
Phoenicia was an ancient civilization in the north of ancient Canaan, with its heartland along the coastal plain of what is now Lebanon and Syria. Phoenician civilization was an enterprising thalassocracy that spread right across the Mediterranean during the first millennium BC. Though ancient boundaries of such city-centered cultures fluctuated, the city of Sarepta, between Sidon and Tyre the most thoroughly excavated city of the Phoenician homeland seems to have been the southernmost. Although the people of the region called themselves the ''Canaani'', the name Phoenicia became common thanks to the Greeks who called them the ''Phoiniki'' - ''Φοινίκη'' (''Phoiníkē''); the Greek word for Phoenician was synonymous with the colour purple/red or crimson, ''φοινίξ'' (''phoinix''), through its close association with the famous dye Tyrian purple (cf also Phoenix). The dye was used in ancient textile trade, and highly desired. The Phoenicians became known as the 'Purple People'. The Phoenicians spoke the Phoenician languages, 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. ==Origins== Herodotus's account refers to a faint memory from 1000 years earlier, and so may be subject to question (''History,'' I:1): :"According to the Persians best informed in history, the Phoenicians began to quarrel. This people, who had formerly reached the shores of the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, having migrated to the Mediterranean from an unknown origin and settled in the parts which they now inhabit, began at once, they say, to adventure on long voyages, freighting their vessels with the wares of Egypt and Assyria..." 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 (mythology) from Pylos, and the retaliatory abduction of Europa (mythology) 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 letters of the 14th century BC they call themselves ''Kinahhi'' or ''Kinahni'' (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 Tribe of 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. ==The cultural and economic "empire"== Fernand Braudel remarked (in ''The Perspective of the World'') that Phoenicia was an early example of a "world-economy" surrounded by empires. The high point of Phoenician culture and seapower is usually placed ca 1200 – 800 BC. Many of the most important Phoenician settlements had been established long before this: Byblos, Tyre, Sidon, Simyra, Aradus and Beirut 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 Egypt 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. ==Phoenician Merchantry== In the centuries following 1200 BC, the Phoenicians formed the major naval and trading power of the region. Perhaps it was through these merchants that the Hebrew word ''kena'ani'' ('Canaanite') came to have the secondary, and apt, meaning of "merchant". The Greek term "Tyrian purple" describes the dye they were especially famous for, and their port town Tyre. Phoenician trade was founded on this violet-purple dye derived from the Murex sea-snail's shell, once profusely available in coastal waters but exploited to local extinction. James B. Pritchard's excavations at Sarepta in Lebanon revealed crushed Murex shells and pottery containers stained with the dye that was being produced at the site. Brilliant textiles were a part of Phoenician wealth. Phoenician glass was another export ware. Phoenicians seem to have first discovered the technique of producing transparent glass. Phoenicians also shipped tall Lebanon cedars to Egypt, that consumed more wood than it could produce. Indeed, the Amarna tablets suggest that in this manner the Phoenicians paid tribute to Egypt in the 14th century. 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 ''Sapan'', meaning 'what is hidden' - reflecting their penchant to guard the locations of their mines and sources of wealth jealously as trade secrets.) Their ships ventured into the Atlantic ocean as far as Britain, where the tin mines in what is now Cornwall provided them with important material. 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 circumnavigation 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 (Greece) was founded by a Phoenician prince named Cadmus when he set out to look for his sister Europa (mythical), 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 Solomon's 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 1200s 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 Persian Empire. 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. ==Persian and Hellenistic Phoenicia== Information on Phoenician cities and their hinterlands under the Achaemenid Persians is sparse. The famous event is the revolt of Sidon against Achaemenid rule in 345 BC and its destruction, dramatically (perhaps ''too'' dramatically) described by Diodorus Siculus. The arrival of Alexander the Great in 333 BC – 332 BC is the main turning point, for Hellenistic Phoenicia lost its influential mercantile role, and the distinctive culture of its cities was Hellenized under Alexander and his Macedonian successors. The responses of the individual Phoenician cities to Alexander's conquest of Persia varied: the ruler of Aradus submitted; the king of Sidon was overthrown (perhaps by internal plotters who valued the city more than their king). Tyre resisted with the most energy. It was captured after a prolonged siege, one of the most famous sieges in Antiquity, and Alexander was exceptionally harsh. He executed 2000 of the leading citizens, but maintained the king in power. A popular king who owed everything to Alexander, made for a more secure city than a deeply-rooted local oligarchy. If Tyre was meant to set an example, it was effective: the Phoenician resistance was utterly broken, and no Phoenician city thereafter seems to have resisted occupation. In the following decades, shifting frontiers between Ptolemaic armies, and Antigonid or Seleucid forces, required some flexible diplomacy and alacrity in accepting a new alliance. This is the period when the cult of Tyche, goddess of Fortune, reached a prominence it had never enjoyed before. In 287 BC – 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. ==Important Phoenician Cities & Colonies== From the 10th century BC, their expansive culture established cities and colonies throughout the Mediterranean. Canaanite deities like Baal and `Ashtart were being worshipped from Cyprus to Sardinia, Malta, Sicily, and most notably at Carthage in modern Tunisia. In the Phoenician homeland: * Beirut * Byblos * Sidon * Tyre Phoenician colonies (this list is very incomplete): * Carthage * Tripoli *three cities dependent on Carthage, known by their later Hellenic and Roman names: ** Oea ** Sabrata ** Leptis Magna * Hadrumetum (modern Sousse, Tunisia) * Abdera, Spain (Adra, Spain) * Nova Cartago, now Cartagena, Spain * Gadir (Cádiz) * Kition (Cyprus) * Lixus (Morocco) * Malaca (Málaga, Spain) * Motya (Sicily) * Sexi (Almunecar, Spain) * Utica, Tunisia * Onoba (Huelva, Spain) * Coastal Sardinia ==Language & Literature== ''See main articles: Phoenician language, Phoenician alphabet, Alphabet.'' 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 (script) ''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 languages, was a Northwest Semitic languages language of the Canaanite languages 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. ===External link=== *[http://phoenicia.org/semlang.html The Semitic languages, including Phoenician.] ==Phoenicians in the Bible== The Bible refers to the Phoenicians as Canaanites. In fact, the New Testament mentions the same woman from the Sidon and Tyre area as being a Syro-Phoenician and/or Canaanite woman. Writers of the Old Testament did not like it when a princess from Phoenicia became Queen Jezebel (biblical) of Israel and introduced the Polytheism. Queen Jezebel was the great-aunt of Dido-Elissar, who founded Carthage, out of which came Hannibal. ==See also== *Phoenician chronology ==External links== *[http://phoenicia.org/index.shtml Encyclopedia Phoeniciana website] largest and most comprehensive website on Phoenicia about 1,000 pages *[http://www.museum.upenn.edu/Canaan/Phoenicians.html University of Pennsylvania Museum offers simplified but unbiased information on Canaan and Phoenicians, emphasizing common aspects of culture among Israel and the other kingdoms in Canaan.] *[http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Parliament/2587/phoenicia.html Phoenician history, from a patriotic Lebanese point of view.] *[http://www.lost-civilizations.net/phoenicians-overview.html Phoenicians overview] by Genry Joil. ==References== *''The History of Phoenicia'', first published in 1889 by George Rawlinson is available under Project Gutenberg at: http://digital.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=2331 Rawlinson's 19th century text needs updating for modern improvements in historical understanding. *Maria Eugenia Aubet, ''The Phoenicians and the West: Politics, Colonies and Trade'', tr. Mary Turton ([http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/2003/2003-12-17.html Bryn Mawr Classical Review, 2001: review)] Ancient Roman provinces Ancient peoples Lebanese history Syrian history la:Phoenices
