Now, I'm going to talk to you about the Phoenicians. Originally, these skillful sailors and traders, who brought us the alphabet, used to live in the desert, in what is known as Jordan today. But, in the course of time, they managed to win a home for themselves along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean. That was just to the north of Palestine, in a land which was known as Phoenicia and which is called Lebanon, nowadays.
In the desert, the Phoenicians led a nomadic life. When they arrived in
Phoenicia, they adopted more settled ways and quickly became town-dwellers. But they remained wanderers at heart. Earlier, they had wandered endlessly over the sands on their camels, Now they took to ships and began to wander endlessly over the sea.
Al first, it is true, they were much less famous as traders and seamen than Ancient Greeks. For quite a long rime, they kept to the coasts and refused to sail out into the open Mediterranean. Down to about 1200 B.C, most of their trade was with Ancient Egypt, which they were able to reach by following their own shoreline southwards. But by 1000 B.C. they sailed from one end of the Mediterranean to the other, bartering their goods everywhere.
Commerce became the Phoenicians' life. So they didn't limit their trade to the" Great Green", I mean, the Mediterranean sea. Soon they sailed through the Straits of Gibraltar onto the Atlantic Ocean all the way to today's England.
When Phoenicians traveled over these vast areas, they didn't simply do business. They founded trading posts and cities like Carthage in Tunisia. And lcosium (Algiers) and Hippo (Annaba), in present-day Algeria. They also spread ideas and inventions. One invention which was of particular importance for human civilization, and which was spread by the Phoenicians. was alphabetic writing. The Phoenicians needed a practical system of writing to help their international trade, and an alphabet was the solution. Their alphabet was probably
adapted from Egyptian hieroglyphics. The Phoenician alphabet was eventually adopted - and adapted - by the Greeks and later by the Romans. by the way the Greek word byblos "book", was taken from Byblos. a Phoenician city which exported papyrus. Do you know how this city is called today
(Adapted from Victor Skipp, Out of the Ancient World)
