Phoenician Sentence Examples

B.C. there were still traces of Phoenician influence (Cicero, Pro Scauro, 1 5, 4 2, 45).

The worship of the Tyrian Baal was carried to all the Phoenician colonies.'

As to the introduction of domesticated cats into Europe, the opinion is very generally held that tame cats from Egypt were imported at a relatively early date into Etruria by Phoenician traders; and there is decisive evidence that these animals were established in Italy long before the Christian era.

His strongest denunciation is directed against the religious practices of the time in Judea - the worship of the Canaanite local deities (the Baals), the Phoenician Tammuz, and the sun and other Babylonian and Assyrian gods (vi., viii., xvi., xxiii.); he maintained vigorously the prophetic struggle for the sole worship of Yahweh.

The worship of Baal of Tyre roused a small circle of zealots, and again the Phoenician marriage was the cause of the evil.

An alphabet of fifty-two letters, some presenting ancient Phoenician and Cretan forms, was found by Hahn in partial use at Elbassan and Tirana; its antiquity, however, has not been established.

The position of Rhodes as a distributing centre of Levantine and especially of Phoenician goods is well attested by archaeological finds.

Herodotus (himself a notable traveller in the 5th century B.C.) relates that the Egyptian king Necho of the XXVIth Dynasty (c. 600 B.C.) built a fleet on the Red Sea, and confided it to Phoenician sailors with the orders to sail southward and return to Egypt by the Pillars of Hercules and the Mediterranean sea.

The great Phoenician colony of Carthage, founded before 800 B.C., perpetuated the commercial enterprise of the parent state, and extended the sphere of practical trade to the ocean shores of Africa and Europe.

A Phoenician dedication to "Baal of Lebanon" found here, and dated also to the 7th century, suggests that Citium may have belonged to Tyre.

A defensive coalition was formed in which the kings of Cilicia, Hamath, the Phoenician coast, Damascus and Ammon, the Arabs of the Syrian desert, and " Ahabbu Sinai " were concerned.

The descendants of the detested Phoenician marriage were rooted out, and unless the close intercourse between Israel and Judah had been suddenly broken, it would be supposed that the new king at least laid claim to the south.

Another revolt was planned in 720 in which the province of Samaria joined with Hamath and Damascus, with the Phoenician Arpad and Simura, and with Gaza and " Egypt."

The Syriac alphabet, which derived its letters from forms ultimately akin to those of the Old Hebrew and Phoenician alphabets, has the same twenty-two letters as the Hebrew.

At this point the great trade routes met in ancient times, the one crossing from the Phoenician ports to the Persian Gulf, the other coming up from Petra and south Arabia.

This letter corresponds to the second symbol in the Phoenician alphabet, and appears in the same position in all the European alphabets, except those derived, like the Russian, from medieval Greek, in which the pronunciation of this symbol had changed from b to v.

The earliest form of the name of the symbol which we can reach is the Hebrew beth, to which the Phoenician must have been closely akin, as is shown by the Greek Oiira, which is borrowed from it with a vowel affixed.

Consequently south Palestine has been continuously " Arabized "; and indeed the whole of Syria has been characterized by racial and religious fusions, and by civilization of a singularly syncretic and derived kind, of which the ancient Phoenician is a sufficient example.

In the Phoenician coast towns are many Greeks (to be distinguished from Orthodox Syrians, called also Greeks on account of creed).

As the female counterpart of the Phoenician Baal (viewed as a sun-god), and on the testimony of late writers (Lucian, Herodian) that she was represented with horns, the place-name AshterothKarnaim in Gilead ("Ashteroth of the horns") has been considered ample proof in favour of the theory.

To nomads, Astarte may well have been a sheep-goddess, but this, if her earliest, was not her only type, as is clear from the sacred fish of Atargatis, the doves of Ascalon (and of the Phoenician sanctuary of Eryx), and the gazelle or antelope of the goddess of love (associated also with the Arabian Athtar).

In the Phoenician alphabet it takes a form closely resembling the English W, and this when moved through an angle of 90 is the ordinary Greek sigma 2.

In Phoenician itself and in the other Semitic alphabets the position of the middle legs of the W is altered so that the symbol takes such forms as or V or w, ultimately ending sometimes in a form like K laid sideways, he.

Alexander's gold coinage, indeed (possibly not struck till after the invasion of Asia), follows in weight that of Philip's staters; but he seems at once to have adopted for his silver coins (of a smaller denomination than the tetradrachm) the Euboic-Attic standard, instead of the Phoenician, which had been Philip's.

These were recent events in the time of Joash, and in like manner the Phoenician slave trade in Jewish children is carried back to an early date by the reference in Amos i.

Phoenician traders, too, visited the shores of the Laconian Gulf, and there are indications of trade at a very early period between Laconia and Crete, e.g.

It occupies the site of the ancient Adranon, which took its name from Adranos, a god probably of Phoenician origin, in Roman times identified with Vulcan, whose chief temple was situated here, and was guarded by a thousand huge gods; there are perhaps some substructures of this building still extant outside the town.

The story that Phoenician merchants found a glass-like substance under their cooking pots, which had been supported on blocks of natron, need not be discarded as pure fiction.

He taught with great regularity for upward of thirty years, the only interruptions being that of 1813-1814 (occasioned by the War of Liberation, during which the university was closed) and those occasioned by two prolonged literary tours, first in 1820 to Paris, London and Oxford with his colleague Johann Karl Thilo (1794-1853) for the examination of rare oriental manuscripts, and in 1835 to England and Holland in connexion with his Phoenician studies.

It proved to be a tomb, and the remains in it are said to be Phoenician.

