Phoenicians

Phoenicians

The greatest traders and seafarers of the ancient world were the Phoenicians. They lived along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean, Here, in about 1500bc, they founded their greatest cities – Tyre, and Sidon. These became the flourishing centres of the vast Phoenician trading network. The Phoenicians traded goods, such as glassware, timber, cedar oil, purple-dyed cloth and ivory throughout the Mediterranean venturing as far west as Britain and down the African Coast. In return they bought silver, copper and tin. Cedar wood and oil were among their most valuable exports. The Phoenicians themselves were named after their most famous and costliest export, a purple-red dye made in Tyre from a type of shellfish known as phoinos in Greek. Some Phoenician merchants set up trading colonies, such as the great city of Carthage in Tunisia. Founded around 814bc, Carthage was a great power in the western Mediterranean; long after Phoenicia itself was conquered. The secret of the Phoenicians’ success lay in their great seafaring skills. They had magnificent ships, made of cedar wood – long, fast galleys for war and broader, sturdier ships for trade. The cargo, stored in large clay pots, was lashed securely beneath the deck. The ships had heavy keels and used both sails and oars, which gave them greater manoeuvrability and speed. Even though they had no accurate maps or charts, the Phoenicians were expert navigators, relying on the winds and stars to find their way. Their fame spread far and wide. When the Egyptian pharaoh, Necho II, decided to send an expedition to attempt to sail around Africa in about 600bc, he hired a crew of Phoenicians and a Carthaginian admiral to put his plan into action. The expedition is said to have taken three years to complete.