Comparative Civilizations Review

Volume 81 Article 4
Number 81 Fall 2019

10-4-2019

Phoenicians: The Quickening Of Western Civilization

John C. Scott

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Review: Vol. 81 : No. 81 , Article 4.
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 Scott: Phoenicians: The Quickening Of Western Civilization
30 Number 81, Fall 2019

Phoenicians: The Quickening Of Western Civilization

John C. Scott
[email protected]

Editor’s Note: This article builds upon a preliminary version sketched out last
year and published in the journal on Pages 25 to 40, issue No. 78, Spring 2018. It
represents in our view an important addition to scholarship on a significant and
foundational topic, one central to the development of Western Civilization and the
comparative study of civilizations.

A relatively recent field of inquiry, Phoenician and Punic studies covers much the same
time and geographical areas as Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic Greek and Roman
history.1 Adjacent fields include economic, business, writing, agricultural, nautical, and
biblical history. Scholarship today is moving beyond the Hellenocentric and
Romanocentric viewpoints and the record of Phoenician history is increasingly seen as
critical for understanding European origins.

Scholars generally agree that there are two sources of the Western tradition: Judeo-
Christian doctrine and ancient Greek intellectualism. There is also recognition that
Western civilization is largely built atop the Near Eastern civilizations of Mesopotamia
and Egypt, which were among the first in the world. The proximity of Europe to the
Near East, hence “near” region, explains cultural interaction. A basic question arises,
however, as to which antique people specifically prepared the way for the West to
develop. While early Aegean cultures are often viewed as the mainspring, assessment
of the growing literature reveals that the maritime city-states of Phoenicia stimulated
(Bronze Age) and fostered (Iron Age) Western civilization.

Phoenicia, a small maritime region, lay on the Eastern Mediterranean coast. The
Phoenicians, who were Semites, emerged as a distinct Canaanite group around 3200
BCE. Hemmed in by the Lebanon Mountains, their first cities were Byblos, Sidon,
Tyre, and Aradus.2

The principal axis of Eastern influence, Phoenicia sent forth pioneering seafarers,
skilled engineers, gifted artists and artisans, and master entrepreneurs of antiquity.

1
Xella (2013), 1.
2
Holst (2008).
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Through a peaceful,3 long-distance exchange network of goods and ideas, they

influenced the trade, communication, and civilizational development of the
Mediterranean basin, notably Greece. The height of Phoenician shipping, mercantile,
and cultural activity was during the early Greek Archaic period, especially, the
Orientalizing phase, c. 750-650 BCE, which appears to have laid the foundations for
fifth century BCE Classical Greece. Phoenician mercantilism prompted European state
formation in the Aegean, Italy, and Spain.

This past century, anthropologist Ralph Linton, in The Tree of Culture, confirmed the
influence of the Phoenician thalassocracy -- rule of the sea -- and explained: “Their
main role in the development of the Greek and other Mediterranean cultures was as
intermediaries between Asia and Europe.”4 Modern Phoenician studies were launched
during the early 1960’s by Sabatino Moscati and the Italian school. During the
seventies, there was a focus on the Phoenician expansion.

The Sea Traders was introduced by archeologist James B. Pritchard: “They became the
first to provide a link between the culture of the ancient Near East and that of the
uncharted world of the West…They went not for conquest as the Babylonians and
Assyrians did, but for trade. Profit rather than plunder was their policy.”5 Hans G.
Niemeyer edited the educative Phönizier im Westen.6

Toward the close of the century, La civilization phenicienne et punique: Manuel de

recherché7 appeared as a landmark collection of articles in Phoenician-Punic studies.
Reviewer Philip C. Schmitz’s concluding comment: “To the general historian, the
volume offers an alternative history of the Mediterranean before Rome, balancing the
Hellenocentric narratives that have so long determined the shape of ‘Western’
civilization.”8

The Bronze Age: Phoenicia and Embryonic Western Civilization

From the Early Bronze through the Iron Age, North Africa and the whole of Europe
were eventually integrated. The world-systems approach emphasizes long-distance
trade (land and sea) and communication, and it includes the traditional concept of
cultural diffusion.

3
Niemeyer (2004), 245, notes that the Phoenician expansion does not appear to have had political or
military aims; mercantilism requires trust, so it is generally peaceful.
4
Linton (1956), 341.
5
Pritchard (1974), 7.
6
Niemeyer (1982).
7
Krings (1995).
8
Schmitz (2001), 636. Since the mid-1980’s, a trend is for more Classicists to treat Greek and
Mediterranean history “as a continuum”: Uwe (2006), 4.
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Diffusion involves ideas, technology, goods, and individuals; nevertheless, aspects of

culture may be modified or even rejected by local elites and their societies.

By the third millennium BCE, there were two core powers, Egypt and Mesopotamia.
“Semi-peripheries” were capitalist polities that linked up and conducted trade between
cores and the undeveloped peripheries. Just to the north of the Phoenicia region was
the small Canaanite kingdom of Ugarit.

Cyrus H. Gordon affirms that “Ugarit was intimately connected with the Phoenicians,
who were spreading Eastern culture wherever possible by sea”;9 it was semi-peripheral
to Mesopotamia.10 Actually, many scholars treat Ugarit as a purely Phoenician city.
Phoenicia proper formed a unique, westward-facing maritime region that served as a
semi-periphery of both cores—thus stimulating the rise of a new civilization in the
West.

Minoan civilization of the Middle Bronze Age (c. 2000-1450 B.C), combined with later
Mycenaean Greek contributions, is duly acknowledged as the forerunner to Classical
Greece, which elevated Western civilization. The intensification of Eastern trade on
the island, observes Stuart W. Manning, coincided with the early state status and palace-
building activity of cities, notably Knossos. From the start of the second millennium
BCE, “Crete seems to have been significantly oriented toward the Levant and the Near
East, rather than the Aegean.”11

Many archeologists agree that the emerging Minoan elite gradually began to import
Near Eastern exotic, prestige products and technologies, such as advanced sailing
ships.12 Found within the monumental buildings are exotic materials and luxury
products (gold, ivory, and faience); new metalworking techniques are also introduced.
Thus, “the evidence may suggest some kind of state-level relations with the Egyptian
Middle Kingdom, perhaps via the Levantine coast.”13

Architecturally, the palaces are built in the Mesopotamian tradition of organic or

informal design, including central courtyards, orthostatic facades,14 long corridors,
drains, and figural painted frescoes.

9
Gordon (1966), 12.
10
Monroe (2011), 88, 94.
11
Manning (2008), 106-115.
12
Tomkins and Schoep (2010), 70; Manning (2008), 115-116. In the broader Aegean, according to
Broodbank (2008), 68-70, the new nautical technology was apparently adopted in the transition from
the third to the second millennium. Levantine-type (Phoenician) seagoing ships—superseding canoe
and longboat networks—helped to transform the Cycladic economy and society.
13
Papadimitriou and Kriga (2013), 10, 11.
14
Tagdell (1998), 188-189.
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By importing monumental construction techniques, Minoan elites seem to have been

emulating their Near Eastern counterparts.15

L. Vance Watrous points to Near Eastern inspiration for architecture, Cretan

hieroglyphic and Linear A (and, thus, Mycenaean Linear B) syllabic writing, clay
tablets, and sophisticated sealing practices as major elements in the administrative
model.16

Perhaps the leading theory is that the Cretan scripts derive from Old Phoenician.17 The
Cretan number system used in accounting, notes historian of mathematics Georges
Ifrah, has “exactly the same intellectual basis” as in monumental Egyptian notation: the
additive principle in base ten.18 There is probable similarity of room arrangement
between the Minoan-Mycenaean palaces’ archives (libraries) and their counterparts in
the Near East.19

Economist Michael Hudson underscores the fact that accounting, along with writing,
time (in base sixty), prices, and monetary silver, were first standardized in Sumer for
the administration of the commercial sphere.20 Archeologists trace clay tablets, seals,
and “accounting formats moving up the Euphrates to Sumerian outposts such as Asshur
and Mari, and on to Syria, Ugarit, and ultimately Crete and Mycenae.”21

Weights and measures, too, were standardized in these regions.22 Consequently, during
the later Middle Bronze Age (1800-1600 B.C), the Cretans devised their own uniform
system of weights and measures. Equivalences between the Minoan and Levantine
weighing systems were also developed, illustrating the regular nature of transactions
between Crete and the Near East. Minoan regional trade with mainland Greece for
Laurion silver enhanced their Eastern Mediterranean exchanges.23

