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Phoenicians
The Ancient People of Lebanon
The
Phoenicians
Phoenicians
Legends
Phoenician
Links
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The Phoenicians
Canaanites
The recorded history shows a group
of coastal cities and heavily forested mountains inhabited by a Semitic
people, the Canaanites, around 4000 BC. These early inhabitants referred
to themselves according to their city of origin, and called their
nation Canaan. They lived in the narrow East-Mediterranean cost and
the parallel strip mountains of Lebanon. Around 2800 BC Canaanites
traded cedar timber, olive oil and wine from Byblos for metals and
ivory from Egypt.
Phoenicians/Canaanites
The Canaanites who inhabited
that area were called Phoenicians by the Greeks (from the Greek word
phoinos, meaning ‘red’) in a reference to the unique purple
dye the Phoenicians produced from murex seashells. The Phoenicians
mastered the art of navigation and dominated the Mediterranean Sea
trade for around 500 years. They excelled in producing textiles, carving
ivory, working with metal and glass. The Phoenicians built several
local cities East Mediterranean among which: Byblos, Tyre,
Sidon, Berytus (Beirut), Tripoli, Arvad Island-City, Baalbek and Caesarea.
They established trade routes to Europe and Western
Asia. Phoenician ships circumnavigated Africa a thousand years before
those of the Portuguese. They founded colonies wherever they went
in North and South Mediterranean; in Cyprus, Rhodes, Crete,
Malta, Sicily, Sardinia, Marseilles, Cadiz, and Carthage around
the first Millennium B.C.
(above) Phoenician colonies around the Mediterranean
Sea (first Millennium B.C.)
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(left) Carthage, Tunisia,West
Mediterranean, founded by Phoenician princess Elissa of Tyre
814 BC
(right) Settlement are found on the island of
Sardinia, Italy. 7th cent. BC
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Inventing the Alphabet
Around 1600 B.C. the
Phoenicians invented 22 ‘magic signs’ called the alphabet,
and passed them onto the world. The Phoenicians gave the alphabet
to the Greeks who adopted it; the evolution of the Phoenician Alphabet
led to the Latin letters of present-day.
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(left) Phoenician king Cadmus gives the Phoenician
Alphabet to the Greeks
(right) The Alphabet Family Tree |
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Constructing Kings David
and Solomon Palaces and Temple(Details)
The Phoenician
king Hiram of Tyre (989-936 BC) built a palace for David and two palaces
and a temple for Solomon. The Bible provides a vast amount of information
about them.
David’s
Palace
King Hiram of Tyre sent a trade mission to David; he provided
him with cedar logs and with stonemasons and carpenters to build a
palace. (1 Chronicles 14:1)
Solomon’s Temple
After king David’s death, Hiram continued to maintain friendly
relations with king Solomon, David’s son, who explained in a
letter to Hiram: You know that because of the constant wars my
father David had to fight against the enemy countries all round him,
he could not build a temple for the worship of the Lord his God until
the Lord had given him victory over all his enemies. But now the Lord
my God has given me peace on all my borders. I have no enemies, and
there is no danger of attack. The Lord promised my father David, ‘Your
son, whom I will make king after you, will build a temple for me’
and I have now decided to build that temple for the worship of the
Lord my God. (1 Kings 5:3)
Solomon’s temple was built by Phoenician master craftsmen alongside
Hebrew workmen and 30,000 unskilled navies pressed by Solomon into
forced labor. They worked for a month on and two months off in shifts
of 10,000 at a time.
They used wood, stone and metal from Lebanon and worked by Phoenician
craftsmen. The temple was finished in 960 BC, taking seven
years to build.
Solomon’s palaces
King Solomon built himself a palace and called it 'Forest
of Lebanon' and built his Egyptian wife another palace
using the Phoenician craftsmen and the materials of Lebanon:
Solomon also built a palace for himself, and it took him thirteen
years. The Hall of the Forest of Lebanon was 44 meters long, 22 meters
wide,and 13.5 meters high. It had three rows of cedar pillars, fifteen
in each row, with cedar beams resting on them. The ceiling was of
cedar, extending over store-rooms, which were supported by the pillars.
In each of the two side walls there were three rows of windows. The
doorways and windows had rectangular frames, and the three rows of
windows in each wall faced the opposite rows. The Hall of Columns
was 22 meters long and 13.5 meters wide. It had a covered porch, supported
by columns. The Throne Room, also called the Hall of Judgment, where
Solomon decided cases, had cedar panels from the floor to the rafters.