Old discussions on this page have been moved here Talk:Phoenicia/Archive 1 ==Summary of Views== Lets try to list the conflicting POVs here so that we can see what the forces are that pull against each other on this article keeping it from improving. I personally can think of the following. 1 Phoenicians and Zidonians were native Canaanites their lands, people & culture were one and the same. 2 Phoenicians were a sea-faring merchantile military elite who conquered certain ports and costal/shore areas in the Mediterranean especially those held by the native Canaanites. 2 a They were originally Poenite traders from Eretrea. 2 b They were of unknown origin and ethnicity. 2 c They were Egyptians 2 d They were Sea-peoples 2 e They were Indo-europeans who adopted the local dialects 2 f They were the Israelite tribes of Dan 2 g They were not Canaanites but were of a semitic linguistic origin. 2 h They were Lybians I cannot think of any more than this. if you can please add to the list so that we can start to separate the historical pictures which fit each of the hypotheses instead of letting them continually merge and swirl around each other. User:Zestauferov 15:08, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC) ---- ==Some additional assertions now hidden in the attic== ( User:Wetman 16:57, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC) ) Are any of these apropos: *The ethnic make-up of the people now living in the area that was called "Phoenicia" in ancient times is even more mixed now# than it was 2500 years ago. Lebanese and Maltese are not "descendants" of Phoenicians any more than they are of "Byzantines." :Good point from a Genetic perspective, but still we have to be sensitive to national ideas. Celts believe their tradition descends from Scythia. Jews believe their tradition descends from Abraham. Various Meditrranian peoples (and even beyond) believe their tradition descends from the Phoenicians. There is no inherent harm in any of this I think. Why should we make any special point of picking on such a belief? User:Zestauferov 02:04, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC) ::"Sensitivity" to nationalism does not go as far as historical falsification. This is the very essence of the problems with this entry. Sensible Celts know that the bogus "Scythian" connection is a 16th century English canard: see entry Scythia. There is no excuse for fraud in this entry or anywhere at Wikipedia. User:Wetman 22:07, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC) *Begin with archaeology, history and linguistics. Then have a look at those Biblical "genealogies." Few still use the Biblical "table of nations" —other than to describe the traditional Hebrew views of their neighbors, as reported in Jerusalem in the 7th century BCE. Phoenicians are known to be immigrants into Canaan and are not being confused with Canaanites. Where they came from is not surely known. *Phoenicians called themselves ''"can'ani"'' ("Phoenicians" being a Greek word), the circumstances having been jumbled by referring to Canaan as Phoenicia in the first place. The people who inhabited "Phoenicia" would have called themselves ''Can'ani.'' Phoenicia was actually only a collection of city kingdoms conquered by the Sea Peoples. *Phoenicians really did leave no written records: all we have are inscriptions. *Phoenician colonies from Tyre, and Punic colonies from Carthage should not be confused. This entry should discuss the Tyrian colonies, and refer with a link to the Carthaginian ones. *Herodotus on Phoenician origins, with a little bit of editorial bolding: :"Learned Persians put the responsibility for the quarrel on the Phoenicians. These people came originally from the so called Red sea,[1] and as soon as they had penetrated to the Mediterranean and settled in the country where they are today, they took to making long trading voyages." ::[1] ''Eruthrês kaleomenês thalassês'' in the Greek; translator's note says that this refers to all of the Indian Ocean, and "here", in the translator's considered opinion, "the Persian Gulf is meant". ==Deleted text formerly in the article== Is any of the following worth retrieving? :Phoenician was one of the northwestern Semitic languages, those languages that include Amorite and Ugaritic, in addition to the Canaanite languages that include Phoenician, Hebrew and Aramaic. The Canaanite languages constitute a group of closely-related languages and dialects spoken in the ancient Near East, with written records going back to about 1500 BC. :Letters from the 14th century BCE, written in Akkadian, the language of diplomacy at the time, which were discovered at Tell el-Amarna in Egypt, contain solecisms that are not 'mistakes' but actually early Phoenician Canaanite words and phrases. :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 BCE, 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." :Knowledge of Hebrew aided the reconstruction of Phoenician inscriptions. An early essay in Phoenician language studies was Wilhelm Gesenius (1786 - 1842), Scripturae linguaeque phoeniciae monumenta, 1837, analyzing texts from coins and monumental inscriptions. Nowadays one can study Phoenician in the U.S. at Harvard, Johns Hopkins, the University of Michigan and University of Chicago (the only place to study advanced Phoenician). :Details of the historical inter-relations of the Semitic languages are debated by linguists. Especially controversial are the relationships of languages that are not themselves well known, like Amorite, or archaic languages like Eblaite which has features of both Akkadian and Canaanite languages. [edit] ::External link ::* The Semitic languages, including Phoenician. User:Wetman 16:57, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC) Thank you for your additions, Wetman. As with point 3 above, I wonder if there is an anachronism distinguishing Punic from Phoenician (which if there is might simply proove to be another term for Canaanite). Especially since there are no written records and all genuine phoenician inscriptions are Punic, how can we know exatly what Phoenician sounded like unless we are simly reconstructing an early canaanite dialect (which might in such a case be no differnt from the Zidonian or Arvadite dialects)? I think all that can be salvaged here is #that a language used in Phoenician Canaan has been reconstructed following the details given above (and can be studied in Harvard etc.). #that this language is possibly ancestral in relationship with Punic (which was spoken throughout the mediterranean but particularly in Lybia).User:Zestauferov 02:04, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)
*You're all welcome: I'm not defending these propositions, naturally. I'm just ensuring that these thoughts aren't swept into the attic.) *Maria Eugenia Aubet, ''The Phoenicians and the West: Politics, Colonies and Trade'', tr. Mary Turton [http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/2003/2003-12-17.html Bryn Mawr Classical Review, 2001: review)] Useful review. Clarifying> *''"Saint Augustine refers to their books as containing lots of wisdom while he calls Phoenician Punic "Our language."'' Not Phoenician, just as I'm not speaking the language of ''Beowulf''. User:Wetman 08:41, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC) Right, obviously every language evolves so naturally there must have been an earlier version which has been reconstructed and suitably dubbed Phoenician. I am trying to understand the political motivations behind some POVs in the current article so that I can read through the article more effectively (and hopefully pave the way fro a move categorised article). Can you think why there are people so concerned about calling the Ugaritic alphabet Phoenician, and talking about an almost unattested Canaanite language as Phoenecian? Could it be in relation to aboriginal inhabitants and land claim rights? Is there really any strong legal claim if such is the case? I mean genetically half of Europe comes from the Middle East. Or is there another reason which I am not seeing? Scholastic pride and (blinkered) defense of a life's work and theses?User:Zestauferov 08:46, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC) On Punic vs. Phoenician, I belive the distiction is not an anachronism, but a dichotomy between the inscriptions found outside of vs in Canaan, or the dialect proboably mutually intelligible with other Canaanite languages and the one which was proboably not. The distiction should stay due to the 'no original research' principle. If claimed an anachronism, bring sources and present such views. ==Libyans? Tunisian?