Chapter 3
Section 4
The Phoenicians
• The Phoenician civilization began on a thin strip of land
along the Mediterranean Sea.
• Consisted of city-states
The Phoenician People
• Fearless sailors who guided ships full of trade goods
• Dominated sea trade in Mediterranean Sea for hundreds of
years
Origins
• Began to emerge after the Egyptian rule in 1150 BCE
• Rulers were priest-kings that shared government power
with leading merchant families and a citizen assembly
Farming and Manufacturing
• Geography influenced Phoenicia’s development
– Heavily forested Lebanon mountains left little flat land for farming
• Manufactured many goods
– Cloth with a rare purple dye, pottery, glass, metal objects, and wood furniture
Phoenician Traders
• Few natural resources so they traded
– Import is a good or service sold within a country that is produced in another
country
• Raw materials such as gold, silver, tin, copper, iron, ivory, and precious stones
– Export is a good or service produced within a country and sold outside the
country’s borders
• Pine and cedar logs, wine, olive oil, salt, fish
Phoenicians and the Sea
• Location was ideal for trade
– Western edge of Asia
– Many depended on Phoenicians to ship
their goods
Navigation
• Experts at navigation- art of steering a
ship from place to place
– Knowledge of wind patterns and sea
currents
– First to use the North Star to guide their
voyages
Exploring Unknown Waters
• Phoenicians were driven to find
precious metals
– “natives were ignorant of the use of silver,
and the Phoenicians purchased the silver
in exchange for other goods of little if any
worth.”
Colonies and City-States
• Phoenicians found many sheltered
harbors along the Mediterranean Sea
– Colonies gave them a place to get supplies
or to trade with other peoples
•
A colony is an area ruled by a distant
country
– Colonies developed into wealthy citystates
•
Carthage on North African Coast
Legacy of the Phoenicians
• Greece and Rome absorbed key
elements of Phoenician culture by
cultural diffusion
– The spreading of cultural traits from
one region to another
Spread of Culture
• Phoenicians helped ideas spread
– Standards of weights and measures
The Alphabet
• Greeks also adopted the Phoenician
way of writing
• Before the Phoenicians, cuneiform
was used which required people to
hundreds of symbols
• Developed the alphabet
– A small set of letters or symbols,
each of which stands for a single
sound
– Phoenician alphabet had 22
symbols and each stood for a
consonant sound
– Greeks added letters to represent
vowels and gave the letters names
Chapter 3 Section 4 Quiz
1)
The goods made and shipped by Phoenicians to other lands are called
a)
b)
c)
d)
2)
Goods brought into a country are called
a)
b)
c)
d)
3)
trade routes
colonies
city-states
territories
What city was originally a Phoenician colony?
a)
b)
c)
d)
5)
exports
imports
natural resources
raw materials
Fertile land that attracted Phoenician farmers grew into
a)
b)
c)
d)
4)
tribute
resources
exports
imports
Rome
Athens
Carthage
Sumer
The Phoenicians developed a new way of writing known as
a)
b)
c)
d)
an alphabet
a glyph system
cuneiform
wedge shapes