Solomon’s own quarters, in another court behind the Hall of
Judgment, were made like the other buildings. He also built the same
kind of house for his wife, the daughter of the king of Egypt.
(1 Kings 7:1-8)
The Phoenicians adjusted to successive conquerors later and
managed to keep their trade business ongoing and kept, sometimes,
sorts of political independence.
(875-608 BC) Assyrians
invaded Phoenicia in 875 BC and deprived the Phoenicians from their
independence. Byblos, Tyre and Sidon rebelled several times and the
Assyrians brought total destruction to the cities in response.
(585-538 BC) Babylonians
became the new power and occupied Phoenicia. Phoenician cities rebelled
and Tyre was destroyed, again.
(538 BC-333 AD) Persians
occupied the region including Phoenicia. The Phoenician navy supported
Persia during the Greco-Persian war (490-449 BC). Phoenicians revolted
when overburdened with heavy tributes imposed by the Persians forth
century BC.
(333 - 64 BC) Greeks
defeated Persian troops when Alexander the Great attacked Asia Minor
in 333 BC. The Phoenician cities made no attempt to resist and acknowledged
Alexander’s suzerainty. However, when he tried to offer a sacrifice
to Melkurt, Tyre’s god, the city resisted and he besieged it.
The city fell after 6 months of resistance. Alexander’s conquest
left a Greek imprint on the area. The Phoenicians, being a cosmopolitan
civilization amenable to outside influences, adopted aspects of Greek
civilization and continued with their trade business.
(64 BC-600 AD) Romans
and Christianity
Romans added Lebanon to the Roman Empire. Economic and intellectual
activities flourished in Lebanon during the Pax Roman. The inhabitants
of the principal Phoenician cities of Byblos, Sidon and Tyre were
granted Roman citizenship. These cities were centers of the pottery,
glass and purple dye industries; their harbors also served as warehouses
for products imported from Syria, Persia and India. They exported
cedar, perfume, jewelry, wine and fruit to Rome. Economic prosperity
led to a revival in construction and urban development; temples, palaces
and first School of Law in history were built throughout the country,
as well as paved roads that linked the cities. Ruins of Roman temples
and monuments are found all around Lebanon with the largest in Baalbek.
The Bible tell us about the first women
who believed in Christianity and became the first convert outside
the Jews to be a Phoenician women. From the Northern Phoenician ports
Saint Peter left to Rome and built the first church their.
After the Roman Empire division, the
economic and intellectual activities continued to flourish in Beirut,
Tyre and Sidon for more than a century.
The fifth century witnessed the birth
of Maronite Christianity. Saint Maroun (also Maron)
found a refuge in the northern mountains of Lebanon, and a great portion
of the Phoenicians/Lebanese became Christians and were called after
him. Mronites later had a great contribution in Lebanese history,
independence and culture. Gradually, the area named Phoenicia gave
way to Mount Lebanon or simply Lebanon.
Around the sixth century earthquakes destroyed Beirut and its law
school and damaged the great temples in Baalbek.
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Roman ruins
(left) Phoenician cyclopean wall in Baalbek
that served later as bases for Roman structures
(right) Roman Baths ruins in Beirut |
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Phoenicians Legends
The Abduction of Europa
Europa, the Phoenician Princess
that overwhelmed Zeus with Love
Zeus, the King of the gods according
to Greek mythology, saw Europa, the beautiful daughter of the Phoenician
king of Tyre ‘Agenor’, as she was gathering flowers by
the Mediterranean sea and fell in love with her.
Overwhelmed by love for Europa, Zeus transformed himself into the
form of a magnificent white bull and appeared in the sea shore. The
great bull so gentle that Europa spread flowers about his neck and
dared to climb upon his back. Then the bull rushed over the sea abducting
Europa and took her to the Mediterranean island of Crete. There, Zeus
got back into his human form. Europa became the first queen of Crete
and had by Zeus three sons: King Minos of Crete, King Rhadamanthus
of the Cyclades Islands, and Prince Sarpedon of Lycia. She later married
the king of Crete, who adopted her sons, and she was worshiped under
the name of Hellotis in Crete. The Hellotia festival was held in her
honour. At last, Zeus reproduced the shape of the white bull that
was used to seduce Europa, in the stars. Today, we can recognize its
shape in the constellation Taurus.
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Phoenician Links
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