== In the section on origins, an anon recently and without explanation changed "Libyans" to "Tunisian". I have no idea of the facts. There is now a mismatch of singular & plural, but I'm not editing this while I don't even know if it's true. It would make wense that Tunisians might claim descent from the Phoenicians. I have no idea why Libyans would be removed from the list without comment. Will someone with a clue please fix and/or explain. Citations on the fact that different nationalities claim this descent, rather than blind assertion, would be nice, since the matter is obviously controversial. -- User:Jmabel 00:38, Aug 6, 2004 (UTC) ==Century/Millennium== ''"spread right across the Mediterranean during the first century BC."'' Surely ''"millennium"'' was intended. --User:Wetman 03:51, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC) == Something Fishy about the History of Phoenicia == Disputed statement: ::Ironically, the Phoenicians themselves are largely silent on their own history, because Phoenician writing has largely perished, since their characteristic writing material was papyrus from Egypt, which has distintegrated. Amazing it is that papyri which date even ''approximately one thousand five hundred years older than Phoenicia (of 200 BC) '' (Moscow and Rhind Mathematical Papyri, Ebers papyrus, Edwin Smith papyrus) are all still intact and legible, but the Phoenicians, who... # after 1200 BC, formed a major naval and trading power in the region ... the stacked warships like triremes and quinqueremes probably being Phoenician inventions, # invented their own dye which they were especially famous for in their port town of Tyre, # discovered transparent glass, # shipped tall Lebanon cedars to Egypt, # worked to trade tin that they obtained from mines in Spain and Britain, # Herodotus says were sent out by pharaoh Necho II (6th century BC) of Egypt to circumnavigate Africa, # ''sailed to Britain (and maybe around Africa)'' and # ''even invented their own alphabet'' (Phoenician alphabet) somehow didn't have the "smarts" to write on something that wouldn't''' ''get wet and fall apart!'' Repeat:''' ''Are we really to believe that the Phoenicians (who [1] invented their own alphabet and [2] were the naval powers of the ancient world) somehow weren't smart enough to realize that they shouldn't write on something that gets wet and subsequently falls apart?'' If you believe this tale, you've been fooled by a Phoenician! Err... Phoenician? ... or do you think maybe ancient/medieval Romans/Britons revising history? See Origins of chess. 2-6-05 I added leather parchment to the area on writing and papyrus. Sheep and goats were prevalent here, and other historic cultures in the Levant used parchment which has survived - but only erratically. As to the survival of written records ..... these city/states were sacked more times than most in the area and, in some geologists' opinions, were subject to at least one major tsunami. In the absence of evidence, it is hard to assert that they chose not to create written records on perishable materials. -W (an "anonymous") - as of 02-17-05 User:WBardwin. :Good edits, W. Log in, why don't you? Most of us non-historians are unaware how recent our manuscripts of surviving Greek literature are. Manuscripts that weren't recopied have perished. The utterly dry sands of Oxyrhyncus preserved some fragments of Menander, but by the second and first century BCE, who was around to read a Phoenician text? All the Etruscan books were lost in very similar fashion, save parts of one whose linen was reused to wrap a late mummy. And vellum doesn't have the plant-cell cellulose that bacteria have such problems digesting. --User:Wetman 07:53, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC) == Another questionable addition == Would someone more knowledgeable than me please check the recent changes by User:207.108.138.120? Anonymous, no citations, no edit summary, you know the drill. -- User:Jmabel | User talk:Jmabel 00:18, Feb 12, 2005 (UTC) All looks good, apart from Latin puniceus, which I'm not sure about. - User:Mustafaa 00:34, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC) == Aryan Heritage? == I heard some people say that Phonecians are actually Aryan people, and some say that they are semitic people. I'm confused, are Phonecians Aryans or Semites?--User:69.19.139.193 02:45, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC) :I am unaware of any respectable scholar making a case that the Phoenicians are Aryan. Sounds crackpot. -- User:Jmabel | User talk:Jmabel 05:56, Mar 28, 2005 (UTC) I myself have heard about this rumor about Phoenicians being Aryan.--User:Gramaic 06:52, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC) :Gramaic has changed his remark in the previous line, making my response look like a personal attack, which it was not. The exchange was: ::''Phoenicians are in fact Aryans. The website http://www.jrbooksonline.com/pob/pob_toc.html discusses this quite well, which happens to be about Phoenician history.--User:Gramaic 06:52, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)'' :::''As I said, I am unaware of any respectable scholar making a case that the Phoenicians are Aryan. Sounds crackpot. -- User:Jmabel | User talk:Jmabel 07:08, Mar 28, 2005 (UTC)'' -- User:Jmabel | User talk:Jmabel 06:59, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC) ::I changed my remark, because the website I provided was not so accurate and I have discovered that it's a white supremacist website. These types of websites never give accurate information. I never meant to put Jmabel in a situation that he was giving a personal attack.--User:Gramaic 07:27, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC) ::: Precisely. No offense taken, but I'm sure you can see that my remark only makes sense in terms of what you originally wrote. I'm glad that you now grasp the nature of what you were citing. -- User:Jmabel | User talk:Jmabel 00:22, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC) :::I don't want to get involved in an unconstructive, or worse, God-forbid, ''destructive'' way, in a personal dispute between two fellow-editors, but I'd like to say, Gramaic, with any and all due respect, anyone who insists that the Phoenicians were "Aryan" is guilty of an egregious breach of intellectual and historical honesty. The term "Aryan" has 3 meanings in modern-day parlance, each of which lies in the domain of completely different communities: :::*Arius was a 4th Century AD Christian leader whose teachings were the foundation for Arianism. He declared that the then-only-budding idea of Trinitarianism was a pæan to paganism or panentheism or perhaps even to the gnostic idea of pantheism, inherited from the orpheus and dionysus sects. :::*Aryan or Iran refers to the many peoples who speak Indo-Iranian languages, especially those who spoke Avestan language and the Indo-European languages precursor languages of much of south-central Asia, most influential of which, today are Persian language, Kurdish language, Pushtu language, Balochi language, Hindi and Urdu language. :::*The Aryan race is a mythology construct based in the writings of the Zend Avesta, to describe the speakers of Avestan language. This concept was misappropriated and reinterpreted by Nazi proponents of the concept of "Aryan racial purity", to mean "people of pale skin, blue eyes, tall stature, and blond hair", eventhough there is no evidence whatsoever that would lead anyone to conclude that the speakers of Avestani ever matched such a description. :::(1)Since the Phoenicians clearly ''long'' predate Christianity, the idea that they could have anything to do with Arius would be erroneously fallacious bordering on obscenely ludicrous. :::(3)Let's dispense with the 3rd term before addressing the second, since it's much easier to refute. The concept of "Aryan" in this sense is filled almost least of all by the very people whose description was misappropriated to describe them. There are ''hundreds of millions'' of people who speak Aryan languages who would be, merely by their skin color, considered to be "less aryan" than the vast majority of Jews, especially those persecuted by the unspeakably wicked Nazis. Those Neo-nazis and Nazi-apologists who say that such peoples are "reprobates" or "retrogrades" who adopted Aryan languages, neglect to consider that the vast majority of peoples who speak their beloved Indo-European languages are "racial reprobates", and that the Finno-Ugric-speaking peoples far better fit the "racial profile", paradoxically, of the "ideal Aryan"...