Other towns of Tunisia are, on the east coast, Nabeul, pop. about 5000, the ancient Neapolis, noted for the mildness of its climate and its pottery manufactures; Hammamet with 37 00 inhabitants; Monastir (the Ruspina of the Romans), a walled town with 5600 inhabitants and a trade in cereals and oils; Mandiya or Mandia (q.v.; in ancient chronicles called the city of Africa and sometimes the capital of the country) with 8500 inhabitants, the fallen city of the Fatimites, which since the French occupation has risen from its ruins, and has a new harbour (the ancient Cothon or harbour, of Phoenician origin, cut out of the rock is nearly dry but in excellent preservation); and Gabes (Tacape of the Romans, Qabis of the Arabs) on the Syrtis, a group of small villages, with an aggregate population of 16,000, the port of the Shat country and a depot of the esparto trade.

There is an interesting Phoenician burial-ground near Mandia.

The worship was a relic of the Phoenician cult of Astarte.

The stele of Jehawmelek, king of Gebal, found here, is one of the most important of Phoenician monuments.

The inhabitants of the Phoenician Gebal and Greek Byblus were renowned as stonecutters and ship-builders.

No subsequent invader of Malta attempted to displace the Phoenician race in the country districts.

High and low, all speak among themselves the Phoenician Maltese, altogether different from the Italian language; Italian was only spoken by 13.24% in 1901.

This failed for several reasons, the foremost being that the language was not Arabic but Phoenician, and because professors and teachers, whose personal ascendancy was based on the official prominence of Italian, did not realize that educational institutions existed for the rising generation rather than to provide salaries for alien teachers and men behind the times.

Those that have been mentioned seem to have been sanctuaries (some of them in part dwelling-places), but Halsaflieni was an enormous ossuary, of which others may have existed in other parts of the island; for the numerous rock-cut tombs which are everywhere to be seen belong to the Phoenician and Roman periods.

To the Phoenician period, besides the tombs already mentioned, belong some remains of houses and cisterns, and (probably) a few round towers which are scattered about the island, while the important Roman house at Cittavecchia is the finest monument of this period in the islands.

Nothing was to be gained by displacing the Phoenician inhabitants in a country from which any race less thrifty would find life impossible by agriculture.

The Phoenician temple of Juno, which stood on the site of Fort St Angelo, is also mentioned by Valerius Maximus.

The Phoenician population had continued Christian during the mild Arab rule.

Thus a Phoenician colonist might desire to carry abroad the cult of a certain Baal or Astarte who lived in a conical stone or pillar.

Then the king attempted to subjugate Egypt, but two expeditions were unsuccessful, and, in consequence, Sidon and the other Phoenician towns, and the princes of Cyprus, rebelled against Persia and defeated the Persian generals.

The sisters of Meleager were 2 The god 'EAcoiiv was also Phoenician; see Driver, Genesis, p. 165; Lagrange, Religions Semitiques, Index, s.v.

Cirta (q.v.), his capital, became a famous centre of Phoenician civilization.

The MS. of this work, written in Phoenician characters, was said to have been found in his tomb (enclosed in a leaden box) at the time of an earthquake during the reign of Nero, by whose order it was translated into Greek.

When the prologue to Job speaks of plundering Sabaeans (and Chaldaeans) on the northern skirts of Arabia, these may be either colonists or caravans, which, like the old Phoenician and Greek traders, combined on occasion robbery with trade.

This alphabet, which is probably the parent of the South-Indian character, is undoubtedly derived from the so-called Phoenician alphabet, the connecting link being the forms of the Sala inscriptions and of the Thamudaean inscriptions found by Doughty and Euting.

In the Thamudaean and Sabaean alphabets the twenty-two original Phoenician characters are mostly similar, and so are the differentiated forms for, and?.

The Thamudaean inscriptions are locally nearer to Phoenicia, and the letters are more like the Phoenician; this character therefore appears to be the link connecting Phoenician with Sabaean writing.

In this work he for the first time systematized an old Oriental (perhaps Phoenician) method of interpreting the popular myths, asserting that the gods who formed the chief objects of popular worship had been originally heroes and conquerors, who had thus earned a claim to the veneration of their subjects.

Trading journeys were conducted with Phoenician help to Ophir and Tarshish.

It is true that childsacrifice in connexion with fire prevailed among the Phoenicians, and, according to the Greeks, the deity honoured with these grisly rites was Kronos (identified with the Phoenician El, "God").

On the other hand, the seat of the cult appears to have been at Jerusalem, and the period during which it flourished does not favour any strong Phoenician influence.

That this was what actually happened may be inferred from the fact that the Canaanite and Phoenician name for a priest (kohen) is identical with the Arabic kahin, a " soothsayer."

The Canaanite influence on the later organization of the Temple is clearly seen in the association of Temple prophets with the Temple priests under the control of the chief priest, which is often referred to by Jeremiah; even the viler ministers of sensual worship, the male and female prostitutes of the Phoenician temples, had found a place on Mt Zion and were only removed by Josiah's reformation.'

Philo Herennius of Byblus claimed to have translated his mythological writings from the Phoenician originals.

The territory of Damascus was devastated, and Jehu of Samaria (whose ambassadors are represented on the Black Obelisk now in the British Museum) sent tribute along with the Phoenician cities.

Since Phoenician intercourse was in later times supposed to have played an important part in the development of Crete, Minos is sometimes called a Phoenician.

The great spread of the Phoenician weight on the Mediterranean, of the Persian in Asia Minor and of the Assyrian in Egypt are evident cases; and that the decimal weights of the laws of Manu (43) are decidedly not Assyrian or Persian, but on exactly the Phoenician standard, is a curious evidence of trade by water and not overland.