15
Schoep (2009), 33-34.
16
Watrous (1987), 69-70.
17
Best (1988), 26: the language of the Minoans remains a mystery; in 1957, the Semitist Cyrus H.
Gordon proposed that it derives from Northwest Semitic (signs and syntax), specifically Old
Phoenician. Following him are Robert Stieglitz, Jan Best, and others. On the imported Byblos script,
see Best (2010).
18
Ifrah (2000), 178, 180.
19
Staikos (2004), 40-41, 43.
20
Hudson (2004), 1-3.
21
Hudson (1992), 130.
22
Hudson (2004), 1. Beaujard (2011) points out that the combination of writing and standardized
weights and measures “represented a powerful tool for rationalizing activities,” 16—that spread
westward.
23
Papadimitriou and Kriga (2013), 11, 13.
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The emergence of the later Middle Bronze to early Late Bronze Age elite at Mycenae
took place during the Shaft Graves period. Similar to the Minoan, the Mycenaean elite
favored a shift toward Near Eastern luxury products in their cultural development.24 A.
Bernard Knapp notes that within this Orientalization phenomenon, local rulers in Late
Bronze Age Cyprus and Mycenaean Greece imported prestige objects associated with
Mesopotamian and Egyptian royal ideology.25

Glass, an important luxury product, made its debut in the West on Late Minoan Crete.
The Cretans earlier learned to manufacture another Near Eastern vitreous material,
faience, but there is no evidence that they did glassmaking, only glasswork.26

Although the Romans credited the Phoenicians with originating glass technology, it was
first invented in Mesopotamia c. 2500 BCE. Around 1550 BCE, New Kingdom Egypt
adopted and sponsored primary glass production.27 Henceforth, the Phoenicians acted
as intermediaries to ship both finished merchandise and raw glass on established trade
routes to the Aegean.28

In economic history, Late Bronze Age political stability, which included royal
protections, but also rules, for merchants and traders, spurred commerce. The
Phoenician business model of the Bronze and Iron Ages represents an inheritance from
Mesopotamia: Sumer to Babylonia to Assyria to the Canaanite city-states on the coast.
Thus, mixed enterprise flourished as the crown (public) and merchants (private) each
contributed capital to invest in manufacturing and long-distance trade.29

Byblites of the Late Bronze Age created a remarkable twenty-two letter alphabetic
writing system, known as Phoenician. It was developed out of the Ugaritic script,
which, in turn, had developed out of proto-Canaanite. The second millennium BCE,
proto-Canaanite linear script, the first alphabet in the world, was invented somewhere
in the Levant.30 Aside from its diplomatic and cultural merits, the commercial value of
the Phoenician alphabet aided the region in its rise as a mercantile empire during the
Iron Age. Simultaneously, it aided in the ongoing transfer of high culture from the Near
East to the West.

Sweeping across the Eastern Mediterranean at the close of the period, c. 1200 BCE,
were the invading or displaced Sea Peoples from the Aegean.

24
Burns (2010), 292,296. For example, the influential gold sheeting technique, applied to jewelry,
vases, and prestige weapons, was probably imported from the Levant: Laffineur (2010), 448, 452.
25
Knapp (2006), 48, 59-60.
26
Sherratt (2008), 217, 216.
27
Henderson (2013), 173, 203, 8. Ugarit may have also been a center of primary glass production:
ibid., 8.
28
Berretta (2009), 8-9.
29
Moore and Lewis (1999), 69-90; Moore and Lewis (2009), 85-90.
30
Markoe (2000), 110-111.
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The Hittite Empire collapsed, Ugarit was permanently destroyed, and Egypt went into
decline, despite the victory of Ramses III. Fortunately, the Phoenician cities survived
(one theory is that they allied themselves with the Sea Peoples).31 Ill-fated, the
Mycenaean palatial society also fell and, thus, Greece entered its “Dark Age.” Western
culture was devastated and now largely isolated from the cosmopolitan Near East.

Creating a vast, mercantile network—as well as filling the Aegean vacuum—was

Phoenicia. Subsequently, Phoenician civilizational influence spanned (another)
thousand years, traversing the Iron Age and impacting the West.

Iron Age: Exploration, Mercantilism, and Cultural Influence in the West

A full millennium, c. 1200 to 200 BCE, is the time scale for the combined Phoenician
and Carthaginian commercial empires.

The region of Phoenicia,32 part of northern Canaan, held a collection of entrepreneurial

city-states. The major Iron Age cities were Tyre, Sidon, Byblos, Aradus, Beirut, and
Serapta, with the coastal land and ports extending from Aradus south to Dor (in northern
Israel).33 Robert Stieglitz remarks that the “internationalism” of the Late Bronze Age
was soon “replaced by the flowering of the Phoenician renaissance.”34

Conquered by Alexander the Great during the 330s BCE, the Phoenician homeland
cities lost their independence permanently before merging with the Hellenistic world.
The collapse or decline of the Late Bronze Age core empires, observes Philippe
Beaujard, was followed by a restructuring of the world-system at the beginning of the
Iron Age.35 Thus arose the Phoenician trade network in the West. Phoenicia was semi-
peripheral to both the Egyptian and Assyrian cores. Moreover, Tyre, in southern
Phoenicia, its leading polity, would become the economic core of a new world-system
in the Mediterranean.36

World historian Jerry H. Bentley points out that maritime commerce actuated the
economic, social, and cultural integration of the Mediterranean basin. Initiated by the
Phoenicians, then followed by the Greeks (who reflected the Phoenician pattern) and
Romans, merchants organized networks of exchange and distribution. These networks
encouraged the division of labor and the building of states.37

31
Bell (2006), 25.
32
The term Phoenicia is defined and particularized by Lembke (2006), 228, as a “cultural unit.”
33
Bell (2016), 92, 95: from at least the Late Bronze Age, the archeological evidence now shows a
common Phoenician material culture inclusive of Dor.
34
Stieglitz (1990), 9.
35
Beaujard (2011), 19.
36
Faust and Weiss (2011), 197-198.
37
Bentley (1999), 215-219.
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Susan and Andrew Sherratt concur that Phoenician mercantile and cultural activity
prompted European state formation: first in the Aegean, then in Italy and Spain.38

Phoenician influence—economic and mercantile; nautical and long-distance trade

routes; exploration and colonization; art and architecture; mining, metallurgy, and
glass; salt production; large-scale agricultural; and, cultural, including the West’s (and
most of the world’s) alphabet, the book, and literacy—was primarily westerly in
direction.

Viniculture was introduced to Europe.39 In sum, they transferred the beneficial

elements40 of the urbanized Near East to foster Western civilization. At its height, the
Phoenicians’ sea and land mercantile web, which has been described as “hemispheric,”
41
stretched across most of the known world: three continents and two oceans. In fact,
much of it was discovered by the sea traders, themselves, in their penetration of new
markets.

Early in the first millennium BCE, the Phoenicians set up the world’s first maritime
empire: ports, bases, warehouses, and emporia, up to the southern Black Sea and across
the Mediterranean basin and beyond. Initially, trading stations were established at
strategic geographic and economic locations. Massalia (Marseilles) in France was
founded but not permanently settled.42 Territorial colonies were established in Cyprus,
mineral-rich Sardinia and Iberia (Spain and Portugal), the Balearic Islands, Sicily,
Malta, and agriculturally-rich North Africa (first Utica and Carthage). Exploration and
colonization went past the difficult Strait of Gibraltar or Pillars of Hercules. (Hercules
was originally a Phoenician hero.) The Atlantic coasts of Africa and Europe, and,
perhaps, the British Isles, were discovered.

Founded by Tyre, in 814 BCE, the traditional date (close to recent archeological
evidence), Carthage was itself destined to become a commercial juggernaut in the West.
The Phoenicians held both shores of the Pillars, thereby controlling access to the
Atlantic. Despite later Greek, and then Roman, competition in the Western
Mediterranean, Carthaginian economic and naval dominance continued into the Punic
Wars (264-146 BCE).

38
Sherratt and Sherratt (1993), 367, 369.
39
McGovern (2007), 202-203.
40
Less favorable elements may be the Phoenician slave trade and, marks Hudson (1992), 128, 138-139,
the introduction of credit practices into Archaic Greece and Italy.
41
Moore and Lewis (2009), 110. Therefore, the “shift of world civilization from the ancient Near East
to the Mediterranean lands adjacent to Europe…would seem to call for a readjustment of the role
played by the Greeks in this world-historic shift of history’s wheel”: ibid., 110-111.
42
Cartledge (2009), 62: the original name Massalia means “settlement” in Phoenician.
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Led by Tyre, the mercantile network was headquartered on the eastern shore of the
Mediterranean. High-quality cedar and fir forests on the mountain slopes were ideal
for building ships, as well as for export or tribute. This geographic location was crucial
to the success of the maritime and overland enterprise. Canaan contained excellent
harbors, enabling it to be part of the Fertile Crescent. Through it laid the caravan routes
that connected to Egypt, Arabia (and through it the Indian market), Asia Minor,
Mesopotamia, and, later, to the Silk Road.43

When the Late Bronze Age New Kingdom pharaohs conquered Canaan, they protected
its growing trade activity at the junction of both land and marine highways. Moreover,
under Ramses the Great, at Memphis, the Egyptian administrative capital and site of its
main shipyards, a Phoenician commercial enclave was established.44

The Egyptians, who respected the shipwright and maritime expertise of the Phoenicians,
partnered with them in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean trade routes.45 During the Iron
Age, such relations with Egypt continued.

