Civilization · Iron Age · Phoenicia

Phoenicia

c. 1500–300 BCE

Phoenicia was a seafaring civilization of the Levantine coast, never one state but a string of city states. Its sailors traded across the Mediterranean and founded Carthage. Its alphabet became the ancestor of nearly all alphabets used today.

Facts

Founded: c. 1500 BCE, the rise of the coastal cities.; Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Phoenicia
Ended: c. 300 BCE, absorbed into the Hellenistic kingdoms after Alexander.; Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Phoenicia
Heartland: The Levantine coast, cities Tyre, Sidon, and Byblos, in present day Lebanon.; Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Phoenicia
Major rulers: Hiram of Tyre, ally of Solomon; the merchant princes of the city states.; Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Phoenicia

Images

The ruins of Byblos, among the oldest continuously inhabited cities on earth. (Wikimedia Commons)

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