(never mind the heart-attacks that have to be wrought by the appearance of epicanthic folds among the eastern groups of these WHITE-SKINNED PEOPLE! OH NO! CHICKEN LITTLE, WHERE ART THOU? Racial impurity! Surely they've bred with the the impure orientals! This minor glitch in the racism of Nazi Germany was actually overcome by the genius of the Nazi propaganda machine, which pointed out that the "Japanese" had epicanthic folds (although considerably less pronounced), and since they were allies of the Vaterland, they must surely be Aryans as well. (There is no end to the stupidity of which the human mind is capable of convincing itself, apparently.) :::(2) The linguistic hypothesis. I take it back. This is the easiest to refute. The Phoenician language is UNEQUIVOCALLY, Semitic, and, despite any nay-saying, appears to have been mutually-intelligible with Biblical Hebrew language. For example, the Phoenician city-state which fought the longest, most ardent (and ultimately futile), battle against the expanding Romans, were the Carthaginians. Carthage, a Phoenician outpost. What was the Phoenician name of the city? ', similar to the Hebrew language ', both of which mean "New Town". (Compare English language Newton, and Latin Nablus and Naples.) :::(unsigned; this was User:TShilo12 20 April 2005) == Iran/Persia == In the historical context of this article, is it really appropriate to link "Persia" to Iran? -- User:Jmabel | User talk:Jmabel 06:29, Apr 16, 2005 (UTC) ==Phoenician Origin== A long time ago, I've read that the origins of the Phoenicians are Greek. Is that true?--User:Gramaic 06:22, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC) :No, in fact the Greeks borrowed their alphabet from Phoenicians (see Cadmus myth and Europa myth). But the name we give to Phoenicians is a Greek name. --User:Wetman 06:30, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC) == Descendants of the Phoenicians == Some of the Lebanese, Maltese, Tunisian and even some Somalis still consider themselves descendants of Phoenicians... **Statement from the "Origin section" in the article. ---- Some Lebanese??? From what I know, at least most of the Americans of Lebanese ancestry are 85% Phoenician. So instead of saying some Lebanese, I would suggest to change the word "some" to the word "most." The website: http://www.2la.org/english/eng-mainlebam-m.htm#la1 , should be enough proof that most Lebanese are Phoenicians.--User:Gramaic 04:40, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC) : A pie chart! Please see the long wrangle on this folk-culture issue in the archive linked at the top of this page. If you're serious about this kind of stuff, read Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, or at least read the Wikipedia article. --User:Wetman 05:34, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC) ::I'm not serious about any kind of stuff. I just thought the source I cited would be helpful. By the way, I have read the entire article before.--User:Gramaic 07:49, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC) :Grouchy me. But the Cavalli-Sforza book is one of those reading experiences that sweep cobwebs from one's brain. --User:Wetman 08:14, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC) :::It should be noted that Phoenician-descendancy is a very popular theory among Lebanese and there are many Lebanese historians that have written about it. I will try to find the sources, but contrary to what JMabel says, it is not a "minority" view.User:Yuber 21:33, 1 May 2005 (UTC) :We have an issue over the meaning of "minority"? Yikes! Of course sentimental patriots among homesick members of the Lebanese diaspora just love to hear about their intrepid and successful Phoenician ancestors— and so much like the modern Lebanese themselves, needless to say... "Popular" indeed, in every sense. In my youth, so far from being homogeneous, Lebanon was the only genuinely ''cosmopolitan'' society in that region. ''Please'' read edit wars in the talk page archives at Basque, in various transmutations, and Georgia (country), Pelasgians and Ruthenians. All so familiar and stale... --User:Wetman 23:17, 1 May 2005 (UTC) ::I don't see your point here.. Modern genetic tests have showed that Syrians, Lebanese, Palestinians and Israelis are more closely related to each other genetically than to Arabs from the peninsula. Looking at the phenotype of most lebanese today we can tell that they obviously are not Arabs from the peninsula either. So, who are the Lebanese descended from? Either you are claiming that all phoenicians died out or that there were massive Arab migrations to what is now Lebanon. Both theories have been proven false before. By the way, I am not Lebanese, so I am not a homesick member of the diaspora. I refer you to the section on Palestinian ancestry here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian#The_ancestry_of_the_Palestinians Read there to see that the predominant view of most historians is that populations in the Levant adopted the Arabic language and most of them were not descended from Arabs. User:Yuber 23:26, 2 May 2005 (UTC) * I must say, I find Mr. Wetman's views expressed in this last comment to be patronizing in the extreme; a sort of "We know the value of your ancestry traditions better than you do" sort of attitude - directed against (in this case) Lebanese, but tomorrow it might be Chinese... :Incidentally, this same patronizing attitude toward other peoples was the order of the day in 1911, but definitely seems a little stale now... - Anonymouse1 :History is only interesting when it's real. My own New England colonial family has a family association, sporting a ''coat-of-arms''— which would have made my shoemaker 10x great-grandfather cringe with embarassment. Reddens my ears too a bit. My own cousins are just as self-deluded as the Anony-mouse. None of us is quite free of this nonsense. Let us make an effort. --User:Wetman 03:41, 2 May 2005 (UTC) ''Everyone'' knows the Lebanese couldn't ''possibly'' be descendants of the Phoenicians. Here are some very good reasons why. 1) They lived in the same place. Therefore, it fits in perfectly with the "Too Obvious to be True" (TOTBT) theory. (Especially when we don't want it to be true). Just because people live in the same geographic place as people 3000 years ago does not necessarily mean they are related in any way. Therefore, this is probably a good indication that they are not related after all. All those Phoenician people from 3000 years ago could well have perished without leaving a single descendant, from catastrophe or even genocide. Or, they simply could have moved away to some other country. So the geographic coincidence means NOTHING. 2) It completely goes against the New Way of Thinking for the 21st Century. Now, we don't want too many folks elsewhere in the world gettin all uppity with some fanciful, romantic notions about being genetically descended from some ancient people. That won't do at all; it's best for the New World we live in today, if most people don't think too hard about such things. (The Romans knew this too, but yet they allowed it to happen, and look where it got them!) Now, in this particular case, it's probably too late, because those folks in Lebanon already seem to have this ridiculous, preposterous notion that they are actually genetically descended from folk who lived 3000 years ago. We probably can't stop them from thinking this foolishness, but at least we can do what little we can, by scoffing to scorn anyone who suggests such a fallacy on the internet. That will help out some (Every little bit helps!) :''Everyone knows the Lebanese couldn't ''possibly'' be descendants of the Phoenicians?'' :Saying that the Lebanese people are not decendants of the Phoenicians is kind of strong. How do know this information? Before making such a statement and saying that the link between ancient Phoenicians and modern day Lebanese people is foolish, you need to show proof and cite sources. What you just said is just your personal POV. == Interesting article on the descendants of the Phoenicians == http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0410/feature2/index.htmlUser:Yuber 23:53, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
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Phoenicia