By 1200 BCE, the Phoenicians were building large merchant ships. In world maritime
history, declares Richard Woodman, they are recognized as “the first true seafarers,
founding the art of pilotage, cabotage, and navigation” and the architects of “the first
true ship, built of planks, capable of carrying a deadweight cargo and being sailed and
steered.”46

Master shipbuilders, during the Bronze Age, laid a keel and ribs (for strength in rough
weather). For sturdy hulls to check wave and hold cargo, pegged mortise-and-tenon
joints were developed on the Levantine coast; this method spread westward, and it
became standard until the Late Roman period.47 The hull was rounded for faster
movement through the water. The brailed rig sail—so vital, because it enabled tacking
against the wind—was likely a Levantine innovation.48 Transport amphorae that
became standardized for volume, in use and imitated for over two thousand years until
Byzantine times, were invented in Phoenicia.49

In stellar navigation, the North Star was discovered, which the later Greeks called the
Phoenician Star; this enabled sailing at night on shorter distance, open-sea routes. The
first evidence of maritime law also appears in the Levant.50

43
Edey (1974), 57-58.
44
Markoe (2000), 14-16, 20.
45
Bourne (2003).
46
Woodman (1997), 16. Cabotage refers to coastal navigation.
47
Pulak (2010), 873; Bass (2010), 799-800.
48
Wood (2012), 8.
49
Ragev (2004), 352.
50
Wachsmann (1998), 300, 51, 323-325, 332. The first recorded open-sea route on the Mediterranean
was Byblos to Cyprus to Egypt: ibid., 295-296.
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Iron Age contributions include the art of cartography;51 the first artificial (and self-
cleaning or flushing) harbors, such as those in Sidon, Tyre, Atlit, and Acre;52 and, the
revolutionary bireme war galley.

Around 800 BCE, the Phoenicians found it necessary to protect their interests. The
Phoenicians are generally credited with designing a war galley with two banks of oars
for speed and maneuverability in battle, the bireme. This concept would dominate
throughout the Mediterranean for the next two thousand years.

The Greeks perfected the galley as a warship and added a third bank of oars,53 although
many scholars believe that, logically, the Phoenicians actually fashioned the addition,
the trireme.54

Concurrent with their early first millennium BCE, sea trade in the West was a notable
expansion of Phoenician land commerce in Western Asia and Egypt. This transit trade
involved manufactured goods, raw materials, and slaves (skilled and unskilled). In
southeastern Anatolia, the Phoenician influence upon the Cilician cities was both
economic and cultural.55

Industry was another key to the success of the mercantile network. Through the Bronze
Age both luxury and common goods were produced. Iron Age Phoenicia continued to
excel in many industries and decorative arts. The export market in view became the
entire inland sea.56 Additionally, supplying the mercantile network were Phoenician
regional craft production centers in Cyprus, Rhodes, Tharros in Sardinia, Carthage, and
Gades (Cadiz).57 Overall, concerning trade in Phoenician handicrafts, comments Piero
Bartoloni, “for the proto-historical West they represented the gateway to The East” (p.
78).58

The Phoenicians pioneered mass production. Their region, for example, emerged as the
leading producer of glass, which now included transparent glass.

51
Woolmer (2011), 84.
52
Haggi (2010), 283. Harbor technology was transferred to the western colonies, such as those in
Sicily, as well as Carthage: Pederson (2011), 41.
53
Woodman (1997), 16-23. The Venetian galley design, in particular, would be adapted to the carrack
(see below, note 201), receiving the name of galleon—the trans-ocean-going ship of the early modern
European powers: ibid., 21-23, 59-63.
54
Miles (2010), 46-47.
55
Lipiński (1995), 1325-1326. Wolfgang Röllig (1992), 102, 93-97, perceives that beyond Phoenician
sea connections to Archaic Greece, Anatolian land routes played some role in the transfer of
civilization: Levantine scribes, merchants, and craftsmen apparently carried Mesopotamian goods and
thought to East Greece.
56
Braudel (2001), 184-186.
57
Markoe (2000), 149, 171, 152, 186.
58
Bartoloni (1988a), 78.
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Finished articles, such as flasks and beads, by the thousands, were shipped across the
Mediterranean.59 In Spain, wheel-turned pottery was introduced, and it was then mass
produced.60 The Carthaginians mass produced ships; parts were labeled with the Punic
alphabet.61

Their most famous product, the expensive Tyrian and Sidonian purple dye, was
exported either as powder or as dyed fabric, especially wool. The Greeks ascribed the
ethnic name of Phoenicians (derived from the word phoinos, meaning red) probably
because of their red to violet cloth. The Royal Purple of the ancient monarchies, as in
Rome, became the Western standard of imperial adornment.

The artwork of the Phoenician cities was renowned in ancient times, and it is
increasingly respected by experts today.

Besides fine textiles and glassware, other major productions were woodworking with
mortise-and-tenon seams; ivory work, often inlaid in furniture; metalwork, including
bronze, silver, and gold cups and bowls; and, jewelry. Perfected were the Near Eastern
techniques of filigreeing, granulation,62 repoussé, and gold sheeting (embossing pertains
to bowls).63

By 1000 BCE, iron smelting and ironworking were mastered.64

Manufacturing such a variety of merchandise resulted in the specialization of the

workforce.65 Since Phoenicia was the ancient world’s trading hub, its highly skilled
craftspeople gained knowledge of and worked with all types of materials, techniques,
and artistic styles.

Foreign states often called upon its engineers. Hence, both Solomon’s Temple and his
palace were constructed by imported Phoenician artisans.66 As Byblos and Ugarit had
done before, wealthy Tyre, in southern Phoenicia, became the principal east-west center
of trade in luxury products and metals.67

59
Herm (1974), 80.
60
Moore and Lewis (1999), 128.
61
Bartoloni (1988b), 76; Lancel (1995), 132.
62
Aubet (2001), 79.
63
Bartoloni (1988a), 82.
64
Edey (1974), 62.
65
Aubet (2001), 80.
66
Edey (1974), 58-60; 2 Chron. 2:3-16. As recorded in Ezra 3:7, the Phoenicians were also involved in
the rebuilding of the temple after the Babylonian Exile.
67
Aubet (2001), 82, 79, 80.
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As sea merchants in the West, they brought Mesopotamian astronomy and weights and
measures, as well as their own Phoenician alphabet: a phonetic code (not a pictographic
system) to build words.

This simplified writing system did not require professional scribes as in Egypt or
Mesopotamia,68 and it could be written on a variety of media. A long-distance network
of trade involved contracts, correspondence, and record keeping. Transferrable to other
languages, the egalitarian alphabet was (and is) easy to learn—in fixed sequence.69

En route, the Phoenicians displayed their engineering prowess. Major projects were
designed and completed on three continents.

These are illustrated by:

 massive fortifications;
 Mesopotamian-style urban planning;
 an artificial isthmus (Sardinia);70
 a causeway (Sicily);71
 an artificial channel (Carthage);72
 Beirut’s sixth century BCE, earthquake-proof architectural techniques and
complex sewer systems (predating those in the Greek world);73
 artificial, self-flushing harbors with precision underwater construction of
walls;74
 multi-story buildings;75 and, Egyptian-influenced monumental architecture.

Naval allies of the Persians in their wars against the Greeks (500-449 BCE), the
Phoenicians rendered engineering service. A notable achievement was the one and one
quarter mile canal at Mount Athos for Xerxes’s ships to pass.76

Phoenician colonization in the West began on the copper-rich island of Cyprus, only
ninety-five miles from the Levant. Commercial relations began during the Middle
Bronze Age. Cultural transmission (ex. alphabetical writing) by Phoenician traders
intensified in the late eleventh to early tenth centuries BCE.77
68
Bentley and Ziegler (2000), 52.
69
Linton (1956), 112.
70
Markoe (2000), 81, 86-87, 76-77, 178
71
Miles (2010), 92.
72
Hoyos (2010), 73.
73
Elayi (2010), 157-160.
74
Haggi (2010), 281.
75
Lancel (1995), 168-169.
76
Markoe (2000), 51.
77
Bell (2006), 111-113. After 1200 BCE, the ports of western Cyprus, notes Bell (2016), 94, 100,
seem to have served as a platform for Phoenician western expansion.
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During the ninth century BCE, when the first colonies were founded, there appeared
black-on-red or Cypro-Phoenician fine ware.78 Along with their pantheon, another
influence was Oriental (or Phoenician) art and architecture.79 Tyre transplanted the
Phoenician business model of international managed trade in the leading colony of
Kition (Citium).80

Crete, rich iron ore, seems to have had permanent Phoenician settlements by the ninth
century BCE.81 Excellent Orientalizing bronze work highlights the craftsmanship there.
The island served as a Phoenician center for Mediterranean trade in metals and luxury
goods (glass, metallic, ivory).82 Eastern products were probably shipped to mainland
Greece cities, such as Delphi and Olympia.83 Crete was also on a major Phoenician line
to western Italy and points west.84

On Rhodes, since the Middle Bronze Age, “a gateway into the Aegean for ships sailing
westwards from the Near East,” permanent Phoenician communities were established
during the eighth century BCE.85 Manufactured for export were trinkets, luxury items
in faience, ceramic unguent flasks,86 and silverwork.87

Preliminary trade with the Euboean Greeks was established during the tenth century
BCE. This traffic introduced Eastern prestige goods, such as gold jewelry and fine
cloth;88 weight standards;89 and Phoenician alphabetical writing,90 perhaps the first in
Greece.

