Phoenicians - of Palestine, Levant - A Semitic speaking people
originating on the Arabian Peninsula. The Phoenician people had
settled in the region of Palestine, on the Mediterranean coast, since
early times. The Phoenician city of Byblos was a major trading center
for the middle east in the early first millennia BCE, in particular it
was one of the best centers for Egyptian papyrus outside of Egypt.
Other Phoenician cities include Tyre and Sidon. The Phoenicians were
prosperous due to their international trading relationships. The
Phoenicians produced many goods including glass, wine, and lumber, but
most importantly the Phoenicians were known for their production of
rare purple dies. The purple dies were so rare that they were
predominantly worn only by nobles or royalty, and this is the reason
for our modern association of purple with royalty. The Phoenicians
established an expansive empire that stretched as far as Southern
Spain and the West Coast of Africa. Despite the richness of all of
these achievements, the Phoenicians are best known for their
simplification of traditional pictographic writing systems. They
produced a 'phonetic' alphabet, in which characters have aural
representation rather than pictographic symbolism. The Phoenician
alphabet consisted of twenty-two characters, and was highly
influential in the development of modern language, including
Latin, Greek, and subsequently even English.
people
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