Phoenicia was an ancient civilization in the north of ancient Canaan, with its heartland along the coastal plain of what is now Lebanon and Syria. Phoenician civilization was an enterprising thalassocracy that spread right across the Mediterranean during the first millennium BC. Though ancient boundaries of such city-centered cultures fluctuated, the city of Sarepta, between Sidon and Tyre the most thoroughly excavated city of the Phoenician homeland seems to have been the southernmost. Although the people of the region called themselves the ''Canaani'', the name Phoenicia became common thanks to the Greeks who called them the ''Phoiniki'' - ''Φοινίκη'' (''Phoiníkē''); the Greek word for Phoenician was synonymous with the colour purple/red or crimson, ''φοινίξ'' (''phoinix''), through its close association with the famous dye Tyrian purple (cf also Phoenix). The dye was used in ancient textile trade, and highly desired. The Phoenicians became known as the 'Purple People'. The Phoenicians spoke the Phoenician languages, 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. ==Origins== Herodotus's account refers to a faint memory from 1000 years earlier, and so may be subject to question (''History,'' I:1): :"According to the Persians best informed in history, the Phoenicians began to quarrel. This people, who had formerly reached the shores of the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, having migrated to the Mediterranean from an unknown origin and settled in the parts which they now inhabit, began at once, they say, to adventure on long voyages, freighting their vessels with the wares of Egypt and Assyria..." 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 (mythology) from Pylos, and the retaliatory abduction of Europa (mythology) 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 letters of the 14th century BC they call themselves ''Kinahhi'' or ''Kinahni'' (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 Tribe of 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. ==The cultural and economic "empire"== Fernand Braudel remarked (in ''The Perspective of the World'') that Phoenicia was an early example of a "world-economy" surrounded by empires. The high point of Phoenician culture and seapower is usually placed ca 1200 – 800 BC. Many of the most important Phoenician settlements had been established long before this: Byblos, Tyre, Sidon, Simyra, Aradus and Beirut 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 Egypt 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. ==Phoenician Merchantry== In the centuries following 1200 BC, the Phoenicians formed the major naval and trading power of the region. Perhaps it was through these merchants that the Hebrew word ''kena'ani'' ('Canaanite') came to have the secondary, and apt, meaning of "merchant". The Greek term "Tyrian purple" describes the dye they were especially famous for, and their port town Tyre. Phoenician trade was founded on this violet-purple dye derived from the Murex sea-snail's shell, once profusely available in coastal waters but exploited to local extinction. James B. Pritchard's excavations at Sarepta in Lebanon revealed crushed Murex shells and pottery containers stained with the dye that was being produced at the site. Brilliant textiles were a part of Phoenician wealth. Phoenician glass was another export ware. Phoenicians seem to have first discovered the technique of producing transparent glass. Phoenicians also shipped tall Lebanon cedars to Egypt, that consumed more wood than it could produce. Indeed, the Amarna tablets suggest that in this manner the Phoenicians paid tribute to Egypt in the 14th century. 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 ''Sapan'', meaning 'what is hidden' - reflecting their penchant to guard the locations of their mines and sources of wealth jealously as trade secrets.) Their ships ventured into the Atlantic ocean as far as Britain, where the tin mines in what is now Cornwall provided them with important material. 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 circumnavigation 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 (Greece) was founded by a Phoenician prince named Cadmus when he set out to look for his sister Europa (mythical), 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 Solomon's 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 1200s 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 Persian Empire. 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. ==Persian and Hellenistic Phoenicia== Information on Phoenician cities and their hinterlands under the Achaemenid Persians is sparse. The famous event is the revolt of Sidon against Achaemenid rule in 345 BC and its destruction, dramatically (perhaps ''too'' dramatically) described by Diodorus Siculus. The arrival of Alexander the Great in 333 BC – 332 BC is the main turning point, for Hellenistic Phoenicia lost its influential mercantile role, and the distinctive culture of its cities was Hellenized under Alexander and his Macedonian successors. The responses of the individual Phoenician cities to Alexander's conquest of Persia varied: the ruler of Aradus submitted; the king of Sidon was overthrown (perhaps by internal plotters who valued the city more than their king). Tyre resisted with the most energy. It was captured after a prolonged siege, one of the most famous sieges in Antiquity, and Alexander was exceptionally harsh. He executed 2000 of the leading citizens, but maintained the king in power. A popular king who owed everything to Alexander, made for a more secure city than a deeply-rooted local oligarchy. If Tyre was meant to set an example, it was effective: the Phoenician resistance was utterly broken, and no Phoenician city thereafter seems to have resisted occupation. In the following decades, shifting frontiers between Ptolemaic armies, and Antigonid or Seleucid forces, required some flexible diplomacy and alacrity in accepting a new alliance. This is the period when the cult of Tyche, goddess of Fortune, reached a prominence it had never enjoyed before. In 287 BC – 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. ==Important Phoenician Cities & Colonies== From the 10th century BC, their expansive culture established cities and colonies throughout the Mediterranean. Canaanite deities like Baal and `Ashtart were being worshipped from Cyprus to Sardinia, Malta, Sicily, and most notably at Carthage in modern Tunisia. In the Phoenician homeland: * Beirut * Byblos * Sidon * Tyre Phoenician colonies (this list is very incomplete): * Carthage * Tripoli *three cities dependent on Carthage, known by their later Hellenic and Roman names: ** Oea ** Sabrata ** Leptis Magna * Hadrumetum (modern Sousse, Tunisia) * Abdera, Spain (Adra, Spain) * Nova Cartago, now Cartagena, Spain * Gadir (Cádiz) * Kition (Cyprus) * Lixus (Morocco) * Malaca (Málaga, Spain) * Motya (Sicily) * Sexi (Almunecar, Spain) * Utica, Tunisia * Onoba (Huelva, Spain) * Coastal Sardinia ==Language & Literature== ''See main articles: Phoenician language, Phoenician alphabet, Alphabet.'' 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 (script) ''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 languages, was a Northwest Semitic languages language of the Canaanite languages 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. ===External link=== *[http://phoenicia.org/semlang.html The Semitic languages, including Phoenician.] ==Phoenicians in the Bible== The Bible refers to the Phoenicians as Canaanites. In fact, the New Testament mentions the same woman from the Sidon and Tyre area as being a Syro-Phoenician and/or Canaanite woman. Writers of the Old Testament did not like it when a princess from Phoenicia became Queen Jezebel (biblical) of Israel and introduced the Polytheism. Queen Jezebel was the great-aunt of Dido-Elissar, who founded Carthage, out of which came Hannibal. ==See also== *Phoenician chronology ==External links== *[http://phoenicia.org/index.shtml Encyclopedia Phoeniciana website] largest and most comprehensive website on Phoenicia about 1,000 pages *[http://www.museum.upenn.edu/Canaan/Phoenicians.html University of Pennsylvania Museum offers simplified but unbiased information on Canaan and Phoenicians, emphasizing common aspects of culture among Israel and the other kingdoms in Canaan.] *[http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Parliament/2587/phoenicia.html Phoenician history, from a patriotic Lebanese point of view.] *[http://www.lost-civilizations.net/phoenicians-overview.html Phoenicians overview] by Genry Joil. ==References== *''The History of Phoenicia'', first published in 1889 by George Rawlinson is available under Project Gutenberg at: http://digital.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=2331 Rawlinson's 19th century text needs updating for modern improvements in historical understanding. *Maria Eugenia Aubet, ''The Phoenicians and the West: Politics, Colonies and Trade'', tr. Mary Turton ([http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/2003/2003-12-17.html Bryn Mawr Classical Review, 2001: review)] Ancient Roman provinces Ancient peoples Lebanese history Syrian history la:Phoenices
