Who were the Phoenicians

As we know, the appearance of the first civilizations took place in the Middle East, being there where it evolved towards a system of commercial relations between the various peoples that there they inhabited. Some of these were soon forced to find new ways to survive, navigation being one of them. In this lesson from a TEACHER we will talk about who were the Phoenicians, a town that came to have colonies throughout much of the Mediterranean Sea.

Within the lesson on who were the Phoenicians, we have to place ourselves in the twelfth century BC. C. on the Syro-Palestinian coast where a civilization of Semitic origin, the Phoenicians, ended up settling sharing territory with the Hebrew people. Since the beginning of time, it is known that these quickly began to relate to the peoples from the surroundings, looking for commercial deals to be able to bring items that in their place of origin did not existed.

One of the most important characteristics that we must take into account when facing the study of the Phoenicians is that

formed independent city-states that, in many cases, they even came to face each other for hegemony. Each one of them was commanded by a king who, through his government, was in charge of commercial relations; In this way, the merchants worked for the State, making sure that the products arrived and were sold at a good price.

We are going to find a very necessary factor to understand the way of life of the Phoenician people in the little line between the sea and the mountains, this would make that, from practically the first moment, this town had to create boats to be able to trade with other nearby places and thus be able to stock up on everything you need. The first commercial circuit they had was to Crete and Egypt.

This civilization lasted for several centuries, interspersing moments of greater activity and others in which its existence was almost ephemeral. Everything ended around 333 BC. C. when they were absorbed by the Assyrian Empire and later by the Persian.

In this other lesson we discover a summary of the origin and history of the Phoenicians.

As we have mentioned before, soon created a strong business hub between Crete and Egypt but, with the passage of time, they decided that they should extend their commercial control throughout the Mediterranean to be able both to supply themselves and to be able to trade in exotic products that were not in the East.

Thus, the Phoenician vessels were setting course towards the West, reaching the shores of North Africa, the south of the Iberian Peninsula, the Canaries and even reaching England and some other lands north of Europe. This served them to get in touch with the various populations and carry out commercial deals and bring from there products that, as we have said, did not exist in their place of origin. One of the best known examples of trade deals occurred in the Iberian Peninsula, where the famous garum, tuna and precious metals came from. In this other lesson we will discover the history of the Phoenicians in Spain.

Thanks to trade relations, city-states would soon begin to coin coin to carry out business deals. One of the sides would be to see the origin of the city that had issued the coin and on the other side the divinity of the city would appear, an element that gave reliability to the exchange.

How was one religious civilization, the commercial deals would be given in the same temples, so that in that way there would be a kind of protection over everything that was done, in fact, it is known that merchandise insurance existed within these and, if there was a theft, the merchant received a payment for the losses caused.

And to finish this lesson about who the Phoenicians were, we will now talk about the most important cities of this people. They were the following:

Syro-Palestinian coast

• Sidon: main promoters of the commercial networks in the eastern Mediterranean, that is to say, the primitive networks of commerce.
• Byblos: It was the city with the largest port of all and its relationship with Egypt was quite active, in fact, its name comes from the great importation of papyrus.
• Threw: Unlike Sidon, this city preferred to focus on the western Mediterranean, becoming the richest city, due to trade with the populations that were found there.
• Colonies
• Gades: the main city in the south of the Iberian Peninsula, it had large fishing factories, as well as being a very oriental city.
• Carthage: until the city of Tire did not begin to decline, it was one of its colonies. Then it became one of the most important powers in ancient history, coming to face Rome on several occasions.
• Hispalis: Along with the city of Gadir, this city was very important due to its location, from which there was a strong orientalization of the surrounding towns, Tartesos being the best known.