If, as seems probable, units of length may be traced in prehistoric remains, they are of great value; at Stonehenge, for instance, the earlier parts are laid out by the Phoenician foot, and the later by the Pelasgo-Roman foot (26).

This bears strongly on the Phoenician origin of our prehistoric civilization.

The Phoenician and old Carthaginian system was (18)--

Whether this system or the Phoenician of 224 grains was that of the Hebrews is uncertain.

This whole class seems to cling to sites of Phoenician trade, and to keep clear of Greece and the north -- perhaps a Phoenician form of the 129 system, avoiding the sexagesimal multiples.

That this unit (commonly called Phoenician) is derived from the 129 system can hardly be doubted, both being so intimately associated in Syria and Asia Minor.

From the Phoenician coinage it was adopted for the Maccabean.

In Spain it was 236 to 216 in different series (17), and it is a question whether the Massiliote drachmae of 58-55 are not Phoenician rather than Phocaic. In Italy this mina became naturalized, and formed the "Italic mina" of Hero, Priscian, &c.; also its double, the mina of 26 unciae or 10,800, = 50 shekels of 216; the average of 42 weights gives 5390 (=215.6), and it was divided both into 100 drachmae, and also in the Italic mode of 12 unciae and 288 scripulae (44).

This system, the Aeginetan, one of the most important to the Greek world, has been thought to be a degradation of the Phoenician (17, 21), supposing 220 grains to have been reduced in primitive Greek usage to 194.

But we are now able to prove that it was an independent system -- (1) by its not ranging usually over 200 grains in Egypt before it passed to Greece; (2) by its earliest example, perhaps before the 224 unit existed, not being over 208; and (3) by there being no intermediate linking on of this to the Phoenician unit in the large number of Egyptian weights, nor in the Ptolemaic coinage, in which both standards are used.

In the Libra, as in most other standards, the value which happened to be first at hand for the coinage was not the mean of the whole of the weights in the country; the Phoenician coin weight is below the trade average, the Assyrian is above, the Aeginetan is below, but the Roman coinage is above the average of trade weights, or the mean standard.

The greater part of those weights which bear names indicate a mina of double the usual reckoning, so that there was a light and a heavy system, a mina of the drachma and a mina of the stater, as in the Phoenician and Assyrian weights.

Lucius Cornelius Balbus (called Major to distinguish him from his nephew) was born early in the last century B.C. He is generally considered to have been of Phoenician origin.

In 1889 he undertook excavations in the Bahrein Islands of the Persian Gulf, and found evidence that they had been a primitive home of the Phoenician race.

The Guadalquivir valley is often, in part at least, identified with the biblical Tarshish and the classical Tartessus, a famous Phoenician mart.

It is a popular disquisition on the heroes of the Trojan War in the form of a conversation between a Thracian vine-dresser on the shore of the Hellespont and a Phoenician merchant who derives his knowledge from the hero Protesilaus, Palamedes is exalted at the expense of Odysseus, and Homer's unfairness to him is attacked.

Thus 401vt came to mean a " date-palm "; but the date-palm is not in the least characteristic of Phoenicia, and can hardly grow there; 401vt in this sense has no connexion with the original meaning of Phoenician.

Thus Shalmaneser completed the conquests of his predecessor on the Phoenician coast, and established a supremacy which lasted for over a hundred years and was acknowledged by occasional payments of tribute.

If this dating is correct, and the Phoenician sea-power was at its height during these years, we can understand why Tyre gave so much trouble to the Assyrian kings.'

Some of the Phoenician chiefs, among them Ithobal II., the new king of Tyre, while forced to yield to a change of masters, were bold enough to declare their hostility to the Babylonians.

At this point it is convenient to mention what little is known about the constitution of the Phoenician states.

For the time Tyre lost its political existence, while the foundation of Alexandria presently changed the lines of trade, and dealt a blow even more fatal to the Phoenician cities.

Among the Phoenician states we know most about Sidon during this period.

Of the other Phoenician cities something is known of the history of Aradus.

During the Macedonian period Greek influences had been steadily gaining ground in Phoenicia; relations with the Greek world grew closer; the native language fell into disuse, and from the beginning of the Roman occupation Greek appears regularly in inscriptions and on coins, though on the latter Phoenician legends do not .entirely vanish till the 2nd century A.D.; while the extent to which Hellenic ideas penetrated the native traditions and mythologies is seen in the writings of Philo of Byblus.

To the great powers Phoenician ships and sailors were indispensable; Sennacherib, Psammetichus and Necho, Xerxes, Alexander, all in turn employed them for their transports and sea-fights.

Recent discoveries in Crete have brought to light the existence of a Cretan or " Minoan " sea-power of remote antiquity, and it is clear that a great deal of what used to be described as Phoenician must receive quite a different designation.

In Egypt the Phoenician merchants soon gained a foothold; they alone were able to maintain a profitable trade in the anarchic times of the XXIInd and XXIIIrd Dynasties (825-650 B.C.), when all other foreign merchants were frightened away.

But the Phoenician rule was not so ancient as used to be supposed.

But a great deal of what was formerly assigned to Phoenician influence in the Aegean at an early period - pottery, ornaments and local myths - must be accounted for by the vigorous civilization of ancient Crete.

A large part of North-west Africa was colonized from Phoenicia; owing to these first settlers, and after them to the Carthaginians, the Phoenician language became the prevailing one, just as Latin and Arabic did in later times, and the country assumed quite a Phoenician character.

The invention of these various arts and industries was popularly ascribed to the Phoenicians, no doubt merely because Phoenician traders brought the products into the market.