Phoenicia
Old discussions on this page have been moved here Talk:Phoenicia/Archive 1 ==Summary of Views== Lets try to list the conflicting POVs here so that we can see what the forces are that pull against each other on this article keeping it from improving. I personally can think of the following. 1 Phoenicians and Zidonians were native Canaanites their lands, people & culture were one and the same. 2 Phoenicians were a sea-faring merchantile military elite who conquered certain ports and costal/shore areas in the Mediterranean especially those held by the native Canaanites. 2 a They were originally Poenite traders from Eretrea. 2 b They were of unknown origin and ethnicity. 2 c They were Egyptians 2 d They were Sea-peoples 2 e They were Indo-europeans who adopted the local dialects 2 f They were the Israelite tribes of Dan 2 g They were not Canaanites but were of a semitic linguistic origin. 2 h They were Lybians I cannot think of any more than this. if you can please add to the list so that we can start to separate the historical pictures which fit each of the hypotheses instead of letting them continually merge and swirl around each other. User:Zestauferov 15:08, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC) ---- ==Some additional assertions now hidden in the attic== ( User:Wetman 16:57, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC) ) Are any of these apropos: *The ethnic make-up of the people now living in the area that was called "Phoenicia" in ancient times is even more mixed now# than it was 2500 years ago. Lebanese and Maltese are not "descendants" of Phoenicians any more than they are of "Byzantines." :Good point from a Genetic perspective, but still we have to be sensitive to national ideas. Celts believe their tradition descends from Scythia. Jews believe their tradition descends from Abraham. Various Meditrranian peoples (and even beyond) believe their tradition descends from the Phoenicians. There is no inherent harm in any of this I think. Why should we make any special point of picking on such a belief? User:Zestauferov 02:04, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC) ::"Sensitivity" to nationalism does not go as far as historical falsification. This is the very essence of the problems with this entry. Sensible Celts know that the bogus "Scythian" connection is a 16th century English canard: see entry Scythia. There is no excuse for fraud in this entry or anywhere at Wikipedia. User:Wetman 22:07, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC) *Begin with archaeology, history and linguistics. Then have a look at those Biblical "genealogies." Few still use the Biblical "table of nations" —other than to describe the traditional Hebrew views of their neighbors, as reported in Jerusalem in the 7th century BCE. Phoenicians are known to be immigrants into Canaan and are not being confused with Canaanites. Where they came from is not surely known. *Phoenicians called themselves ''"can'ani"'' ("Phoenicians" being a Greek word), the circumstances having been jumbled by referring to Canaan as Phoenicia in the first place. The people who inhabited "Phoenicia" would have called themselves ''Can'ani.'' Phoenicia was actually only a collection of city kingdoms conquered by the Sea Peoples. *Phoenicians really did leave no written records: all we have are inscriptions. *Phoenician colonies from Tyre, and Punic colonies from Carthage should not be confused. This entry should discuss the Tyrian colonies, and refer with a link to the Carthaginian ones. *Herodotus on Phoenician origins, with a little bit of editorial bolding: :"Learned Persians put the responsibility for the quarrel on the Phoenicians. These people came originally from the so called Red sea,[1] and as soon as they had penetrated to the Mediterranean and settled in the country where they are today, they took to making long trading voyages." ::[1] ''Eruthrês kaleomenês thalassês'' in the Greek; translator's note says that this refers to all of the Indian Ocean, and "here", in the translator's considered opinion, "the Persian Gulf is meant". ==Deleted text formerly in the article== Is any of the following worth retrieving? :Phoenician was one of the northwestern Semitic languages, those languages that include Amorite and Ugaritic, in addition to the Canaanite languages that include Phoenician, Hebrew and Aramaic. The Canaanite languages constitute a group of closely-related languages and dialects spoken in the ancient Near East, with written records going back to about 1500 BC. :Letters from the 14th century BCE, written in Akkadian, the language of diplomacy at the time, which were discovered at Tell el-Amarna in Egypt, contain solecisms that are not 'mistakes' but actually early Phoenician Canaanite words and phrases. :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 BCE, 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." :Knowledge of Hebrew aided the reconstruction of Phoenician inscriptions. An early essay in Phoenician language studies was Wilhelm Gesenius (1786 - 1842), Scripturae linguaeque phoeniciae monumenta, 1837, analyzing texts from coins and monumental inscriptions. Nowadays one can study Phoenician in the U.S. at Harvard, Johns Hopkins, the University of Michigan and University of Chicago (the only place to study advanced Phoenician). :Details of the historical inter-relations of the Semitic languages are debated by linguists. Especially controversial are the relationships of languages that are not themselves well known, like Amorite, or archaic languages like Eblaite which has features of both Akkadian and Canaanite languages. [edit] ::External link ::* The Semitic languages, including Phoenician. User:Wetman 16:57, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC) Thank you for your additions, Wetman. As with point 3 above, I wonder if there is an anachronism distinguishing Punic from Phoenician (which if there is might simply proove to be another term for Canaanite). Especially since there are no written records and all genuine phoenician inscriptions are Punic, how can we know exatly what Phoenician sounded like unless we are simly reconstructing an early canaanite dialect (which might in such a case be no differnt from the Zidonian or Arvadite dialects)? I think all that can be salvaged here is #that a language used in Phoenician Canaan has been reconstructed following the details given above (and can be studied in Harvard etc.). #that this language is possibly ancestral in relationship with Punic (which was spoken throughout the mediterranean but particularly in Lybia).User:Zestauferov 02:04, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)
*You're all welcome: I'm not defending these propositions, naturally. I'm just ensuring that these thoughts aren't swept into the attic.) *Maria Eugenia Aubet, ''The Phoenicians and the West: Politics, Colonies and Trade'', tr. Mary Turton [http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/2003/2003-12-17.html Bryn Mawr Classical Review, 2001: review)] Useful review. Clarifying> *''"Saint Augustine refers to their books as containing lots of wisdom while he calls Phoenician Punic "Our language."'' Not Phoenician, just as I'm not speaking the language of ''Beowulf''. User:Wetman 08:41, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC) Right, obviously every language evolves so naturally there must have been an earlier version which has been reconstructed and suitably dubbed Phoenician. I am trying to understand the political motivations behind some POVs in the current article so that I can read through the article more effectively (and hopefully pave the way fro a move categorised article). Can you think why there are people so concerned about calling the Ugaritic alphabet Phoenician, and talking about an almost unattested Canaanite language as Phoenecian? Could it be in relation to aboriginal inhabitants and land claim rights? Is there really any strong legal claim if such is the case? I mean genetically half of Europe comes from the Middle East. Or is there another reason which I am not seeing? Scholastic pride and (blinkered) defense of a life's work and theses?User:Zestauferov 08:46, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC) On Punic vs. Phoenician, I belive the distiction is not an anachronism, but a dichotomy between the inscriptions found outside of vs in Canaan, or the dialect proboably mutually intelligible with other Canaanite languages and the one which was proboably not. The distiction should stay due to the 'no original research' principle. If claimed an anachronism, bring sources and present such views. ==Libyans? Tunisian?