The height of Phoenician shipping in the Aegean was during the eighth and early
seventh centuries BCE. Markoe observes the archeological distribution of finished
goods, including Egyptian and Assyrian wares, and points to a “Phoenician commercial
channel to the Greek mainland.” Direct trade and cultural exchange took place in
coastal cities, such as Eleusis, Argos, and especially Corinth.91

78
Lipiński (2004), xiv.
79
Markoe (2000), 29.
80
Moore and Lewis (1999), 110-111.
81
Lipiński (2004), 186-188.
82
Markoe (2000), 172.
83
Hoffman (1997), 259.
84
Markoe (1996), 59.
85
Lipiński (2004), 145-146.
86
Markoe (2000), 171.
87
Markoe (1992), 69.
88
Sherratt and Sherratt (1993), 365. Initial (post-Mycenaean), sporadic trade with Euboea is now fixed
in the eleventh century BCE; additionally, the Phoenicians operated in the northern Aegean: Tiverios
(2012), 69-72.
89
Kroll (2008), 37-48.
90
Paine (2013), 84.
91
Markoe (2000), 174, 173.
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The title of the synthesis The Orientalizing Revolution: Near Eastern Influence on
Greek Culture in the Early Archaic Age (1992), by Walter Burkert, exhorts Hellas-
centered Classicists. Its theme: the formative epoch, from c. 750-650 BCE, known as
the Orientalizing period, was decisive.

Under the influence of the high culture of the Semitic East (Assyrian, Phoenician,
Aramean), Greece laid the foundations to create a culture that would eventually
dominate the Mediterranean—Classical civilization. The most important transmission
was the Phoenician alphabetic script (Mycenaean Linear B had died out).92

Along with the concept of the book, Semites contributed traditional Mesopotamian
literary forms, techniques, and motifs—besides the Phoenician pantheon—that find
strong parallels in Hesiod, Homer, and Aesop.93 Mentioned above are the scientific
traditions of nautics, astronomy, and mathematics. Another Eastern, including
Phoenician, tradition was fine music: inherited by the Greeks and handed down to the
European Middle Ages.94 Phoenicia conveyed the religious-sport festival and athletic
stadium (monumental architecture), forerunning the celebration of the Olympic
games.95

So, the editors of Debating Orientalization reaffirm the centrality of the Phoenicians in
the cultural process of Orientalization: defined as the indigenous adoption and
reworking of Eastern goods (luxury and common) and ideas. This practice is first seen
on Cyprus, then in the Greek, Italian, and Iberian regions.96

The prehensile Archaic Greeks modified the Phoenician alphabet in order to

accommodate their vowel-intensive Indo-European tongue, thus forming the basis of
all the West’s (Latin and Cyrillic) alphabets. Phoenician letters also served as the
number system in ancient Greece. Created by the Greeks themselves, their system
employed base ten and the A B C order: numerical values were attributed to letters,
from one to nine, in tens to ninety, then in hundreds, and so on.97

92
Burkert (1992), 5-8, 128-129, 25.
93
Ibid., 29-33, chap. 3. Hesiod lived in Boeotia, and Homer in Ionia, regions with Phoenician
influence. The Phoenician deity Europa is mentioned earliest in a work of Hesiod. The Greeks perhaps
gave this name to their continent—much of which happened to be discovered by the Phoenicians:
Europe: De Rougemont (1968), 21, 24, 6, 31-32.
94
Sachs (1943), 63, 127; Westenholz (2014), 1.
95
Boutros (1981), 55-77, 127-129.
96
Riva and Vella (2006), 13-14. The editors also support the breaking down of the traditional bounds
of the term Orientalization to begin in the Bronze Age: ibid., 2.
97
Ifrah (2000), xxi, 220-221, 227, 213. Greek and Latin (originally Phoenician) letters are used across
the sciences. Common examples are the number pi (π) and the variables x and y; more recently, DNA
sequencing uses the code letters A, C, T, G. Currency symbols, such as the dollar sign ($), also derive
from the alphabet. Then there is musical notation and symbols.
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Decentralized Greece (similar to Phoenicia) exploited the democratic and

“modernizing” potential of the alphabet. Within its emerging city-states, ordinary
merchants, artisans, and others—not just the aristocracy—might keep accounts and
become literate.98

The alphabetical order (like the numerical) system is how societies organize
information. Early examples are the Greek numbering system and the first
alphabetization of books cataloged in the library in Alexandria. Beyond literacy and
organization, the alphabet stimulates both abstract and rational thought through the
phonetic coding and decoding process. As a result, the adoption of Phoenician letters—
especially in Ionia and Athens—created an intellectual environment for the
development of Greek, and, subsequently, Western science.99

In the Greek language, writes Burkert, there is a “marked presence” of Semitic loan
words, thus proving Phoenician cultural influence. These are displayed in the critical
areas of writing, commerce, trade, and craftsmanship. Following are selected examples:
alpha, beta, gamma, and so forth, are letter names; byblos, the word for book (and later,
Bible) since the Greeks imported Egyptian paper from Byblos; mina, the standard unit
of weight and currency; kanon, the standard unit of measurement in architecture or
measuring rod; titanos, lime, gypson, plaster, and plinthos, clay brick, are new
construction terms; gaulos, the word for ship, makellon, market; and, arrabon,
deposit.100

Orientalizing art is principally represented by fine metalworking, ivory carving, jewelry

(gold filigree, granulation, and so on), ceramics, and the first large-scale architecture.
Presumably, communities of resident craftsmen within Greek cities introduced the
leading-edge technical skills, styles, and iconography of the industries of their
Phoenician homeland: a process of indigenous apprenticeship.101

Greece’s first monumental temples and statuary are based on an Eastern prototype, and
they appear during the eighth century BCE.102 Architectural features that were adopted
include the Phoenician Proto-Aeolic capital, forerunner of the Ionic capital, and ashlar
masonry.103 Greek emulation of the great Near Eastern buildings is evident.104 The
Phoenicians also acted as intermediaries to carry Egyptian architectural techniques to
Hellas.

98
Muller (1964), 101; Burkert (2004), 16.
99
Logan (1986), 25 (McLuhan quote), 17-21, 187-191, 207, 103, chap. 6. De Looze (2016) examines
writings about the alphabet, itself, since Classical Greek times; his main theme is that a powerful
“alphabetic culture,” 5, has emerged to shape Western civilization.
100
Burkert (1992), 35, 34, 28-40.
101
Ibid., 9-25.
102
Kopcke (1992), 110-112.
103
Morris (1992), 129, 147.
104
Morris (2006), 77.
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For the interior of buildings, beyond plaster, other materials used were wood (cedar)
paneling, for example, Solomon’s Temple; alabaster slabs; and, stucco (western
Phoenician-Punic world). Originally, Phoenicians of the Bronze Age developed lime
mortar with hydraulic properties from which the Greeks evolved true cement.105
Subsequently, the Romans would produce concrete.

For the genesis of philosophy, the Greeks ascribed Phoenician parentage to both Thales
(by Herodotus),106 the founder of Western philosophy and science, and, next in
importance, Pythagoras (by Neanthes). They lived in sixth century BCE, Ionia, a region
of former Phoenician influence.

Modern historians, though, most often reject such claims, because a Greek tradition
assigned Eastern characteristics to celebrities in admiration of older civilizations.107
Nevertheless, Eric S. Gruen, in Rethinking the Other in Antiquity (2011), determines
that “the repute of the Phoenicians among Greek intellectuals, in fact, was high.”108

Stoicism, the most important post-Aristotelian philosophical school, dominated in the

Hellenistic and Roman periods. Its founder, Zeno of Citium (Kition), lived from c. 335-
263 BCE. The Phoenician ancestry of Zeno is not in doubt.109 With its doctrines of the
Logos, Providence, and a noble ethic, Stoicism served as a preparation among the
intellectual class for the acceptance of Christianity in the West.110

Zeno of Sidon (c. 150-70 BCE), a prominent Epicurean, taught Cicero in Athens. He
is known for challenging Euclidean geometry in trenchant ways. Likewise, Zeno’s
epistemological dispute with the Stoics anticipated John Stuart Mill’s theory of
induction.111 Thereafter, the Carthaginian philosopher Hasdrubal, in 129 BCE, became
head of the Athenian Academy.112

Historian of science Leonid Zhmud comments on the preliminary data used in the
first—in the world—mathematical proofs by the early Hellenes. “Semitic borrowings
in the Greek related to weights, measures, and practical calculations confirm that this
area was open to Oriental influence.”113

105
Harden (1962), 141, 136.
106
Laertius (1970), vol. 1, 23, 25.
107
Zhmud (2012), 74, 84-85.
108
Gruen (2011), 119.
109
Laertius (1970), vol. 2, 111, 113, 117. Likewise, the early Stoic Chyrssipus of Soli, who
systemized the philosophy, was of Phoenician ancestry: Woolmer (2011), 73.
110
Copleston (1985), vol. 1, 505.
111
“Zeno of Sidon” (2000), 956-957.
112
Miles (2010), 352. Another Carthaginian, Herillos (third century BCE), also taught in Athens:
Lipiński (2004), 175.
113
Zhmud (2012), 250.
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A fifth century BCE, contribution, the abacus, “probably reached Greece from
Phoenicia.”114 This valuable calculating device was in service in the West until the
French Revolution.115

The democratic and constitutional Athenian city-state—pivotal to the growth of the

Western world—may be another adaptation.