Remains of sculpture, engraved bronzes and gems, show clearly the source to which the Phoenician artists went for inspiration; for example, the uraeus-frieze and the winged disk, the ankh or symbol of life, are Egyptian designs frequently imitated.

It was in the times of the Persian monarchy that Phoenician art reached its highest development, and to this period belong the oldest sculptures and coins that have come down to us.

The finest sarcophagi that have been found in the necropolis of Sidon (now in the Imperial Museum, Constantinople) are not Phoenician at all, but exquisite specimens of Greek art.

Besides busts and figurines, which belong as a rule to the Greek period, the smaller objects usually found are earthen pitchers and lamps, glass-wares, tesserae and gems. Of buildings which can be called architectural few specimens now exist on Phoenician soil, for the reason that for ages the inhabitants have used the ruins as convenient quarries.

With regard to the plan and design of a Phoenician temple, it is probable that they were in many respects similar to those of the temple at Jerusalem, and the probability is confirmed by the remains of a sanctuary near Amrit, in which there is a cella standing in the midst of a large court hewn out of the rock, together with other buildings in an Egyptian style.

Hill, Church Quarterly Rev. (April 1908), pp. 118-141, who specially emphasizes the evidence of the Phoenician coins.

The worship of the female along with the male principle was a strongly marked feature of Phoenician religion.

The mistress of Gebal was no doubt `Ashtart (Astarte in Greek, `Ashtoreth in the Old Testament, pronounced with the vowels of bosheth, " shame "), a name which is obviously connected with the Babylonian Ishtar, and, as used in Phoenician, is practically the equivalent of " goddess."

It cannot, however, be taken seriously as an account of genuine Phoenician beliefs.

In its earliest form it was no doubt most closely allied to the Canaanite or Phoenician stock, to the language of Moab, as revealed by the stele of Mesha (c. 850 B.C.), and to Edomite.

Not far from the town are the remains of what is believed to be a Phoenician city, Shammish, mentioned by Idrisi, who makes no allusion to Laraish.

The nationality of Thales is certainly Greek and not Phoenician.

Of the objects found in the oldest graves, and supposed to date from about the 7th century B.C., the cups of silver and silver-gilt and most of the gold and amber jewelry are Phoenician (possibly Carthaginian), or at least made on Phoenician models; but the bronzes and some of the ivory articles seem to.

Verse 20 anticipates that the exiles from northern Israel will occupy Phoenician territory, whilst those from Jerusalem "which are in Sepharad" will occupy the southern districts in the Messianic restoration.

In Manetho's list of kings, the six above named (with many variations in detail) form the XVth dynasty, and are called "six foreign Phoenician kings."

In later times Sicily was ruled by Spanish kings, both alone and in union with other kingdoms. The connexion with Africa has consisted simply in the settlement of conquerors from Africa at two periods, first Phoenician, then Saracen.

Thus the Roman occupation of Sicily ended the struggle between Greek and Phoenician.

The Phoenician, whether from old Phoenicia or from Carthage, came from lands which were mere strips of sea-coast with a boundless continent behind them.

So did the Greek of Asia, though he had, like the Phoenician, a vast continent behind him.

In Sicily therefore the Greek became more continental, and the Phoenician became more insular.

The Phoenician element ran an opposite course, as the independent Phoenician settlements in Sicily sank into dependencies of Carthage.

Phoenician life gradually died out.

They had considerable towns, as Segesta and Eryx, and the history, as well as the remains, of Segesta, shows that Greek influences prevailed among them very early, while at Eryx Phoenician influence was stronger.

Of Phoenician occupation there are two, or rather three, marked periods.

We must always remember that Carthage - the new city - was one of settle-'' the latest of Phoenician foundations, and that the days of the Carthaginian dominion show us only the latest form of Phoenician life.

Phoenician settlement in Sicily began before Carthage became great, perhaps before Carthage came into being.

On the whole, setting aside the impassable barrier between Greek and Phoenician, other distinctions of race within the island were breaking down through the spread of the Hellenic element, but among the Greek cities themselves the distinction between the Dorian and the Ionian or Chalcidian settlements was still keenly felt.

The Phoenician possessions in Sicily now stretched across the island from Himera to Selinus.

His only bright side is his championship of Hellas against the Phoenician, and this is balanced by his settlements of barbarian mercenaries in several Greek cities.

Dionysius took the Phoenician stronghold of Motye; but Himilco recovered it, destroyed Messana, founded the hill-town of Tauromenium above Naxos for Sicels who had joined him, defeated the fleet of Dionysius off Catana and besieged Syracuse.

He took the Sicel Cephaloedium (Cefalu), and even the old Phoenician border-fortress of Solous was betrayed to him.

Dionysius, now free from Phoenician warfare, gave his mind to enterprises which raised his power to its greatest height.

In Latin the one name Siculi takes in all the inhabitants of the island; no distinction is drawn between Greek and Sicel, or even between Greek and Phoenician cities.

Inscriptions too from Sicel and Phoenician cities are commonly Greek, even when they commemorate men with Phoenician names, coupled perhaps with Greek surnames.

Gaiseric (429-477) subdued the great islands for which Roman and Phoenician had striven.

The second Semitic conquest of Sicily began in 827 at Mazzara on the old border of Greek and Phoenician.

The Phoenician element seems to have been dominant in the island when Evagoras made himself king of Salamis in 412, and restored Hellenism with a strong hand.

One may notice the great part taken by natives of the Phoenician cities in the history of later Greek philosophy, and in the poetic movement of the last century B.C., which led to fresh cultivation of the epigram.

It is impossible to say at what period Phoenician traffic by sea with Egypt began, but it existed as early as the IIIrd Dynasty.

