Phoenicia

fe-nish'a, a bit of sea coast at the eastern extremity of the Mediterranean. It lay at the foot of the Lebanon mountains. The chief cities were Tyre and Sidon. The Phoenicians appear to have been related to the Hebrews in point of language and race, but they were gross idolators. They established colonies throughout the Mediterranean region. Out of the cuneiform inscriptions of Babylonia and the hieroglyphics of Egypt they constructed the first alphabet, one of twenty-two letters. It was invented for commercial purposes--the keeping of accounts--and is the basis of our present alphabet. See Tyre; Carthage; Cadiz; Solomon

When history first reveals the Mediterranean, about 1600 B. C., it is dotted with the adventurous sails of the Phoenician navigators, and for centuries more they are the only real sailor folk. Half traders, half pirates, their crews crept from island to island, to barter with the natives or to sweep them off for slaves, as chance might best offer.

Farther and farther the Phoenician merchants daringly sought wealth on the sea, until they passed even the Pillars of Hercules, into the open Atlantic, and until at last we see them exchanging the precious tin of Britain, the yellow amber of the Baltic, and the slaves and ivory of West Africa, for the spices, gold, scented wood, and precious stones of India.--West.