Phoenicians were perhaps one of the most unique and innovative civilizations.
They invented the alphabet, figured out how to use stars for nighttime navigation,
and trading was like second nature to them. Welcome to Nutty History and today let’s dive deep
into the past to find out what life was like as a resident of one of the city-states of Phoenicia.
In the age of legendary Empires and kingdoms, Phoenicia was a unique settlement.
Instead of becoming an empire of their own, Phoenician cities chose to become a confederate of
independent city-states that worked together for a common goal. Economic prosperity. Tyre, Sidon,
Arwad, and Byblos were the most prosperous and populated cities in the confederacy. Byblos,
in fact, is still thriving after all these years which makes it the oldest continuously inhabited
city in the world. The Phoenicians developed trading networks across the Mediterranean along
with small colonies on the coasts of Europe and North Africa – reaching as far west as
modern-day Spain. One Phoenician colony, Carthage ended up becoming a major power in its own right.
Even later as Phoenicians became part of the Egyptian Empire, the Pharaoh knew
the potential in letting Phoenicia keep its autonomy and let the trade flourish.
The long beautiful coast of the Mediterranean may be a great place to settle down but geographically
it is not the best location for farming. One resource the Phoenicians had that were proved to
be the most useful to expand their trade network was Cedarwood. This wood was the secret behind
Phoenician’s naval prowess. Their sailors had developed a high level of skill in ship-building
and were able to navigate the often-turbulent waters of the Mediterranean Sea with the design
of the curved hull. Phoenicians were perhaps the first foreigners to land on American soil
and establish trade with pre-Romanized Britain. As centuries passed, Phoenicians kept getting better
at both sailing and merchandising. They knew how to sell anything and everything from Cedarwood,
linen, wine, spices, slaves, and their most exclusive product the purple dye.
The city of Tyre was the first in the region to discover the process of extracting purple dye
from sea snails. The expensive dye soon became all the rage among the royal and the noble
families from Mesopotamia to Ancient Greece. The process of extracting the dye was quite messy and
would leave stains on the arms and faces of workers and traders and thus make them look
purple! This is why Greece started calling these traders Phoenicians or Phoenikis,
which came from the Greek word for Purple, “Phoenos''. Unfortunately, as there is very little
Phoenician writing that survived the passage of time, we still don’t know what Phoenicians
called themselves. It is a shame as they were the reason why we have the English Alphabet.
The relationship between the Greeks and the Phoenicians prospered for years.
The Greeks would one day borrow the 22-letter writing script used by Phoenicians. Over time,
Greeks added four more letters to the script and this is what we now call the Alphabet or
Roman script. This was an incredible invention that broke down words into syllables or sounds and
helped Europeans to communicate more effectively with each other and the rest of the world.
Phoenicians were also responsible for coming up with the idea of denoting some of these alphabetic
numerical values which are now known as “Roman Numerals”. Man, is there anything genuinely Roman?
Just like most religions back then, Phoenicians had a pantheon of gods to worship. They also
believed in magic and actively practiced it. Interestingly, among the very few of their
surviving writings are two magic spells from the 6th century. Coincidentally, both spells are of a
warding nature to protect people from bad spirits. Oddly enough, Phoenicians did not stop there.
They were comfortable working with magic involving gods of other cultures.
This included mass-producing amulets and symbols for Egyptians such as the Eye of Horus.
Later Greeks borrowed their gods Baal and Yamm who became Zeus and Poseidon in the Greek Pantheon.
Despite having such a large number of ships and relationship with almost every civilization of
the era, Phoenicians rarely went to war. The Phoenicians were focused on economic growth
and building relationships. It made no sense to attack your own customer. The great military
powers preferred to lead the Phoenicians to their trade as well. But, not for lack of envy. However,
given that the Phoenicians were pretty good at keeping secrets, the empires knew better than
to kill the golden goose, well except Alexander the Great. The Phoenicians managed to keep dye
manufacturing a secret for centuries. However, when diplomacy was needed to strengthen alliances
Phoenicians were more than happy to share some of their trade secrets with their neighbors. For
example, Phoenicians perfected and provided a new model of manufacturing faience to the Egyptians.
Phoenicians did not go to war a lot themselves, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t profit from it!
Back then getting captured alive in war literally meant being signed up for slavery.
During the war, there was always a Phoenician slave master near the POW camps to buy a
slave. Phoenicians would buy criminals, and even unwanted children off their parents.
There was no shortage of slaves back then and no shortage to own them either.
Phoenicians made a killing and made slavery their largest source of income. So would
you like to live on the grand coast of the Mediterranean and sail the seven seas as a
trader for life? Tell us in the comments and thanks for watching Nutty History.