In the next year Tethmosis revisited the Phoenician ports, chastised the rebellious and received the tribute of Syria, all the while preparing for further advance, which did not take place until another year had gone by.

Smendes had trading ships in the Phoenician ports, but even his influence was not greater than that of other commercial or pirate centres, while Hrihor was of no account except in so far as he might pay well for the cedar wood he required.

Nechos reign a Phoenician ship despatched from Egypt actually circumnavigated Africa, and the attempt was made to complete a canal through the Wadi Tumilat, which connected the Mediterranean and Red Seas by way of the Lower Egyptian Nile.

Of its coins the most ancient bear the Phoenician inscription abdrt with the head of Heracles (Melkarth) and a tunny-fish; those of Tiberius (who seems to have made the place a colony) show the chief temple of the town with two tunny-fish erect in the form of columns.

In Phoenician commerce salt and salt fish - the latter a valued delicacy in the ancient world - always formed an important item.

Though there is no direct evidence of this connexion, enormous numbers of tumuli, probably of Phoenician origin, exist on the Bahrein Is., which also contain tumuli of Babylonian age.

It has been by some connected with the Hebrew and Phoenician mahur, western.

The trade with these regions was probably at this period in Phoenician hands, but we know that at a later time a considerable portion of the supply was carried overland through Gaul to Massilia.

There Alcibiades met the satrap Tissaphernes in 411 B.C., and thence succeeded in getting the Phoenician fleet, intended to co-operate with Sparta, sent back home.

Although cuneiform was used, the Palestinian letters show that the native language, as in the case of earlier proper-names, was most nearly akin to the later " Canaanite " (Hebrew, Moabite and Phoenician).

It is to be observed, however, that the meaning of geographical and ethnical terms for culture in general must be properly tested - the term " Phoenician " is a conspicuous case in point.

Phoenician aid was enlisted to build it, and the Egyptian analogies to the construction accord with the known influence of Egypt upon Phoenician art.

In spite of a history of foreign conquest - Phoenician, Greek, Roman, Vandal, Arab and French - the Berber physical type and the Berber temperament and nationality have persisted since the stone age.

Constantine, or, as it was orginally called, Cirta or Kirtha, from the Phoenician word for a city, was in ancient times one of the most important towns of Numidia, and the residence of the kings of the Massyli.

The Ophites actually identified the serpent with Sophia (" Wisdom "); the old sage Garga, one of the fathers of Indian astronomy, owed his learning to the serpent-god Sesha Naga; and the Phoenician 14pwv 'Ocbiwv wrote the seven tablets of fate which were guarded by Harmonia.

Carthage, indeed, chief of the Phoenician settlements, sent forth colonies to defend her conquests and strengthen her military power; and these subcolonies naturally remained in strict subjection to her power, whereas the other young Phoenician states assumed and asserted entire independence.

The resemblances between some Egyptian symbols and some symbols of the Phoenician alphabet are striking; in other cases the differences are no less remarkable.

Egyptologists are at variance on the question whether this alphabet was the original, or had any influence upon the development of the Phoenician alphabet.

On the other hand, Professor Spiegelberg, 3 writing soon after Professor Breasted, says that investigation has not as yet furnished proof that the Phoenician alphabet is of Egyptian origin, though he admits that in some respects the development of the two alphabets, both without vowel signs, is curiously parallel.

Though the chronology of the period is somewhat uncertain, the date must be in the first half of the 9th century B.C. It is to be remembered, however, that important as this monument is for the development of the alphabet, and because it can be dated with tolerable accuracy, the dialect and alphabet of Moab are not in themselves proof for the Phoenician forms which influenced the peoples of the Aegean, and through them Western Europe.

The fragment of a bronze bowl discovered in Cyprus in 1876, which bears round its edge an inscription dedicating it to BaalLebanon as a gift from a servant of Hiram, king of the Sidonians, is probably the oldest Phoenician document which we possess.

As already mentioned, the twenty-two symbols of the Phoenician alphabet indicate consonantal sounds only.

The Phoenician alphabet possessed many more aspirates than were required in Greek, which tended more and more to drop all its aspirates.

The discovery of a large number of very archaic inscriptions in the island of Thera, which was made by Freiherr Hiller von Gartringen in 1896, has shown that the earliest Greek - alphabet was even more like the Phoenician than had of been heretofore believed.

Unfortunately, as yet no record is preserved which can with any probability be dated earlier than the 7th century B.e., and the Phoenician influence had by then nearly ceased.

The Dorians apparently were without an alphabet, and consequently when Phoenician traders and pirates occupied the place left vacant by the downfall of Minos's empire, the people of the island, and of the sea coasts generally, adopted from them the Phoenician alphabet.'

That the alphabet was borrowed and adapted independently by different places not widely separated, and that the earliest Greek alphabets did not spread from one or a few centres in Greek lands, seem clear (a) from the different Greek sounds for which the Phoenician symbols were utilized; (b) from the different symbols which were employed to represent sounds which the Phoenicians did not possess, and for which, therefore, they had no symbols.

The Phoenician alphabet was an alphabet of consonants only, but all Greek alphabets as yet known agree in employing A, E, I, 0, Y as vowels.

In the Phoenician alphabet Zain was the seventh letter, occupying the same position and having the same form approximately (i) as the early Greek Z, while in pronunciation it was a voiced s-sound; Samech () followed the 'symbol for n of and was the ordinary s-sound, though, as we have seen, e it is in different Greek states at the earliest period as well as E; after the symbol for p came Zade (v), which was a strong palatal s, though in name it corresponds to the Greek Nra; while lastly Shin (W) follows the symbol for r, and was an sh-sound.

