BIBLE HISTORY DAILY

Who Were the Phoenicians?

Exploring the Phoenician empire

phoenicians-amrit

Amrit’s Phoenician temple in modern Syria dates to the sixth–fourth centuries B.C.E.—when the Persians controlled the region. The temple’s elevated cella in the middle of its court and surrounding colonnade are still standing. Photo: Jerzy Strzelecki/CC-by-SA-3.0.

Who were the Phoenicians? Where did they come from? Where did they live? With whom did they trade?

Ephraim Stern addresses these questions—and much more—in his article Phoenicia and Its Special Relationship with Israel,” published in the November/December 2017 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review. He explores the rise and fall of the Phoenician empire and highlights the special relationship that the Phoenicians had with their neighbors, the Israelites.

The Bible records that the Phoenicians had a close relationship with the Israelites: Their royalty married each other; they traded with each other; and, significantly, they never went to war with each other. Stern writes, “The Phoenicians were the nearest people to the ancient Israelites in every respect.”

Who were the Phoenicians? Stern identifies the Phoenicians as Canaanites who survived into the first millennium B.C.E.:

The Phoenicians were the late Canaanites of the first millennium B.C.E. (Iron Age through Roman period), descendants of the Canaanites of the second millennium B.C.E. (Middle Bronze Age through Late Bronze Age). “Phoenicians” was the name given to this people by the Greeks, but the Phoenicians continued to refer to themselves as Canaanites or by the names of their principal cities.

During the second millennium B.C.E., the Canaanites controlled Palestine, Transjordan and Syria—from Ugarit down to the Egyptian border—and they developed a rich culture. Around 1200 B.C.E., they were forced out of these countries by the Arameans and the Neo-Hittites in the north, the Israelites and the Sea Peoples (Philistines, Sikils and Sherden, etc.) in the south, and by the Ammonites, Moabites and Edomites in the east.

Between about 1200 and 1050 B.C.E., they retained control of a greatly reduced area—the narrow coastal strip of Lebanon between Arwad, Tyre and Akko. Most of the population lived in five main cities: Arwad, Byblos, Berytus, Sidon and Tyre.


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Arwad, Byblos, Berytus, Sidon and Tyre became the heartland of Phoenicia, but the Phoenicians didn’t stop there. Toward the end of the 11th century B.C.E., they began establishing colonies in the west—in Cyprus, Sicily, Sardinia, Malta, southern Spain and northern Africa. They soon had created an empire for themselves. But unlike other empires forged by war, this was an empire built on trade. Their commercial empire would last for nearly a millennium.

who-were-the-phoenicians

Phoenician Empire. The Phoenicians’ commercial empire stretched across the Mediterranean world. Map: Biblical Archaeology Society.

The Phoenicians successfully created a vast trading network, but even this could not last forever. Sharing the fate of many others, the Phoenician empire ultimately fell to Rome. Stern explains:

The heartland of Phoenicia was subjugated in turn by the Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian and Hellenistic empires, but their western colonies continued to enjoy autonomy until the second century B.C.E. The Phoenicians’ commercial empire was brought to an end by the Romans who came into conflict with the Phoenicians—whom they described as “Punics”—in a series of wars that became known as the Punic Wars. The Carthaginians had no standing army (they employed mercenaries) and relied on their fleet for defense. The Punic Wars culminated in the Roman destruction of the Punic capital, Carthage, in 146 B.C.E., thereby ending a millennium of Phoenician influence, success and power.

To learn more about the Phoenician empire, read Ephraim Stern’s article Phoenicia and Its Special Relationship with Israel in the November/December 2017 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.


BAS Library Members: Read the full article “Phoenicia and Its Special Relationship with Israel” by Ephraim Stern in the November/December 2017 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

Not a BAS Library or All-Access Member yet? Join today.


The free eBook Island Jewels: Understanding Ancient Cyprus and Crete takes you on a journey to two stunning, history-laden islands in the Mediterranean. Visit several key historical places on both islands and discover many of the great objects that have been unearthed there by archaeologists.


Learn more about the Phoenicians in Bible History Daily:

The Phoenician Alphabet in Archaeology

Biblical Sidon—Jezebel’s Hometown

What Happened to the Canaanites?

Tarshish: Hacksilber Hoards Pinpoint Solomon’s Silver Source

Did the Carthaginians Really Practice Infant Sacrifice?

Phoenician Shipwreck Located off Coast of Malta

The Samaria Ivories—Phoenician or Israelite?


This Bible History Daily feature was originally published on October 20, 2017.


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15 Responses

  1. Robert Hyer II says:

    Phoenicans created cunneiform writing, Summerian and Akkadian both lasting thousands of years before the Hebrews. The Akkadian cunneiform was used more in world trade and existed longer. Phoenicians were monotheistic in their worship of one most high God, El. Phoenicians had a myriad of lesser divine gods not unlike Hindu but one Holiest of the Holies, El, as in ISRA-EL. Phoenicans created the Kiln, a caulk used between overlapping cedar logs for ships and cedar plugs to strenghten sea vessels. Phoenicians built sea ships. Egyptians built flat-bottomed river boats made of reeds, hence they bought cedar logs from Phoenicians for their temples. Phoenicians ruled the Mediterranean and mined tin in today’s England which they mixed with copper to create Bronze. The Phoenicians were from Lebanon. Whether they were Cannanites or other tribes they congealed into a secretive, very lucrative culture who gave writing to the Mediterranen, trade and were peaceful.