From the Bronze Age onward, observes Markoe, “true city-states” functioned in
Phoenicia.116 These autonomous, monarchical city-states with their councils of elders
and peoples’ assemblies are characterized as proto-democratic. With regard to Greece,
some scholars suggest that early experiments in democratic government took place in
regions with Phoenician influence. Borrowings of democratic ideas may be seen, for
instance, on the island of Kos, and in Ionia, on Chios and Samos. Also, preceding
Athens, Sparta had a constitution. Aristotle, in his analysis of the Spartan and
Carthaginian (Punic) constitutions, points to similarities: councils and popular
assemblies. Thus, Simon Hornblower, Robert Drewes, and others assume that the
Spartan system followed a Phoenician prototype.117

Phoenician models adopted or adapted by Archaic Greece, like the alphabet, were
crucial to its commercial intercourse with leading societies, along with the development
of Western civilization. Generally accepted is that Phoenician standards of weights and
measures were universally employed by the Greeks, passed on to the Etruscans and
Romans, and inherited by medieval Europe.

Hudson makes the convincing case that the financial customs of Classical Greece and
Rome were not indigenous to Indo-European societies as many assumed previously.
Instead, during the Archaic period, largely through Phoenician maritime commerce,
financial innovations were diffused to the Greeks and Etruscans, then transferred to the
Romans:

 maritime law,
 insurance contracts,
 joint financing of business ventures,
 banqueting (aristocratic symposium),
 deposit (aforementioned arrabon) banking, and
 interest-bearing debt.118

114
Dilke (1987), 21.
115
Ifrah (2001), 15.
116
Markoe (2000), 87.
117
Stockwell (2010), 123-133: the author surveys the literature on this topic.
118
Hudson (1992), 128, 134-141. Large-scale baking and credit in Classical Greece emerged as a result
of the metics or resident aliens: Curtin (1984), 77, thus Phoenicians, in the Near Eastern tradition, were
major creditors: Hudson (1992), 134.
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Finally, the example of Phoenicia’s distant voyages and colonization was followed by
the Greeks.119 Starting in the eighth century BCE, the Euboeans and Corinthians led the
colonization movement. Classicist Richard A. Billows affirms this meant learning the
ship construction technology, navigation skills, and the east-west trade routes of the
Phoenicians.120

On mainland Italy, Phoenician contact is evident by the tenth century BCE, and regular
exchange commenced in the ninth century.121 Eighth century BCE, Etruria and
Campania hosted the Levantine merchants. A major goal, concurrent with their mining
transactions in Phoenician Sardinia and Phoenician Iberia, was to acquire silver and
other ores, so abundant in northern Etruria. Mineral rights were perhaps secured
through local diplomatic gift exchange. As in Greece, rather than colonies, resident
workshops were likely established on Italian soil.122

Etruscan mariners learned from the Phoenicians how to navigate by the stars,123 and
were probably stimulated to make their transmarine voyages124 and establish overseas
colonies—thereafter the Romans founded colonies.

The strong Orientalizing tradition (c. 750-580 BCE), touching the whole of Italy,
involved both goods and ideas.125 This period of economic growth, in fact, marks the
beginning of Etruscan civilization.126 Wine, a luxury product, was introduced to the
Etruscans. They, in turn, shipped the beverage in Etruscan amphorae (imitation of
Phoenician amphorae) and domesticated grapevines to southern France. Viniculture
thence spread north into Europe, and eventually, the New World.127

Artistically, advanced techniques, new materials, and styles were presented. Examples
are fine silver and gold jewelry displaying granulation, filigree, and punch work;
engraved and repoussé silver and gold luxury receptacles;128 glass vessels;129 ivory
carvings; and, the first large-scale sculpture (also in Sardinia) and monumental
architecture .130

119
Casson (1991), 170.
120
Billows (2010), 61-62.
121
Nijboer (2008), 428-431, 426: the earliest Phoenician imports discovered include musical
instruments, faience, gold, and wheel-turned pottery.
122
Markoe (2000), 179.
123
Giardina (2010), 6.
124
McGrail (2004), 138.
125
Nijboer (2008), 424, 434-451.
126
Sannibale (2013), 99.
127
McGovern (2013), 10147-10151.
128
Markoe (1992), 61-63, 67; Gaultier (2013), 914-919.
129
Markoe (2000), 157.
130
Rathje (2010).
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Structurally, Orientalization is associated with the emergence of cities, urban

planning,131 masonry houses with tile roofs, and wheeled vehicles. Moreover,
urbanization coincides with the formation of Italian city-states.132

The architectural traditions of Etruria, largely Phoenician and Greek, were later
transferred to Rome.133

Etruscan Orientalizing (as in Spain) is characterized by aristocratic emulation,134

including the model of the Eastern courts’ stately display.135 Phoenician imports or their
imitation include the following:

 “early togas and the use of the color purple,”

 crown,136
 ceremonial axe, scepter,
 horse, chariot,
 throne,
 banqueting equipment, and
 seals.

These Eastern symbols of political authority were passed on to the Romans.137

Subsequently, there arrived Greek colonists and merchants. Spreading Hellenic culture,
early in the eighth century BCE, they introduced Greco-Phoenician letters to form the
Etruscan alphabet. In turn, it was transmitted and adapted by the Romans as the basic
Latin alphabet of western Europe.138

By 800 BCE, the intercontinental mercantile network of Phoenicia took shape,

embracing the far west. The scope of commerce was broad. Beyond metals, trade
included slaves, pottery, and high-value foodstuff, like olive oil and wine.139

131
Sannibale (2013), 99, 120-122.
132
Leighton (2013), 138-139, 142-143.
133
Berry (2013), 700.
134
Riva and Vella (2006), 12.
135
Sannibale (2013), 99, 102, 107.
136
Nijboer (2008), 443.
137
Rathje (2010). Observes Nijboer (2008), as in Greece, the banquet ritual “assisted the exchange of
goods and ideas,” 451. Eastern symbols of political rule also spread to the transalpine Celtic princes:
Sannibale (2013), 104.
138
Paine (2013), 86-87. Related are the Roman numerals, once prehistoric stick notches, which were
assimilated to alphabetical letters in the first century BCE: Ifrah (2000), 187-190.
139
Curtin (1984), 76.
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The analysis of Moore and Lewis shows that Tyre’s monarchy and private merchants—
a mixed economy with capitalistic features—by 650 BCE, “presided over the most
impressive business organization in antiquity…able to internationalize trade and
production on an axis stretching from the Atlantic shores of Spain to the shores of the
Babylon Euphrates.”140

Additionally, West Africa (gold, ivory) became a direct trading partner, and the British
Isles (tin), an indirect, overland trading partner.141

Gades (Cadiz) in Iberia was founded west of the Strait. The new chronology suggests
Phoenician contact in the tenth century BCE, and settlements already in the late ninth
century in Iberia’s—Spain and Portugal—Atlantic coast mining region.142 Colonies
with an agricultural dimension spread all across the southern Mediterranean
(“Phoenician coast”) littoral of Spain.

There is consensus on the local Late Bronze Age culture; that is, before Phoenician
colonization and the introduction of iron, starting in the eighth century BCE. Iberia was
proto-urban—displaying simple ground plans in some areas.143 Likewise, its tribal
groups were in a transitional phase toward early state formation. The socio-economic
bases were already in place.

Joan Sanmartí, therefore, employs a combined endogenist (internal) and exogenist

(external) theoretical approach to change. He acknowledges that “foreign contact had
an important role in the evolution of the indigenous societies.”144 Phoenician activity is
associated with the technological change, economic intensification, and increased social
differentiation that ushered in Iberian Age centralized polities (states).145

Scholarship thus focuses on the Phoenician period as related to the formation of Iberian
culture and its first cities, beginning around 600 BCE. The Iberian Orientalizing phase
embraced the late eighth and seventh centuries BCE.

Phoenician workshops introduced their repertoire of artistic techniques, materials (glass

was imported), and styles for the production of choice goods.