The Greek name for the sibilant (clyFca) may simply mean the hissing letter and be a derivative from vi j"co; many authorities, however, hold that it is a corruption of the Phoenician Samech.

This would bring it into connexion with the Phoenician W (Shin), which, turned through a right angle, is possibly the Greek, though some forms of Zade on old Hebrew coins and gems equally resemble the Greek letter.

For the history of the additional symbols which are not Phoenician, we must begin with y.

But the Phoenician form corresponding to it is the consonant w, and occupies the of position of the Greek digamma as sixth in the series.

On the other hand, if we remember the large number of symbols belonging to the prehistoric script, it will seem at least as easy to believe that the persons who, by adding new letters to the Phoenician alphabet, attempted to bring the symbols more into accordance with the sounds of the Greek language, may have borrowed from this older script.

But it is not probable that the Ionic and Phoenician developed independently from the closed form.

Of the later development of Phoenician amongst Phoenician people little need be said here.

While the Phoenician alphabet was thus fertile in developing daughter alphabets in the West, the progress of writing was no less great in the East, first among the Semitic peoples, and through them among other peoples still more remote.

Next in date amongst Semitic records of the Phoenician type to the bowl of Baal-Lebanon and the Moabite stone comes the Hebrew inscription found in the tunnel at the Pool of Siloam in 1881, which possibly dates back to the reign of Hezekiah (700 B.C.).

It is noticeable that the changes thus established were made upon the basis of the old Sabaean script, which in its oldest form is evidently closely related to the old Phoenician, though it would be premature to say that the Sabaean alphabet is derived from the Phoenician.

In 1850 Spano excavated many Phoenician tombs; they are rectangular or square chambers cut in the rock, measuring from 6 to 9 ft.

The objects, like those found at Sulcis, show considerable traces of Egyptian influence, but are probably all of Phoenician importation - the theory of the existence of Egyptian colonies in Sardinia being quite inadmissible.

Bochart was a man of profound erudition; he possessed a thorough knowledge of the principal Oriental languages, including Hebrew, Syriac, Chaldaic and Arabic; and at an advanced age he wished to learn Ethiopic. He was so absorbed in his favourite study, that he saw Phoenician and nothing but Phoenician in everything, even in Celtic words, and hence the number of chimerical etymologies which swarm in his works.

The fact that the Phoenician Vau was retained in the Greek alphabets, and the vowel v added, shows that when the alphabet was introduced the sound denoted by was still in full vigour.

In the Phoenician alphabet a sibilant Zade (Tzaddi) stands between q and p. Hence Q is the nineteenth letter in the Phoenician alphabet, the eighteenth in the Greek numerical alphabet, which alone contains it, the sixteenth (owing to the omission of 8 and E) in the Latin, and (from the addition of J) the seventeenth in the English alphabet.

There is hardly room to doubt that we have here a tradition of human sacrifice in connexion with the worship of the Phoenician Baal (Zeus Atabyrius) such as prevailed at Rhodes; when misfortune threatened Rhodes the brazen bulls in.

There is, however, nothing in this period which can be ascribed to specifically " Phoenician " influence; the only traces of writing are in a variety of the Aegean script.

But there is at present no clear proof of Phoenician or other Semitic activity in Cyprus until the last years of the 8th century.

Citium, the principal Phoenician state, does not appear by name; but is usually recognized in the list under its Phoenician title Karti-hadasti, " new town."

In Citium and Idalium, on the other hand, a Phoenician dialect and alphabet were in use from the time of Sargon onward.'

Gem-engraving and jewelry follow similar lines; pottery-painting for the most part remains geometrical throughout, with crude survivals of Mycenaean curvilinear forms. Those Aegean influences, however, which had been predominant in the later Bronze Age, and had never wholly ceased, revived, as Hellenism matured and spread, and slowly repelled the mixed Phoenician orientalism.

In 1879 the British government used the acropolis of Citium (Larnaca) to fill up the ancient harbour; and from the destruction a few Phoenician inscriptions and a proto-Ionic capital were saved.

In later times the story of a Phoenician immigrant of that name became current, to whom was ascribed the introduction of the alphabet, the invention of agriculture and working in bronze and of civilization generally.

It was here that the superb Greek sarcophagi, which are now in the Imperial Museum at Constantinople, were found, and the sarcophagi of the two Sidonian kings Eshmunazar (Louvre) and Tabnith (Imperial Museum, Constantinople), both of them with important Phoenician inscriptions.

The Tell el-Amarna tablets found in Upper Egypt in 1887 are a series of despatches in cuneiform script from Babylonian kings and Phoenician and Palestinian governors to the Pharaohs (c. 1400 B.C.).

But the results of the saner researches of Randall Maclver, announced first at the South Africa meeting of the British Association (1905) and later communicated to the Royal Geographical Society, have robbed these structures of much of their glamour; from being the centres of Phoenician and Hebrew industry they have sunk to be mere magnified kraals, not more than three or four hundred years old.

As the first founder was of Phoenician descent, so he drew most of his adherents from the countries which were the seat of Hellenistic (as distinct from Hellenic) civilization; nor did Stoicism achieve its crowning triumph until it was brought to Rome, where the grave earnestness of the national character could appreciate its doctrine, and where for two centuries or more it was the creed, if not the philosophy, of all the best of the Romans.

Mandia occupies the site of a Phoenician settlement and by some authorities is identified with the town called Turris Hannibalis by the Romans.

It was the centre of the Phoenician trade in Sicily.

The Menippus whom Varro imitated lived in the first half of the 3rd century B.C., and was born a Phoenician slave.