== In the section on origins, an anon recently and without explanation changed "Libyans" to "Tunisian". I have no idea of the facts. There is now a mismatch of singular & plural, but I'm not editing this while I don't even know if it's true. It would make wense that Tunisians might claim descent from the Phoenicians. I have no idea why Libyans would be removed from the list without comment. Will someone with a clue please fix and/or explain. Citations on the fact that different nationalities claim this descent, rather than blind assertion, would be nice, since the matter is obviously controversial. -- User:Jmabel 00:38, Aug 6, 2004 (UTC) ==Century/Millennium== ''"spread right across the Mediterranean during the first century BC."'' Surely ''"millennium"'' was intended. --User:Wetman 03:51, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC) == Something Fishy about the History of Phoenicia == Disputed statement: ::Ironically, the Phoenicians themselves are largely silent on their own history, because Phoenician writing has largely perished, since their characteristic writing material was papyrus from Egypt, which has distintegrated. Amazing it is that papyri which date even ''approximately one thousand five hundred years older than Phoenicia (of 200 BC) '' (Moscow and Rhind Mathematical Papyri, Ebers papyrus, Edwin Smith papyrus) are all still intact and legible, but the Phoenicians, who... # after 1200 BC, formed a major naval and trading power in the region ... the stacked warships like triremes and quinqueremes probably being Phoenician inventions, # invented their own dye which they were especially famous for in their port town of Tyre, # discovered transparent glass, # shipped tall Lebanon cedars to Egypt, # worked to trade tin that they obtained from mines in Spain and Britain, # Herodotus says were sent out by pharaoh Necho II (6th century BC) of Egypt to circumnavigate Africa, # ''sailed to Britain (and maybe around Africa)'' and # ''even invented their own alphabet'' (Phoenician alphabet) somehow didn't have the "smarts" to write on something that wouldn't''' ''get wet and fall apart!'' Repeat:''' ''Are we really to believe that the Phoenicians (who [1] invented their own alphabet and [2] were the naval powers of the ancient world) somehow weren't smart enough to realize that they shouldn't write on something that gets wet and subsequently falls apart?'' If you believe this tale, you've been fooled by a Phoenician! Err... Phoenician? ... or do you think maybe ancient/medieval Romans/Britons revising history? See Origins of chess. 2-6-05 I added leather parchment to the area on writing and papyrus. Sheep and goats were prevalent here, and other historic cultures in the Levant used parchment which has survived - but only erratically. As to the survival of written records ..... these city/states were sacked more times than most in the area and, in some geologists' opinions, were subject to at least one major tsunami. In the absence of evidence, it is hard to assert that they chose not to create written records on perishable materials. -W (an "anonymous") - as of 02-17-05 User:WBardwin. :Good edits, W. Log in, why don't you? Most of us non-historians are unaware how recent our manuscripts of surviving Greek literature are. Manuscripts that weren't recopied have perished. The utterly dry sands of Oxyrhyncus preserved some fragments of Menander, but by the second and first century BCE, who was around to read a Phoenician text? All the Etruscan books were lost in very similar fashion, save parts of one whose linen was reused to wrap a late mummy. And vellum doesn't have the plant-cell cellulose that bacteria have such problems digesting. --User:Wetman 07:53, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC) == Another questionable addition == Would someone more knowledgeable than me please check the recent changes by User:207.108.138.120? Anonymous, no citations, no edit summary, you know the drill. -- User:Jmabel | User talk:Jmabel 00:18, Feb 12, 2005 (UTC) All looks good, apart from Latin puniceus, which I'm not sure about. - User:Mustafaa 00:34, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC) == Aryan Heritage? == I heard some people say that Phonecians are actually Aryan people, and some say that they are semitic people. I'm confused, are Phonecians Aryans or Semites?--User:69.19.139.193 02:45, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC) :I am unaware of any respectable scholar making a case that the Phoenicians are Aryan. Sounds crackpot. -- User:Jmabel | User talk:Jmabel 05:56, Mar 28, 2005 (UTC) I myself have heard about this rumor about Phoenicians being Aryan.--User:Gramaic 06:52, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC) :Gramaic has changed his remark in the previous line, making my response look like a personal attack, which it was not. The exchange was: ::''Phoenicians are in fact Aryans. The website http://www.jrbooksonline.com/pob/pob_toc.html discusses this quite well, which happens to be about Phoenician history.--User:Gramaic 06:52, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)'' :::''As I said, I am unaware of any respectable scholar making a case that the Phoenicians are Aryan. Sounds crackpot. -- User:Jmabel | User talk:Jmabel 07:08, Mar 28, 2005 (UTC)'' -- User:Jmabel | User talk:Jmabel 06:59, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC) ::I changed my remark, because the website I provided was not so accurate and I have discovered that it's a white supremacist website. These types of websites never give accurate information. I never meant to put Jmabel in a situation that he was giving a personal attack.--User:Gramaic 07:27, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC) ::: Precisely. No offense taken, but I'm sure you can see that my remark only makes sense in terms of what you originally wrote. I'm glad that you now grasp the nature of what you were citing. -- User:Jmabel | User talk:Jmabel 00:22, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC) :::I don't want to get involved in an unconstructive, or worse, God-forbid, ''destructive'' way, in a personal dispute between two fellow-editors, but I'd like to say, Gramaic, with any and all due respect, anyone who insists that the Phoenicians were "Aryan" is guilty of an egregious breach of intellectual and historical honesty. The term "Aryan" has 3 meanings in modern-day parlance, each of which lies in the domain of completely different communities: :::*Arius was a 4th Century AD Christian leader whose teachings were the foundation for Arianism. He declared that the then-only-budding idea of Trinitarianism was a pæan to paganism or panentheism or perhaps even to the gnostic idea of pantheism, inherited from the orpheus and dionysus sects. :::*Aryan or Iran refers to the many peoples who speak Indo-Iranian languages, especially those who spoke Avestan language and the Indo-European languages precursor languages of much of south-central Asia, most influential of which, today are Persian language, Kurdish language, Pushtu language, Balochi language, Hindi and Urdu language. :::*The Aryan race is a mythology construct based in the writings of the Zend Avesta, to describe the speakers of Avestan language. This concept was misappropriated and reinterpreted by Nazi proponents of the concept of "Aryan racial purity", to mean "people of pale skin, blue eyes, tall stature, and blond hair", eventhough there is no evidence whatsoever that would lead anyone to conclude that the speakers of Avestani ever matched such a description. :::(1)Since the Phoenicians clearly ''long'' predate Christianity, the idea that they could have anything to do with Arius would be erroneously fallacious bordering on obscenely ludicrous. :::(3)Let's dispense with the 3rd term before addressing the second, since it's much easier to refute. The concept of "Aryan" in this sense is filled almost least of all by the very people whose description was misappropriated to describe them. There are ''hundreds of millions'' of people who speak Aryan languages who would be, merely by their skin color, considered to be "less aryan" than the vast majority of Jews, especially those persecuted by the unspeakably wicked Nazis. Those Neo-nazis and Nazi-apologists who say that such peoples are "reprobates" or "retrogrades" who adopted Aryan languages, neglect to consider that the vast majority of peoples who speak their beloved Indo-European languages are "racial reprobates", and that the Finno-Ugric-speaking peoples far better fit the "racial profile", paradoxically, of the "ideal Aryan"...