The Phoenicians: The Master Traders of the Mediterranean World The Mediterranean Sea is home to many great civilizations in our early history. The Ancient Greeks and Romans established their empires in this region and their cultural contributions have greatly influenced the development of modern Western culture. Unlike the Ancient Greek and Roman civilizations, there is one Mediterranean civilization that did not have a land centric empire. The Phoenicians are the first civilization to create a long distance sea trading network in the ancient Mediterranean world. This trading network is significant in ancient Mediterranean history because archaeological remains discovered in different areas of the Mediterranean. These archeological remains …show more content…
The Phoenicians were the first civilization to use a syllabic alphabet (Peckman 2014:3). Their alphabet originated from the Egyptian hieroglyphic writing system of the Canaanite writing system (Peckman 2014:3). The Phoenicians created their alphabet by borrowing consonants, vowels, syllables, and other characters/symbols from other Mediterranean civilizations (Peckman 2014:3). This alphabet was invented to be easily learned to anyone living in the Mediterranean (Peckman 2014:3). Unlike Egyptian hieroglyphics, the Phoenicians created their own writing system because they wanted to communicate with other traders in their city-states as simple as possible. By assembling the letters in a specific order, the reader did not need to interpret a concept represented by a hieroglyphic (Peckman 2014:3). This alphabet allowed the Phoenicians to create a message with a specific code that always stayed the same and had the same meaning to other people who read the message (Peckman 2014:3). An example of the use of the Phoenician alphabet is found in Phillip C. Schmitz’s article Reconsidering a Phoenician Inscribed Amulet from the Vicinity of Tyre. This article features an archaeological analysis of a bronze pendant discovered in the capital of the Phoenician civilization Tyre (Schmitz 2002:816). The bronze pendant features Egyptian hieroglyphics on the front …show more content…
According to the Phoenician Maritime Religion: Sailors, Goddess Worship, and the Grotta Regina article, the Phoenicians constructed their ships or galleys differently from each other because, a trader will want his ship to have certain attributes necessary for his trading voyage. These attributes include the overall size of the ship, the amount of cargo and the durability of the ship while using different trade routes during its voyage (Christian 2013:181). One example, which features an archaeological analysis of an ancient Phoenician galley is in the Iron Age Shipwrecks in Deep Water off Ashkelon, Israel article. This article features a discovery of a sunken Phoenician galley called the Tanit located near modern day Israel in 1997. Archaeologists working on this project dated the Tanit around 750 BCE which was around the time the Phoenician trading network expanded throughout the different regions of the Mediterranean. The archaeologists have also discovered several artifacts within the galley and these artifacts are well persevered because they were left undisturbed for thousands of years at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea. These artifacts include bronze bowls, incense stands, cooking pots and pottery in a shape of a large U-shaped container called an
The Egyptians created a structure of communication with hieroglyphics. The Egyptian hieroglyphics were an early form of writing using over 600 symbols. Egyptians wrote on papyrus but the way to write was confusing. Nobody could decipher the symbols until a soldier discovered the Rosetta Stone. The papyrus was preserved and historians could now understand most text written by the
In Ancient times written languages had been some of the tools that they used to communicate. “The designation ‘hieroglyphics’ is a Greek word; the Egyptians referred to their writing as medu-netjer ‘the god’s words’, as they believed writing had been given to them by the great god Thoth” (Mark). The Egyptians believed that hieroglyphics were given to them as a special gifts from their god. Another thing is that they used hieroglyphics to represent their
In the early post-classical period, the Mediterranean Sea trade route and the Indian Ocean trade route flourished. Although both the Mediterranean Sea trade route and the Indian Ocean Maritime trade route persisted to deliver goods to diverse ports by way of sea, such as India’s transmission of manufactured goods, such as pottery produced by Burma, to several distinct ports, the volume and whereabouts of each particular trade route and the development of people’s characteristics due to trade varied drastically. Both the post-classical Mediterranean Sea trade route and the Indian Ocean Maritime System route transported goods to various ports by way of water. In the Indian Ocean Maritime System, trade took place in three distinct
Acting as the framework for many written languages to come, the Phoenician alphabet traveled across the Mediterranean, shaping the lives of many. Originating from the northwest region of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, this system of hieroglyphics was designed by the Phoenicians with help from the Greeks years later. The original alphabet —made of only 22 consonants— was altered by the Greeks as they added vowels, making the language slightly easier for non-natives to understand. The timeframe in which the alphabet was made is heavily disputed, but it is said that the Phoenicians made it sometime around the 15th century BC. This efficient system was used to record medical statistics, government rules, hymns, prayers, epics about worshiped heroes,