There seems little doubt that the cult of Melicertes was of foreign, probably Phoenician, origin, and introduced by Phoenician navigators on the coasts and islands of the Aegean and Mediterranean.

He is a native of Boeotia, where Phoenician influences were strong; at Tenedos he was propitiated by the sacrifice of children, which seems to point to his identity with Melkart.

Melicertes being Phoenician, Palaemon also has been explained as the "burning lord" (Baal-haman), but there seems little in common between a god of the sea and a god of fire.

Similar forms are also found in early Aramaic, but another form 1 or L, which is found in the Phoenician of Cyprus in the 9th or 10th century B.C. has had more effect upon the later development of the Semitic forms. The length of the two back strokes and the manner in which they join the upright are the only variations in Greek.

Phoenician names are found cut both on cylinder matrices and on scarabs by the Phoenician engravers employed in Assyria and Egypt; and, when the cone-shaped matrix superseded the cylinder in Western Asia, the Phoenicians conformed to the change.

Spano, from all parts of the island, and belonging to the prehistoric, Phoenician and Roman periods.

Within these mounds are two-chambered sepulchres, built of huge slabs of limestone, several of which have been opened and examined by Durand, Bent and others, and found to contain relics of undoubted Phoenician design.

The exploitation of tin in the south-west is commonly referred back to the time of the Phoenician sea-traders, and in the first half of the 13th century England supplied Europe with this metal.

Inasmuch as several well-marked races of mankind, such as the Egyptian, Phoenician, Ethiopian, &c., were much the same three or four thousand years ago as now, their variation from a single stock in the course of any like period could hardly be accounted for without a miracle.

Among the Semitic peoples (with the notable exception of the Hebrews) a supreme female deity was worshipped under different names - the Assyrian Ishtar, the Phoenician Ashtoreth (Astarte), the Syrian Atargatis (Derketo), the Babylonian Belit (Mylitta), the Arabian Ilat (Al-ilat).

The worship of Aphrodite at an early date was introduced into Cyprus, Cythera and Crete by Phoenician colonists, whence it spread over the whole of Greece, and as far west as Italy and Sicily.

The function of Aphrodite as the patroness of courtesans represents the most degraded form of her worship as the goddess of love, and is certainly of Phoenician or Eastern origin.

Owing to the paucity of Phoenician remains the topography of the town and its surroundings is still obscure.

In the time of Josephus it seems that the light shekel weighed from 210 to 210.55 grains; the heavy shekel was twice that amount, which is practically identical with the Phoenician weight (224.4 grains).

The name (Yah[weh] " hides" or " treasures "; there is a similar Phoenician compound of Baal) is borne by various individuals, in Jer.

There is no record of any Greek colonies in that part of Sicily, and Panormus certainly was Phoenician as far back as history can carry us.

Like the other Phoenician colonies in the west, Panormus came under the power of Carthage, and became the head of the Carthaginian dominion in Sicily.

The Phoenician and Greek antiquities in the museum do not belong to the city itself.

In the time of the first crusades the main power was in the hands of the Arslan family, which, however, suffered so severely in wars with the Franks, that it was superseded by the Tnuhs, who, holding Beirut and nearly all the Phoenician coast, came into conflict with the sultans of Egypt.

Philippeville occupies the site of successive Phoenician and Roman cities.

In Phoenician mythology, one of the sons of Uranus is named Baetylus.

On the other hand, on a gem of Phoenician style found at Curium in Cyprus there appear two male (bearded) sphinxes, with the tree of life between them.

The story may be contrasted with the Phoenician account of the sacrifice by Cronos (to be identified with El) of his only son, which practically justified the horrid custom.

The name appears to be of Phoenician origin, signifying the "great" gods, and the Cabeiri seem to have been deities of the sea who protected sailors and navigation, as such often identified with the Dioscuri, the symbol of their presence being St Elmo's fire.

Between N and 0 the Phoenician and the Ionic Greek alphabet have a sibilant - in Greek = x.

The Hebrew and probably the Phoenician name for 0 was Ain (Ayin), and in the Semitic alphabet, which does not indicate vowels, the symbol stood for a "voiced glottal stop" and also for a "voiced velar spirant" (Zimmern).

The inter-relations of the Phoenicians with the early Hellenes were frequent and farreaching, and in the Greek presentation of the legends concerning constellations a distinct Phoenician, and in turn Euphratean, element appears.

One of the earliest examples of Greek literature extant, the Theogonia of Hesiod (c. Boo B.C.), appears to be a curious blending of Hellenic and Phoenician thought.

Further support is given to the view that, in the main, the constellations were transmitted to the Greeks by the Phoenicians from Euphratean sources in the fact that Thales, the earliest Greek astronomer of any note, was of Phoenician descent.

The mission proved fruitful in Phoenician inscriptions which Renan published in his Mission de Phenicie.

Sidon and other Phoenician cities were captured, but Tyre held out, while its king Lulia (Elulaeus) fled to Cyprus.

A few years later he had a fleet of ships built near Birejik on the Euphrates by his Phoenician captives; these were manned by Ionians and transported from Opis overland to the Euphrates and so to the Persian Gulf.

Latin and the modern Roman alphabet were also adapted from the Phoenician alphabet (and then from the Greek ).

The Phoenician homeland was a loose confederation of half a dozen cities along the coast of Lebanon.

The tablets from Ugarit were found to have been written in an alphabetic cuneiform that might have preceded the Phoenician alphabet.

Cult objects found in Dor included clay statuettes of both local and Greek styles pertaining to the Phoenician cults of Baal and Astarte.

In Spain they heard of Ireland, perhaps from Phoenician traders.