140
Moore and Lewis (2000), 21, 37, 34.
141
Moore and Lewis (1999), 128, 111, 122-123, 109-115.
142
Aubet (2008), 247, 248-250; Pappa (2013), 177-178, 191. Gades (Cadiz), founded by the
Phoenicians, is often considered the oldest city in western Europe.
143
Belarte (2009), 105-107.
144
Sanmartí (2009), 50-52.
145
Sanmartí (2008), 279-280.
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Technological transfers were iron, metallurgical techniques, the potter’s wheel,146 and
“carts and chariots are the oldest wheeled vehicles in Iberia.”147 Agriculturally, crop
specialization, metal tools, technologies, and commercial (surplus) cereal production
were spread by the Phoenicians.

Instituted also were viniculture with wine presses148 and the Old-World grape; and,
arboriculture with the domesticated olive and oil presses, plum, walnut, and almond
trees.149 Livestock introductions include the chicken and donkey.150

Architecture and urban planning reproduced a Near Eastern pattern, including

monumental structures151 and civic space.152 Maria Carme Belarte observes that
indigenous peoples adopted certain “new elements, such as a rectangular floor plan,
buildings with a complex ground plan, building materials, such as lime, techniques of
adobe wall construction, and the like;” she examines the “first urbanism on the
Mediterranean coast...the potential role played by the colonial factor—in particular
Phoenician commerce,” concluding that it was an important “accelerator of the
process.”153

Commerce introduced banqueting; transport amphorae; standardized weights,

measures, and seals;154 consistent exchange rates;155 and, writing. Many examples of
Phoenician alphabetical script adapted to the extinct, untranslated, non-Indo-European
Tartessian and Iberian languages have been discovered.156

Phoenician colonization in Iberia faded with the fall of Tyre to the Neo-Babylonians
under Nebuchadnezzar in 573 BCE. Yet, Punic Carthage gradually assumed leadership
of the Phoenician cities, and it founded new colonies. Thence, the center of Phoenician
mercantilism shifted to Carthage. 157

Culturally, the principal legacy of the Phoenicians to the West, including Iberia, is the
alphabet.

146
Markoe (2000), 186, 157. Mediterranean France received Phoenician, Punic, and Orientalizing
Iberian objects from southern Spain, see Dietler (2010), 7.
147
Harrison (1988), 34. The lyre, too, was a Phoenician import: ibid.
148
Buxó (2009), 157-159, 162-165. Also introduced to Iberia were productive types of wheat and
barley, as well as oats, millets, flax, and several legumes, such as peas and beans: ibid, 164.
149
López Castro (2008), 97-98.
150
Rodríguez Díaz (2014), 492.
151
Aubet (2006), 98-101.
152
Pappa (2013), 81.
153
Belarte (2009), 91, 93, 107.
154
Sanmartí (2008), 279-280.
155
Moore and Lewis (1999), 116.
156
Dietler (2009), 5.
157
Moore and Lewis (2000), 36.
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The Romans transmitted to the peninsula the Latin alphabet (and language). For the
world economy, centuries of Phoenician and Carthaginian mercantilism incorporated
Iberia into the trade routes of the Mediterranean.158

Development of the Atlantic Façade of Europe

Beyond the Phoenician-Punic economic, technological, and cultural transformation of

the Mediterranean—long a “Phoenician lake” between Indian and Atlantic Ocean
operations—is another topic.
Receiving less attention is the formative development of the Atlantic façade by a Near
Eastern maritime people. Barry Cunliffe, however, credits Phoenician “entrepreneurs
from the Mediterranean intent on exploring the commercial potential of the ocean
fringe.

In this way, Atlantic Europe, for the first time, confronted Mediterranean
civilization.”159

In a recent volume, Celestino (archeologist) and López (Classicist) collaborate to assert

that the realm of Tartessos, under the stimulation of the colonizing Phoenicians
(Orientalizing Iberia, state development, and alphabetical writing are discussed in the
previous section), emerged as a third civilization in the West, along with Archaic Etruria
and Greece. Moreover, Tartessos, in southwestern Spain and southern Portugal,
became the first literate culture on the Atlantic shore.160

Tyre, during the ninth century BCE, directed far west capital investment and settlement
through its family-linked aristocracy at Gades (Cadiz). It was founded as an island
colony and industrial center with a port(s) upon the Atlantic. Colonies were also planted
well north into Portugal and south about 400 miles to Mogador, profiting from the trade
of West Africa and the sub-Saharan.

Partnering with the Tartessian elite, the merchants of Gades negotiated mineral rights
and the regional trade network. Southwest Iberia held the most abundant silver deposits
known in the ancient world. While there existed protohistoric indigenous mining, the
Phoenicians introduced iron tools—announcing the Iberian Iron Age—to replace stone
tools, advanced smelting techniques and cupellation, and systematic operations,
resulting in a boom of silver production.

158
Aubet (2001), 3.
159
Cunliffe (2004), 311. The first direct archeological evidence of operations in the Atlantic sphere
arises from a late seventh or early sixth century BCE wreck. It is the only Phoenician merchant vessel
to be excavated (2007-2011) in the Western Mediterranean. The diverse, four tons of finished goods
and raw materials include northwest Africa elephant tusks and Baltic Sea amber: Polzer (2014), 241,
231, 232, 242.
160
Celestino and López-Ruiz (2016), vii-viii.
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Huelva, also a colony and port, had an important foundry. The Gades shipbuilding
industry thrived for seven centuries into Roman times.161

The Gades complex, which would continue to flourish under Carthage and Rome,
linked trade between the Mediterranean and Atlantic systems. Early on, fishing—as an
industry—was established in the rich Atlantic waters.162 The colony as also served as a
regional production center of Eastern luxury objects for export.163

Starting in Punic times, the Gaditanian economy (with its Bay of Cadiz) concentrated
on wine, salted fish (another new industry), and garum or fish sauce, an important
seasoning in the ancient world. Specialized transport amphorae were manufactured for
packing these products.164

For Portugal, Ana Margarida Arruda identifies Orientalizing zones with peaceful
Phoenician colonization, both coastal and inland, as far north as the Mondego River
estuary (Santa Olaia). Specifically, the evidence proves agricultural development and
salt exploitation.165 Ideal for maritime-based commerce, the natural anchorages of
Portugal could accommodate the large Phoenician-Punic ships. Indeed, an artifact
discovery of these vessels, fitted out for the ocean, “would rank among the most
important watercraft in the history of seafaring.”166

Up the Atlantic coast, in the northwest corner of Iberia, early Phoenician trade was
conducted with the Celts of tin-rich Galicia.167 During the fifth century BCE, perhaps
in conjunction with the Carthaginian expeditions to northwest Europe, the Portuguese
colonies were reinvigorated (for example, an artificial harbor was constructed at
Tavira).

Punic trade and exchange with Galicia became regular. Galician society originally
rejected wheel technology for pottery, which was a female task, and the rotary quern
stone, but it adopted Eastern jewelry techniques, sculpture (the strongest tradition in the
Iron Age of Atlantic Europe), and such.168

On the Iberian Atlantic façade, “Phoenician and Punic sailors named several prominent
capes.”

161
Moore and Lewis (1999), 116-123; Moore and Lewis (2000), 30-33.
162
Cunliffe (2004), 48, 30: the tuna shoals about the Canary Islands appear central to this activity.
163
Markoe (2000), 186: some were probably used as diplomatic gifts in exchange for Andalusian
mineral rights.
164
Rodríguez-Díaz (2014), 500. Viniculture had been introduced during the Phoenician period.
165
Arruda (2009), 113-130.
166
Wachsmann (2009), 243, 246.
167
Rodríguez-Díaz (2014), 491.
168
González-Ruibal (2006), 127-129, 137, 138, 144. The tin was probably shipped to Gades: Cunliffe
(2004), 303.
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As in the Mediterranean, the Atlantic coastal settlements and harbors (many still in use)
were selected for their advantages relative to long-distance maritime commerce.169

Rome would inherit both the Iberian and northwest African entrepôts and operations on
the Atlantic.