(never mind the heart-attacks that have to be wrought by the appearance of epicanthic folds among the eastern groups of these WHITE-SKINNED PEOPLE! OH NO! CHICKEN LITTLE, WHERE ART THOU? Racial impurity! Surely they've bred with the the impure orientals! This minor glitch in the racism of Nazi Germany was actually overcome by the genius of the Nazi propaganda machine, which pointed out that the "Japanese" had epicanthic folds (although considerably less pronounced), and since they were allies of the Vaterland, they must surely be Aryans as well. (There is no end to the stupidity of which the human mind is capable of convincing itself, apparently.) :::(2) The linguistic hypothesis. I take it back. This is the easiest to refute. The Phoenician language is UNEQUIVOCALLY, Semitic, and, despite any nay-saying, appears to have been mutually-intelligible with Biblical Hebrew language. For example, the Phoenician city-state which fought the longest, most ardent (and ultimately futile), battle against the expanding Romans, were the Carthaginians. Carthage, a Phoenician outpost. What was the Phoenician name of the city? ', similar to the Hebrew language ', both of which mean "New Town". (Compare English language Newton, and Latin Nablus and Naples.) :::(unsigned; this was User:TShilo12 20 April 2005) == Iran/Persia == In the historical context of this article, is it really appropriate to link "Persia" to Iran? -- User:Jmabel | User talk:Jmabel 06:29, Apr 16, 2005 (UTC) ==Phoenician Origin== A long time ago, I've read that the origins of the Phoenicians are Greek. Is that true?--User:Gramaic 06:22, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC) :No, in fact the Greeks borrowed their alphabet from Phoenicians (see Cadmus myth and Europa myth). But the name we give to Phoenicians is a Greek name. --User:Wetman 06:30, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC) == Descendants of the Phoenicians == Some of the Lebanese, Maltese, Tunisian and even some Somalis still consider themselves descendants of Phoenicians... **Statement from the "Origin section" in the article. ---- Some Lebanese??? From what I know, at least most of the Americans of Lebanese ancestry are 85% Phoenician. So instead of saying some Lebanese, I would suggest to change the word "some" to the word "most." The website: http://www.2la.org/english/eng-mainlebam-m.htm#la1 , should be enough proof that most Lebanese are Phoenicians.--User:Gramaic 04:40, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC) : A pie chart! Please see the long wrangle on this folk-culture issue in the archive linked at the top of this page. If you're serious about this kind of stuff, read Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, or at least read the Wikipedia article. --User:Wetman 05:34, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC) ::I'm not serious about any kind of stuff. I just thought the source I cited would be helpful. By the way, I have read the entire article before.--User:Gramaic 07:49, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC) :Grouchy me. But the Cavalli-Sforza book is one of those reading experiences that sweep cobwebs from one's brain. --User:Wetman 08:14, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC) :::It should be noted that Phoenician-descendancy is a very popular theory among Lebanese and there are many Lebanese historians that have written about it. I will try to find the sources, but contrary to what JMabel says, it is not a "minority" view.User:Yuber 21:33, 1 May 2005 (UTC) :We have an issue over the meaning of "minority"? Yikes! Of course sentimental patriots among homesick members of the Lebanese diaspora just love to hear about their intrepid and successful Phoenician ancestors— and so much like the modern Lebanese themselves, needless to say... "Popular" indeed, in every sense. In my youth, so far from being homogeneous, Lebanon was the only genuinely ''cosmopolitan'' society in that region. ''Please'' read edit wars in the talk page archives at Basque, in various transmutations, and Georgia (country), Pelasgians and Ruthenians. All so familiar and stale... --User:Wetman 23:17, 1 May 2005 (UTC) ::I don't see your point here.. Modern genetic tests have showed that Syrians, Lebanese, Palestinians and Israelis are more closely related to each other genetically than to Arabs from the peninsula. Looking at the phenotype of most lebanese today we can tell that they obviously are not Arabs from the peninsula either. So, who are the Lebanese descended from? Either you are claiming that all phoenicians died out or that there were massive Arab migrations to what is now Lebanon. Both theories have been proven false before. By the way, I am not Lebanese, so I am not a homesick member of the diaspora. I refer you to the section on Palestinian ancestry here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian#The_ancestry_of_the_Palestinians Read there to see that the predominant view of most historians is that populations in the Levant adopted the Arabic language and most of them were not descended from Arabs. User:Yuber 23:26, 2 May 2005 (UTC) * I must say, I find Mr. Wetman's views expressed in this last comment to be patronizing in the extreme; a sort of "We know the value of your ancestry traditions better than you do" sort of attitude - directed against (in this case) Lebanese, but tomorrow it might be Chinese... :Incidentally, this same patronizing attitude toward other peoples was the order of the day in 1911, but definitely seems a little stale now... - Anonymouse1 :History is only interesting when it's real. My own New England colonial family has a family association, sporting a ''coat-of-arms''— which would have made my shoemaker 10x great-grandfather cringe with embarassment. Reddens my ears too a bit. My own cousins are just as self-deluded as the Anony-mouse. None of us is quite free of this nonsense. Let us make an effort. --User:Wetman 03:41, 2 May 2005 (UTC) ''Everyone'' knows the Lebanese couldn't ''possibly'' be descendants of the Phoenicians. Here are some very good reasons why. 1) They lived in the same place. Therefore, it fits in perfectly with the "Too Obvious to be True" (TOTBT) theory. (Especially when we don't want it to be true). Just because people live in the same geographic place as people 3000 years ago does not necessarily mean they are related in any way. Therefore, this is probably a good indication that they are not related after all. All those Phoenician people from 3000 years ago could well have perished without leaving a single descendant, from catastrophe or even genocide. Or, they simply could have moved away to some other country. So the geographic coincidence means NOTHING. 2) It completely goes against the New Way of Thinking for the 21st Century. Now, we don't want too many folks elsewhere in the world gettin all uppity with some fanciful, romantic notions about being genetically descended from some ancient people. That won't do at all; it's best for the New World we live in today, if most people don't think too hard about such things. (The Romans knew this too, but yet they allowed it to happen, and look where it got them!) Now, in this particular case, it's probably too late, because those folks in Lebanon already seem to have this ridiculous, preposterous notion that they are actually genetically descended from folk who lived 3000 years ago. We probably can't stop them from thinking this foolishness, but at least we can do what little we can, by scoffing to scorn anyone who suggests such a fallacy on the internet. That will help out some (Every little bit helps!) :''Everyone knows the Lebanese couldn't ''possibly'' be descendants of the Phoenicians?'' :Saying that the Lebanese people are not decendants of the Phoenicians is kind of strong. How do know this information? Before making such a statement and saying that the link between ancient Phoenicians and modern day Lebanese people is foolish, you need to show proof and cite sources. What you just said is just your personal POV. == Interesting article on the descendants of the Phoenicians == http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0410/feature2/index.htmlUser:Yuber 23:53, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
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