The sea power of the Greek communities on the coast of Asia Minor and in the Archipelago began to be a formidable rival to the Phoenician soon after the time of Hanna and Himilco, and peculiar interest attaches to the first recorded Greek Greeks.

That this was still a recent settlement in the 7th century is suggested by an allusion in a list of the allies of Assur-bani-pal of Assyria in 668 B.C. to a King Damasu of Kartihadasti (Phoenician for "New-town"), where Citium would be expected.

In the Phoenician alphabet the earliest forms are or more rounded The rounded form appears also in the earliest Aramaic (see ALPHABET).

The history of Tunisia begins for us with the establishment of the Phoenician colonies (see Phoenicia and Carthage).

The text of the Old 'Testament consists of consonants only, for the alphabet of the ancient Hebrews, like that of their Moabite, Aramaean and Phoenician neighbours, contained no vowels; the text of the interpretation consists of vowels and accents only - for vowel signs and accents had been invented by Jewish scholars between the 5th and 9th centuries A.D.; the text of the Old Testament -is complete in itself and intelligible, though ambiguous; but the text of the interpretation read by itself is unintelligible, and only becomes intelligible when read with the consonants (under, over, or in which they are inserted) of the text of the Old Testament.

A comparison between Phoenician and Hebrew reveals close resemblances both in grammatical forms and in vocabulary; in some respects older features have been preserved in Phoenician, others are later, others again are peculiar to the dialect; many words poetic or rare or late in Hebrew are common in Phoenician.

The history of this period is mainly a history of Tyre, which not only rose to a sort of hegemony among the Phoenician states, but founded colonies beyond the seas (below).

For Sanchuniathon is a mere literary fiction; and Philo's treatment is vitiated by an obvious attempt to explain the whole system of religion on the principles of Euhemerus, an agnostic who taught the traditional mythology as primitive history, and turned all the gods and goddesses into men and women; and further by a patriotic desire to prove that Phoenicia could outdo Greece in the venerable character of its traditions, that in fact Greek mythology was simply a feeble and distorted version of the Phoenician.'

He is said by Herodotus and others to have been of Phoenician extraction, but the more common account (see Diogenes Laertius) is that he was a native Milesian of noble birth.

About this time the duplicity of Tissapherneswho having again and again promised a Phoenician fleet and having actually brought it to the Aegean finally dismissed it on the excuse of trouble in the Levant - and the vigorous honesty of Pharnabazus definitely transferred the Peloponnesian forces to the north-west coast of Asia Minor and the Hellespont.

It may, however, be considered as fairly established that Pytheas made a voyage round the western coasts of Europe, proceeding from Gades, the great Phoenician emporium, and probably the farthest point familiar to the Greeks, round Spain and Gaul to the British Islands, and that he followed the eastern coast of Britain for a considerable distance to the north, obtaining information as to its farther extension in that direction which led him greatly to exaggerate its size.

In this case the borrowing of the Greek alphabet must long precede any Phoenician record we possess.

A few chance finds of vases, inscriptions and coins; of a hoard of silver bowls at Dali (anc. Idalium) 7 in 1851; and of a bronze tablet with Phoenician and Cypriote bilingual inscriptions, 8 also at Dali, and about the same time, had raised questions of great interest as to the art and the language of the ancient inhabitants.

In 476 Phrynichus was successful with the Phoenissae, so called from the Phoenician women who formed the chorus, which celebrated the defeat of Xerxes at Salamis (480).

Originally derived by the Hittites from Babylonia, but modified by themselves, this standard was passed on to the nations of Asia Minor during the period of Hittite conquest, but was eventually superseded by the Phoenician mina of 11,225 grains, and continued to survive only in Cyprus and Cilicia (see also Numismatics).

The ivory figures, however, found by Hogarth on the level of the earliest temple of Artemis show Asiatic influence, and resemble the so-called "Phoenician" ivories from the palace of Sargon at Calah (Nimrud).

In any case the Phoenician settlements are the earliest of which we have any accurate knowledge.

As Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Judicium de Thucydide, c. 23) distinctly states that the work current in his time under the name of Cadmus was a forgery, it is most probable that the two first are identical with the Phoenician Cadmus, who, as the reputed inventor of letters, was subsequently transformed into the Milesian and the author of an historical work.

In this connexion it should be observed that the old Milesian nobles traced their descent back to the Phoenician or one of his companions.

Canaan (Palestine and the south Phoenician coast land) and Amor (Lebanon district and beyond) were under the constant supervision of Egypt, and Egyptian officials journeyed round to collect tribute, to attend to complaints, and to assure themselves of the allegiance of the vassals.

Phoenician artificers were enlisted for the purpose, and with Phoenician sailors successful trading-journeys were regularly undertaken.

It thus appears that a highly developed system of writing existed in Minoan Crete some two thousand years earlier than the first introduction under Phoenician influence of Greek letters.

Newton demonstrated these to be no strayed Phoenician products.

There are some traditions of a Phoenician occupation of Melos.

During the Roman period the ancient Carthaginians of Phoenician origin and the bastard population termed by ancient authors Libyo-Phoenicians, like the modern Maltese, invariably formed the predominant population of the towns on the littoral, and retained the Punic language until the 6th century of the Christian era.

Equally perplexing is the Egyptian style on the Phoenician statue, ib.

At Rome he was educated like a free man in the house of Terentius Lucanus, a senator, by whom he was soon emancipated; whereupon he took his master's nomen Terentius, and thenceforward his name was Publius Terentius Afer, of which the last member seems to imply that he was not a Phoenician (Poenus) by blood.

Indeed, Hebrew, unlike Assyrian or Phoenician, has no distinctive form for " goddess."