In the Punic Atlantic, skilled Carthaginian sailors may well have discovered the
Azores.170 Seeking to expand its Atlantic markets, Carthage sponsored two recorded
voyages of exploration.171

The fleet of Hanno coasted south, at least to Senegal, and perhaps as far as Cameroon.
Himlico, embarking from Gades, sailed north, at least to northern Britany, and quite
possibly across the Channel to the British Isles.172

The broader Atlantic world, says Cunliffe, by 800 BCE, felt a two-fold Phoenician
influence.
 One, the creation of market for manufactured goods and precious metals that
entered the Atlantic trading networks.
 Secondly, from the port of Gades, the merchant shipbuilding technology of the
Phoenicians was introduced. Knowledge of the sail, in particular, may have
spread into northwest European waters.173

Thus, respecting the emergence of the Atlantic Iron Age, c. 600 BCE, Jon C. Henderson
suggests that “ship technology, perhaps courtesy of the Phoenicians, had suitably
advanced to make long-distance maritime contacts easier and, more importantly,
reliable.”174

169
González-Ruibal (2006), 34, 135, 133.
170
Cunliffe (2004), 202. Sent out by Pharaoh Necho II, around 600 BCE, Phoenician sailors apparently
completed a clockwise circumnavigation of Africa: ibid., 300. A few scholars, note Moore and Lewis
(1999), contend that the Carthaginians discovered the New World.
171
Moore and Lewis (1999), 214-215.
172
Roller (2006), 27-41. Northern evidence of the Punic language is found in Wales: Holmsted and
Schade (2013), 4.
173
Cunliffe (2004), 560, 561, 70. For example, Atlantic Late Bronze Age culture, extending north to
eastern Britain, incorporated some Phoenician banqueting equipment, such as the roasting spit, into
traditional elite feasting: ibid., 281-283.
174
Henderson (2007), 85-86. During Roman times, in France, Caesar ordered Mediterranean
(originally Phoenician-Punic) style war galleys built for military operations, including an armada for
his second expedition to Britain in 54 BCE: Cunliffe (2004), 71-72.
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Punic Carthage: Further Contributions in the West

Carthage was founded on the fertile coast of central North Africa in the late ninth
century BCE175

Strategically, it stood on the axis of the east-west commercial route between the Levant
and the Atlantic; likewise, it anchored the north-south route to mainland Italy.

Like Gades, in the beginning, a core mercantile elite from Tyre ruled the city-state. The
Phoenician colony’s seventh century BCE, prosperity was based on multidirectional
trade and progressive manufacturing, such as ceramics, purple dye, and metalworking.
Luxury goods were also created and exported.176 Its forges produced surplus wrought
iron and steel.177

After Tyre fell, during the sixth century BCE, Carthage became fully independent.

The city-state led and expanded the western Phoenician colonies, founded new
colonies,178 and acquired the ports of Corsica.179 There emerged a highly diversified
economy: shipbuilding; fishing, also in the Atlantic area; mining investment and trade
(Punic Sardinian, Punic Iberian); slave trade; wholesale export of foreign commodities;
as well as their celebrated agriculture.180 Glasswork and, perhaps, glassmaking were
pursuits.181 The aforementioned British tin trade, also a product of earlier contributions
from Phoenicia, was expanded and caravan routes reached Egypt.182

Punic Carthage (550-146 BCE) was a mercantile and political superpower in the West;
the republic was on a level with the Eastern powers and Greece.183

Indeed, the maritime economy of Carthage—the world’s greatest sea power—was

based upon and regulated by a system of written commercial agreements. Over 250
years of peace with budding Rome involved four treaties. The first was signed in 509
BCE,184 to become Rome’s earliest authentic record.185

175
Aubet (2008), 247.
176
Miles (2010), 62, 67, 65.
177
Kaufman (2016), 46-47.
178
Dietler (2008), 8. Still, the fleets of the Phoenician cities were not destroyed, later passing into
naval service under the Persians.
179
Hoyos (2008), 12.
180
Markoe (2000), 103-105.
181
Henderson (2013), 222.
182
Moore and Lewis (1999), 217, 214. Land routes to sub-Saharan Africa in antiquity have yet to be
proven: Pappa (2013), 174-175.
183
Hoyos (2010), 57-58.
184
Markoe (2000), 54, 102, 190.
185
Wedgwood (1985), 99.
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Punic maritime capitalism inherited the Phoenician model of international managed

trade with state-owned and private enterprise. Carthage’s business elite performed the
banking role: major investment, financing bulk trade, insuring distant voyages, and
arranging naval protection of convoys in the form of triremes.186

Governmentally, Punic Carthage is usually described as an aristocratic republic or

oligarchy. The constitution (now lost) reflected the hierarchical and tight-knit business
structure of the city-state.187 Gruen notes that the Greeks held the Carthaginian
constitution in high regard.

Aristotle, in the Politics, delivers praise for the merit-based document. The Classical
philosopher compares it with the respected Spartan constitution (mentioned above,
Sparta’s may be based upon a Phoenician prototype).

How would the Roman Republic’s constitution compare?

For Hellenistic political thinkers, “Carthage, as is clear, supplied the principal criterion
by which to measure success.”188

The peak of Carthage’s power was during the fourth century BCE. Once dependent on
imported food supplies, the metropolis now exported its agricultural surplus, especially
wheat. Consequently, Carthage became an agrarian empire, as well as a maritime
power. Its prosperity is validated by vast reserves of gold and silver.189 Chandler’s
(1987) census for 200 BCE, ranks Carthage and Rome, with populations of around
150,000 each, the largest cities in the West.190

Carthage was likely the richest city on earth: the view of the ancients.191 The
Carthaginian agricultural revolution began during the fifth century BCE.192

186
Moore and Lewis (1999), 181, 218, 201-212.
187
Ibid., 202.
188
Gruen (2011), 119-120. Indeed, “Carthaginian achievements on the intellectual front indeed earned
high esteem in the cultivated circles of Greeks and Romans alike”: Ibid., 137.
189
Markoe (2000), 105, 103: for example, Punic Carthage issued an “extensive gold coinage.”
Interestingly, Elayi (2011) observes that invented in Persian-period Phoenicia were the first yearly
dated coins.
190
Chandler (1987), 462.
191
Hoyos (2010), 59.
192
Miles (2010), 80-81. Agriculture of the Punic world, stretching to the Atlantic, expanded inland
from the original Phoenician cities. Punic settlers, interacting with the indigenous inhabitants, brought
iron tools, expertise, technologies, and capital investment, especially for wine, oil, and cereal
production. Rural products were exported through the extensive Punic—Carthage and Gades
(Cadiz)—maritime network: Van Dommelen and Bellard (2008a), 232-239.
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Large-scale and scientific, it embraced the whole range of cereal production;

vegetables; animal husbandry; viniculture; fruit, nut, and olive tree cultivation; and,
beekeeping.193 Irrigation methods from the homeland were employed.194

Mago’s authoritative, twenty-eight volume work on agricultural science and economy

was translated by the Greeks and Romans.195 Mainland Italy adopted such crops as the
olive,196 pomegranate, and the fig. Along with Punic Spain, Italy received from
Carthage advanced (Levantine) agricultural technology: the plostellum Punicum, a
mechanical threshing machine.197

Carthaginian nautical achievements loom large in maritime history. Ship construction

was standardized: prefabricated components were marked with Punic alphabetical
letters, allowing for the rapid assembly of large numbers of craft.198

Ending the reign of the trireme galley, the Carthaginians were the “pacesetters in naval
technological innovation throughout the fourth century BC. They had been first to
develop the quadrireme…” or polyreme. Thereafter, the Greeks of Sicily introduced
the quinupramine; however, the Carthaginians substantially improved upon its oar
housing, strength, and width of deck.199 Polyremes did not exceed the three banks of
oars of the trireme; but, expanded was the number of rowers per oar.200

The giant Imperial Roman round ship for grain appears to derive from the Phoenician-
Punic merchant ship.201 The Romans also adopted pegged mortise-and-tenon joints for
their ships (and oil presses), which they called “Phoenician joints.”202 Invented was the
dry dock for ship repair.203 Designed during the Punic Wars as a “system of optical
signaling” were the first true lighthouses.204

Total destruction of Carthage ended the Punic Wars in 146 BCE (the same year that
Corinth was also razed to the ground by the Romans).205

193
Harden (1962), 139-140.
194
Hoyos (2010), 64.
195
Lancel (1995), 278. Among Mago’s specialized topics are grafting techniques and cattle breeding:
ibid., 276, 279. Hoyos (2010), 65-66: Himlicar was another contemporary writer on agriculture.
196
Janick (2005), 255-320.
197
Van Dommelen and Bellard (2008b), 13; Lancel (1995), 277, 273.
198
Bartoloni (1988b), 76-77; Lancel (1995), 131-132.
199
Miles (2010), 177-178.
200
Paine (2013), 111-112.
201
Woodman (1997), 21. The Phoenician-inspired Roman grain ship evolved during the Middle Ages
to become a true, full-rigged, maneuverable sailing ship: the carrack, ibid.: 45, 59.
202
Sleeswyk (1980), 243-244.
203
Miles (2010), 92.
204
Giardina (2010), 5-6.
205
Wedgwood (1985), 101. Although Carthage lost the Punic Wars (264-146 B.C), the military tactics
of Hannibal are studied by modern strategists.
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As a result, the libraries of the city were lost; they held, according to contemporaries,
books on history, agriculture, and religion.206

Henceforth, Rome annexed the Punic territories in the Mediterranean, North Africa, and
Iberia. The future empire gained the vast Phoenician-Punic developed agricultural,
industrial, and mining, as well as Atlantic operations. Furthermore, recent studies
unveil Carthage as a model of imperialism for Rome: apparent transfers include treaty
formulation, military recruitment, tax organization, agricultural exploitation, and naval
technology.207

Roman Carthage: Promoting Latin Christianity

Julius Caesar launched the rebuilding of the vital ports of Corinth and Carthage.208