The Phoenicians, the original ancient mariners, are responsible for transforming cuneiform into a more efficient writing system by paring down the somewhat ungainly number of 5,000 cuneiform characters into 29 characters. Adopted around 1000 B.C.E., the Phoenician alphabet was not a collection of pictographs like many early forms of writing, but instead a close relative of many modern writing systems.11 The sophisticated navy and extensive trade network of Phoenicia ensured that this new version of cuneiform would quickly spread to its ancient neighbors. Phoenicia’s alphabet would soon be adopted by the Greeks, who also refined and perfected this writing system to meet their own needs; likewise the Romans, eager inheritors of all things Greek, adopted the alphabet for their own use. It could be said that the highly adaptive descendants of cuneiform formed the basis for the literature of the Classical world. The Phoenician cuneiform alphabet was also adopted by Jewish culture, providing a medium for Hebrew narrative and progressive sense of history, another innovation
Phoenicia reached the height of its power and influence during 200-800BC, establishing mercantile trading colonies across the northern coast of Africa and the Iberian
Chanani- In the bible, they were referred to as “Canaanites.” However the Greek people called them the “purple people” or Phoenicians because of the purple dye they used to trade. The Phoenicians established many new markets and new ports for trade throughout the entire area. They also established The Phoenician Alphabet which the Greeks later borrowed for their own alphabet. They built extraordinary ships that were able to sail as far west as present-day Morocco and Spain out of cedars which they exported to Egypt, where they had no trees. The Phoenicians also had many religious and cultural elements such as gods, math, and science. They later developed a new method of writing that allowed men to communicate directly with one another and allowed
writing is the physical manifestation of a spoken language. It is thought that human beings developed language c. 35,000 BCE as evidenced by cave paintings from the period of the Cro-Magnon Man (c. 50,000-30,000 BCE) which appear to express concepts concerning daily life. These images suggest a language because, in some instances, they seem to tell a story (say, of a hunting expedition in which specific events occurred) rather than being simply pictures of animals and people. Written language, however, does not emerge until its invention in Sumer, southern Mesopotamia, c. 3500 -3000 BCE. This early writing was called cuneiform and consisted of making specific marks in wet clay with a reed implement. The writing system of the Egyptians was already in use before the rise of the Early Dynastic Period (c. 3150 BCE) and is thought to have developed from Mesopotamian cuneiform (though this theory is disputed) and came to be known as heiroglyphics.
After reading and learning about the Phoenician people I was amazed. The Phoenician people are the ones that started a foundation for 21 century that are a part of. It is outstanding to find out that these are people that started something every single person in the world knows and uses. They started the alphabet which was based on what sound they make. The alphabet that we use today is based on what they started, and without it I don’t know where we would be. Another great thing that these people did was build trade routes. Trade routes are very resourceful; they make business easier and provide a wide range of area for business to be done. We still use trade routes for business now a day. While the Phoenician people did many trades
The Tigris-Euphrates civilization developed cuneiform, which is the first known case of human writing. As useful as writing is for communication, organization, and other aspects of daily life, it was still a privilege to be able to learn to read and write. Each civilization had its own symbols which had their own phonetic sound, some of which haven’t even been deciphered to this day.
People can learn something from a moral or a lesson learned. It teaches people something that someone would need to use in life. In Greek Mythology, some important lessons are never lie to others, don’t be selfish, and listen to your parents.
After the period of geometric design on amphora’s, Grecians started to trade with the Egyptians and Chinese. This contact was sometimes peaceful, yet could be aggressive. Due to the topography of Greece, trade was required in order for survival. This trade was most conducted by sea. These empires influenced concepts such as astronomy, construction, and mathematical theories. These empires also influenced the pottery, including the amphora. This shows that the oriental amphora discovered in 2012 was influenced by other empires.
Due to hieroglyphs emerging from a preliterate Egypt, Egyptian writing had a set of some 22 hieroglyphs to represent syllables that begin with a single consonant of their language, plus a vowel to be supplied by the native speaker. The hieroglyphic system used in ancient Egypt evolved and had between 700 and 800 basic symbols and the number continued to grow. Hieroglyphs were used for the next 3,500 years, all the way into Alexander the Great’s time. However, as time went on, by the 4th century few Egyptians were able to read the hieroglyphs
The Phoenicians were people of an ancient civilization that ruled the seas. They are mostly known for taking charge of the Mediterranean Sea, the most important body of water during the time. The Phoenica empire was actually a string of city-states that bordered the sea, as their empire was not comprised of land but of the sea. From the ports at these city-states they sailed and colonized many cities along the Mediterranean Sea. During this time they were the most skilled and daring sailors on the water. The people developed a phonetic alphabet that influenced our way of writing today. The Phoenicians were greatly envied by their rivals, the Greeks and Romans, who ended up destroying the people and changing their history to change people’s
The Geographical locations of the Phoenician and Greek were advantageous to their role as a recovery states. However, the societies of China and India were abandoned which led to their decline. The Great Societies of the Mediterranian sea Greek and Phoenicians were economically and culturally self-sufficient. Nonetheless, they traded extensively among themselves. Some cultural similarities may be no more than mere coincidences while others are clear borrowings from literature, writing and religious cults.