Napoleon III put modern historians in
touch with the Phoenicians. While
subduing a revolt in Syria,
he called upon the French scholar, Ernest Renan,
to lead an expedition to the area, much as Napoleon the Great had done some
fifty years earlier when he brought a group of scholars to Egypt during
his campaign.
Because of Renan’s
interest in Semitic languages, he was particularly keen on investigating the
site of Byblos. In addition to being a major Phoenician port,
the name held linguistic implications. “Byblos” the Greek word
for papyrus, leads to “biblion” or book, while lead to “bible”. Renan was pursuing
an Old Testament reference, “Gebel”, which was the Semitic name for Byblos. The trail ultimately lead to nothing for Renan’s linguistic research, but during the investigation he
found several granite slabs covered with Egyptian hieroglyphs, and a
bas-relief, which he believed to be the goddess Hathor. The relief was, in fact, Baalat-Global the
Phoenician earth-mother goddess. This
find was the beginning of the rediscovery of ancient Phoenicia.
Later, excavations that are more
extensive produced a series of semi-intact royal tombs that yielded a glimpse
of Phoenician treasure, including vessels of gold, silver, and obsidian,
sandals and breastplates of gold, and an array of royal paraphernalia. The most important find, however, was an
inscription in the Phoenician alphabet on an elaborate sarcophagus:
“This coffin was made by Ithobaal, the
son of Ahiram, King of Byblos, as the eternal resting place for his
father. If any ruler or governor or
general attacks Byblos
and touches this coffin, his scepter will be broken…”
This discovery in 1922 touched off a
wave of excavation in Byblos
and a renewed interest in the origin of the Phoenicians. Since ancient times,
there has been speculation as to the origin of the Phoenicians. The Greeks were particularly puzzled by the
Phoenicians who suddenly appeared and built an empire in their midst.
They, in fact, gave them the name,
“phoinikes” loosely translated as “red people” from the color of their
land. The Phoenicians called themselves
Canaanites, and modern researchers tell us they were the descendents of two
groups, the early Canaanites who inhabited the coast of Lebanon, and
the Sea People who invaded Lebanon
about 1200 BC.
The early Canaanites had a limited
ship building technology, sailing only flat-bottomed barges that hugged the
shore. The invading Sea People, some of
whom stayed on, introduced among other things, a much more sophisticated
maritime technology. Thus their
descendents, the Phoenicians, appeared on the scene with an established
maritime tradition, and the technology to build ships with a keeled hull. This allowed them to sail the open seas, and
as a result, the Phoenicians developed a flourishing sea trade.
They settled along the coast of Lebanon, in a
loose federation of city-states that were built on islands of rocky
promontories, which provided natural harbors for shipbuilding and trade. The cities, Byblos, Tyre,
Sidon, Arwad, studded
the seacoast like jewels, and their wealth became legendary. At the height of their trading empire, they
imported copper from Cyprus;
linen from Egypt;
ivory from India;
tin from Spain;
horses from Anatolia; and peacocks from Africa. They
became famous for their highly prized purple dye extracted from the murex
snail, and for the fine timber cut from their forests.
Their major cultural contribution was
their alphabet. It consisted of 22
consonants, and was the foundation of our English alphabet, and it was the core
for Hebrew, Arabic, and Syriac script.
The Phoenicians were skilled artisans
noted for their fine crafts, often “borrowing” a basic idea or technology and
improving on it. The craft of glass
making was raised to a fine art by Phoenician artisans, and they may have been
the first to develop blown glass. Their
terracotta vessels and pots often show a thoughtful refinement of shape, as do
their votive statues.
The Phoenicians worshipped a triad of
deities, each having different names and attributes depending upon the city in
which they were worshipped, although their basic nature remained the same. The primary god was El, protector of the
universe, but often called Baal.
The son, Baal or Melqart, symbolized
the annual cycle of vegetation and was associated with the female deity Astarte in her role as the maternal goddess. She was called Asherar-yam, Our Lady of the Sea,
and in Byblos,
she was Baalat, our dear lady. Astarte was linked with mother goddesses of neighboring
cultures, in her role as combined heavenly mother and each mother. Cult statues of Astarte
in many different forms were left as votive offerings in shrines and
sanctuaries as prayers for good harvest, for children, and for protection and
tranquility in the home. The Phoenician
triad was incorporated in varying degrees by their neighbors and Baal and Astarte eventually took on the look of Greek deities.
The Phoenicians reached the peak of
their culture around 1,000 BC, when they had established trading colonies in Cyprus, Sicily, Sardinia, Africa and Spain. Their North African city of Cartage was founded about 800 BC and remained
strong until the sack of the Romans in 146 BC.
The great city-states of Phoenicia
ended with the fall of Tyre
to the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar in 573 BC. The glory of the Phoenicians was in decline,
when in 332 BC Alexander the Great
conquered Tyre
and the remnants of the Phoenician culture were swept into the Hellenistic
Empire.
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Sadigh Gallery Ancient Art, Inc. in
New York has a collection of Phoenician artifacts, ranging from small glass
beads, glass vessels to terracotta statues. For more information, visit our
website www.sadighgallery.com
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