Phenicia
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
in ancient geography, in the largest sense, a narrow strip of country extending nearly the whole a length of the E. coast of the Mediterning of her wings, and so consumed herranean Sea, from Antioch to the borders self; but from the ashes she sprang up of Egypt. But Phœnicia proper was in- , in cluded between the cities of Laodicea the phenix is depicted as an emblem of Syria, and Tyre, comprehending mainly and the territories of Tyre and Sidon, represented in coat-armor in flames. forming then only a a part pa of the country conquered of Canaan. Before Joshua extreme rarity or excellence. Palestine, this country was possessed by Canaanites, sons of Ham, divided into 11 families, of which the most powerful of was that of Canaan, the founder Sidon, and head of the Canaanites, whom A colony the Greeks named Phœnicians. , setof Phoenicians, led by Elissa or Dido and founded tled in Africa 878 B. C., was in- CARTHAGE (q. v.). Phœnicia of Asvaded by Shalmaneser IV., King , King syria 723 B. c.; by Nebuchadnezzar Cyrus, King of Babylon, 587 B. C.; and by of Persia, 536 B. C. The Phoenicians subthe Persians in their sequently assisted wars with the Greeks, and sustained a total defeat from Cimon, om Cimon, at the naval battle of the Eurymedon, 466 B. C. They revolted from Persia 352 b. c., and were conquered by Alexander III. (the Great) 331 B. C. After his death, 323 B. C., dominions Phœnicia was annexed to the of Ptolemy (I.) Soter, King of Egypt. It was seized by Antigonus of Phrygia, 315 B. C., and passed under the protectorate of Tigranes I., King of Armenia B. c. It formed prived of all its liberties by Augustus, 20 b. c.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Collier's account of 1921 rested largely on the Bible and on Greek writers: the Phoenicians were Canaanites, sons of Ham, and Dido founded Carthage in 878 BC. Excavation has since supplied a documentary record the 1921 editors did not have, above all the discovery in 1928 of Ras Shamra, ancient Ugarit, on the Syrian coast, whose alphabetic cuneiform tablets opened up the Canaanite world from which Phoenician culture grew; Byblos was also systematically dug from the 1920s. The old racial genealogy of Ham's descendants has gone, replaced by the recognition that Phoenician was a Northwest Semitic language and its speakers the coastal continuation of Bronze Age Canaanite society, and that their greatest export was the consonantal alphabet the Greeks adapted. More recently scholars have questioned whether the Phoenicians thought of themselves as one people at all, the name being largely a Greek label for the separate city states of Tyre, Sidon, Byblos and Arwad, which now lie in Lebanon and Syria.
Written for this edition, 2026.