Roman Carthage grew into a provincial capital and the focal point of the developing
Latin (Western or non-Greek) Church. Earlier, in 64 BCE, Rome annexed Phoenicia.
The Phoenicians would be among the first Gentiles to adopt Christianity.209

In North Africa, Punic elites were among the “most upwardly mobile in the empire”
and well-established in the Roman senate; the able Septimius Severus rose to become
emperor from 193-211 CE,210 and the Severan Dynasty lasted until 235. He likely
founded the famous law school in Beirut.211

Carthage, a center of Classical learning, produced the first outstanding Latin Christian
author, Tertullian (c. 160-230 CE): the original Western Church father. Tertullian is
credited with shaping the theological vocabulary and thought employed in the Latin
language.212 The distinguished theologian St. Cyprian became bishop of Carthage in
248 CE. Cyprian suffered martyrdom, just as Saints Perpetua and Felicitas did for their
orthodoxy.213

Ultimately, the chief architect of Latin Church theology was St. Augustine (354-430
CE), Bishop of Hippo. Having a Christian mother, St. Monica, in Numidia, his
background was Punic; he appreciated the still-spoken language.214

206
Lancel (1995), 358-360.
207
See the overview of Quinn (2017).
208
Wedgwood (1985), 111.
209
Acts 15:3
210
Miles (2010), 371, 372. Some Punic Christians were serving in the senate and imperial court:
Barnes (1971), 69-71.
211
Of Phoenician origin were the prominent Roman jurists Ulpian and Papinian.
212
Copleston (1985), vol. 2, 23-25.
213
Barnes (1971), 192, 79.
214
Lancel (1995), 437.
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Augustine was educated and taught in Carthage. Subsequently, St. Ambrose baptized
him in Italy, and Augustine began to publish extensively.

A profound influence upon Western civilization, “in order to understand the currents of
thought in the Middle Ages, a knowledge of Augustinianism is essential.”215

Conclusion: The Quickening of Western Civilization

Phoenicia’s cultural interaction with the Occident spanned two millennia.

Led by Bronze Age Byblos, the region originated the true sailing ship, navigation by
the North Star, maritime law, and so forth. The voyages of the Phoenicians constitute
the “first systematic use of the sea.”216 Flowing out of their commercial activity of the
Bronze and Iron Ages are foundational contributions to the Western world.

As distilled by William H. Hallo, the basic qualities of civilization are cities, capital,
and writing.217 Part of the Fertile Crescent, Phoenicia with its thriving city-states
possessed all three elements. Peaceful, long-distance trade and cultural exchange was
undertaken. Its merchants, artisans, and agents promoted urban growth, made capital
investments, and spread literacy.

All in all, the enduring Phoenician influence—representing the urbanized Near Eastern
heritage—both stimulated and fostered Western civilization.

Bronze Age sea trade brought Phoenician merchants to Minoan Crete before and during
its height (c. 1950-1450 BCE). Consequently, embryonic Western civilization
borrowed important Eastern concepts: monumental building techniques; luxury
products of gold and ivory (later, glass); advanced sailing ships; monetary silver;
weights and measures; and an administrative model, including clay tablets, seals,
accounting methods, and syllabic (perhaps Old Phoenician) writing that became Linear
A. The Late Bronze Age Mycenaean Greeks conquered, but also adopted, the Minoan
civilization. They absorbed further Eastern refinements (Orientalization), before the
downfall of their society, c. 1200 BCE.

The Early Iron Age saw Phoenician expansion in the West. Leadership of the city-
states was assumed by Tyre. Tyre’s monarchy (public) and merchants (private)
comprised a mixed economy with capitalistic features.

215
Copleston (1985), vol. 2, 40-50.
216
Braudel (2001), 188.
217
Hallo (1996), 1.
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During the tenth century BCE, they began to create an intercontinental mercantile
network. Colonies were first planted on Cyprus, then Carthage was founded in 814
BCE; settlements also stretched to the Atlantic coasts of Africa and Europe, which they
discovered.

From Greece to Portugal, the Phoenicians bore the cultures of the core Mesopotamian
and Egyptian civilizations. Manufactured goods (luxury and common), bulk products,
technologies, and information, as well as cultural, architectural, and artistic patterns
were transferred across the Mediterranean.

Well before Classical Greece and Rome, there arose macro-trends associated with
Phoenicia: globalization, capitalism, and multinational corporations.

In The Origins of Globalization, Moore and Lewis observe that the achievement of Tyre
(and Carthage) was to expand world trade and at the same time to shift the center of
finance and high culture westward.218 The Cambridge History of Capitalism is
introduced by Larry Neal. He cites the primacy of Phoenicia’s market-driven capitalism
and long-distance trade reaching the Atlantic.219 Moore and Lewis, in Birth of the
Multinational, hold forth that the merchants of Tyre created the first multinational
business organization on an intercontinental scale.220

These trends originated in Mesopotamia, yet it was the commercial activities of the
Phoenicians that laid the economic and cultural bases of the Western world.
Employing a world-systems approach, the Sherratts delineate the economic growth of
the West. They notice that c. 1000 BCE, Europe and its Mediterranean region were in
essence prehistoric. Granted, “the centers of future growth were already evident [proto-
urban Greece, Italy, and Iberia]; but what articulated them into a single interacting
system was the input of capital from the east.”

In sum, drawing territories together were Phoenicia’s large merchant ships,

monumental harbors, and urban economy: monetary silver, slavery, and
manufacturing.221 The intercontinental network of the Phoenicians commenced the
development of the Atlantic façade of Europe and laid the foundation for the Roman
Empire’s Mediterranean as one economic, political, and cultural unit.

Between the protohistoric and Classical eras was the decisive transitional epoch known
as the Orientalizing horizon (eighth and seventh centuries BCE).

218
Moore and Lewis (2009), 113, 111.
219
Neal (2014), 7.
220
Moore and Lewis (1999), 69.
221
Sherratt and Sherratt (1993), 374-375.
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Phoenician mercantilism, capital, and routes, along with cultural elements, i.e.
alphabetical script, encouraged European state formation: first, in the eighth century
BCE, Aegean, then in seventh century Italy and Spain.222

Classical historian Burkert identifies the expansion of both maritime commerce and the
alphabet (literacy) by Phoenicia as the determining factors that “caused the center of
civilization to shift westward from the Near East to the Mediterranean.”223 First arose
the civilizations of Carthage and Greece arose, followed by Etruria, and, finally, Rome.

Indeed, from the Phoenicians early Archaic Greece received alphabetical writing—and
the book—forming the basis of the West’s alphabets (Latin and Cyrillic); shipbuilding
technology, navigation skills, and the example of overseas colonization; and,
commercial contracts (also in Italy). Brought to Greece, Italy, and Iberia were weights
and measures, monumental art and architecture, and fine luxury goods as models that
influenced early European art.

The alphabet is considered the preeminent contribution of the Phoenicians for the
establishment of Western civilization.

Clearly, the Greek intellectual achievement would not have been possible, nor could it
have been recorded for future generations of literate Europeans without the egalitarian
script. Similarly, it allowed for both Hebrew and Greek writing of the Christian Bible.
Alphabetical order is used to organize information. Furthermore, the letters are a
phonetic code that stimulate both numbering and rational and abstract thought.

Punic Carthage (550-146 BCE) became a mercantile, political, and military superpower
in the West. Among its introductions were large-scale agricultural methods and
technologies, horticultural specialization, and new crops, as well as nautical
innovations. The city-state set a constitutional standard in the ancient world. Imperial
concepts were also transferred to Rome. The destruction of Tyre (Alexander) and
Carthage (Scipio) included the loss of their records, archives, and libraries.224 These
collections could be substantially older than the Hellenistic library in Alexandria.225

Afterwards, Roman Carthage promoted Latin Christianity. Above all, it produced the
first outstanding, Tertullian, and the most influential, St. Augustine, Western Church
theologians. The Protestant reformers, too, drew heavily upon Augustine’s
conservative writings.

222
Ibid., 367, 369.
223
Burkert (2004), 6.
224
Markoe (2000), 11.
225
Lancel (1995), 358-359.
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To conclude, the Phoenician (Iron Age) specialist, Niemeyer, abstracts how this most
ancient people, in effect, sparked Western civilization.

 First, the specific experience of Archaic Greece: the Phoenician transfusion of

Eastern goods, technologies, and ideas that, in turn, became the foundations of
Greco-Roman civilization.
 Secondly, the pan-Mediterranean influence: “The eminent role played by the
Phoenician city-states in the dissemination of urban civilization, in the
propagation of technical innovations, in the distribution of new [aristocratic]
lifestyle paradigms and ‘modern’ economics.”226

The above contributions span David Wilkinson’s central civilization/world-system.

Early modern European expansion, followed by Westernization—fittingly with large
ships, capitalism, alphabetical writing, and colonization—spread the legacies of
Phoenicia.

226
Niemeyer (2004), 246, 250.
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