegean trade routes, to coastal Anatolia, Crete and eventually Mycenean Greece. Classical Greeks remembered that the alphabet arrived in Greece with the mythical founder of Thebes, Cadmus.
Their language, Phoenician, was a Northwest Semitic language of the Canaanite subgroup. Its later descendant in North Africa is termed Punic.
The Amarna letters, dated to the 14th century BC, although written in Akkadian, the language of diplomacy at the time, contain solecisms that are not 'mistakes', but actually early Canaanite words and phrases. Because of their Lebanese provenance, some identify these as Phoenician; however, most scholars reserve that term for a later era.
The earliest known inscriptions in Phoenician come from Byblos and date back to ca. 1000 BC. Phoenician inscriptions are found in Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Cyprus and other locations, as late as the early centuries of the Christian Era. Punic, a language that developed from Phoenician in Phoenician colonies around the western Mediterranean beginning in the 9th century BC, slowly supplanted Phoenician, similar to the way Italian supplanted Latin. Punic Phoenician was still spoken in the 5th century CE: St. Augustine, for example, grew up in North Africa and was familiar with the language.
Later, reforming prophets railed against the practice of drawing royal wives from among foreigners: Elijah execrated Jezebel, the princess from Tyre who became a consort of King Ahab and introduced the worship of her gods.
Long after Phoenician culture had flourished, or Phoenicia had existed as any political entity, Hellenized natives of the region where Canaanites still lived were referred to as "Syro-Phoenician", as in the Gospel of Mark 7:26: "The woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth, and she begged him to drive the demon out of her daughter."