Definition
The Phoenicians were a seafaring people of the eastern Mediterranean coast, in the region of present-day Lebanon, who flourished in the centuries around 1200 to 300 BCE. They lived in independent port cities such as Tyre, Sidon, and Byblos, and they are best remembered as the great traders and sailors of the ancient world.
Rather than building a single empire, the Phoenicians built a commercial network. Their ships carried goods — including a famous purple dye, timber, glass, and metals — across the whole Mediterranean, and they founded trading colonies far from home, including the powerful city of Carthage.
Why it matters
How it works
Phoenician power rested on commerce rather than conquest. Each city governed itself and competed for trade, and their wealth came from buying, selling, and shipping goods between distant lands. To keep accounts across this scattered network, they relied on a simple, sound-based script.
That script — the Phoenician alphabet — traveled with their merchants and colonists. The Greeks borrowed it and added vowels, and from the Greek version came the Latin alphabet. In carrying their writing system abroad, the Phoenicians left a deeper mark on history than any of their cargoes.