  2. David says:

    RE: first comment…..So more “stolen cultural valor” for west Africans. 🙄 The education system taught by a bunch of soft subject associate and bachelor degree holders with teaching certs has failed 100%. We failed to teach people to actually study history without a sense of “rooting” for a certain side (non objective reasoning). Be careful you don’t step in it, I think the first guy is late for his appointment with a street corner pontificating BS with the rest of the “black Israelites”…

    1. Truth says:

      How tf did your comment get short clip headlined in google results saying ridiculously wrongly said Phoenicians are FROM Africa or black? They were Semitic from Israel Syria dumdum.

  3. Amah Jones says:

    The Phoenicians were a people of Canaanite origins, and the Canaanites, just like the people people of ancient Egypt, were black Africans. Black Africa is the origin of all Semitic tongues, and even today, there still exists many ethnic groups in Africa with semitic roots. Canaanites Who Were the Canaanites?

    Alice C. Linsley

    Canaan became the father of Sidon his firstborn, and Heth and the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgashites, the Hivites, the Arkites, the Sinites, the Arvadites, the Zemarites, and the Hamathites. (Gen. 10:15-18 NRSV)

    The Bible passages that speak about “the Canaanites” reflect authors who lived well after the Patriarchal Period (2200-1800 BC). In the Canaan that Abraham knew, there were many peoples and castes living in settlements and in shrine cities such as Hazor. Egypt was the dominant political power and the socio-religious context of the Canaanites was Afro-Arabian, Kushite and Nilo-Saharan. This has been demonstrated by scientific analysis drawing on the disciplines of anthropology, linguistics, archaeology and molecular genetics.

    In Genesis 10 the peoples who descend from Noah through his grandsons Sidon and Het (Heth) are said to be the original inhabitants. Noah was a Proto-Saharan chief living in the region of Lake Chad. He lived approximately 2490-2415 BC, when the Sahara experienced a wet period (Karl W. Butzer 1966). This is the period of the Old Kingdom, a time of great cultural and technological achievement. Two of his sons were Ham and Shem. The ruler-priest lines of Ham and Shem can be traced throughout the Bible. Their lines intermarried. According to Genesis 9:20-26, Noah’s curse fell upon the Canaanites. This transparent attempt to obfuscate the Kushite origins of Israel clearly entered the text long after the time of Moses the Horite. Noah’s three sons were Shem, Ham and Japheth and their lines intermarried. Therefore, if Noah cursed his grandson Canaan, the curse fell upon all his descendants.

    Israelites and Canaanites are related peoples

    In II Chronicles 8:7 and I Kings 9:20 the term “Canaanite” is used to distinguish the Israelites from the other clans living in the land. However, it is clear that the Israelites were related to these Canaanite clans. The Canaanites were blood-related Afro-Arabian peoples whose ancestry can be traced back to the Nile Valley. They were ruled by chiefs who maintained mound-city shrines throughout the land of Canaan. The Kushite peoples included Edomites, red and black Nubians, Nilotes, Egyptians, Sudra, Horites, and the Ainu. The Ainu are often regarded as the First Nation people who built Heliopolis and spread across the ancient Afro-Asiatic Dominion.
    http://jandyongenesis.blogspot.com/2012/02/who-were-canaanites.html

    1. Nico says:

      deluding yourself does not make any of it factual, sorry but youve been misled

    2. lol says:

      No they weren’t. Semitic languages came from the fertile crescent.
      Stop stealing other peoples’ cultures. Stick to bicycles

  4. Jon Smyth says:

    Jennifer wrote:
    “In fact, there is evidence from ancient literature that Phoenicians were actually Israelite”.

    If I’m not mistaken this idea (not evidence) came from one of the Greek writers (Herodotus?), who claimed the Phoenicians came from near the Red Sea.

    Thutmosis III (c.1450 BC) refers to peoples who lived between the Orontes & the Med. Sea as Fenkhu, which undoubtedly is a phonetic rendition of what we later call Phoenicians. And this was long before the coming of the Greeks.

    What should also be considered is that Amenhotep III (c. 1370 BC) inscribed a written record on several statue bases at Kom el-Hetan, of a number of cities on Crete and on the Greek mainland, identifying them as “lands of the Fenkhu”.

    We have no written record of what the ancient Greeks/Cretans called themselves, but it seems the Egyptians called them Fenkhu. And as these ancient Aegeans in the 2nd Mill. BC were known to have traded with & colonized parts of the eastern Med. it seems quite natural that their name would spread with them. Suggesting the original Fenkhu/Phoenician were Aegeans.

    1. joe says:

      t should be emphasised that in ancient Greek literature, including Homer, despite the use of the term Phoenicians, the term Sidonians is more generally employed. The interpretation of “Phoenicia” as identical with Canaan appears only in later periods (Stephen of Byzantium, Sanchoniathon) to be followed accordingly by the Church Fathers who identified Canaan with Phoenicia. Hecateustells us that “Phoenicia was formerly called Chna” (Canaan), However Philo Bybliusmentions in his Mythology “Chna who was afterwards called Phoinix”. This informs us that the name Canaan was changed to Phoenicia. Yet today it is customary to see the terms Phoenicians, Sidonians, and Canaanites as a single identity, and therefore interchangeable; which has produced the tendency to designate as “Phoenicians” the inhabitants of the region even in periods prior to the appearance of this name in history. To cite Albright, “The word ‘Canaanite’ is historically, geographically, and culturally synonymous with ‘Phoenicia'”.

      1. Amah Jones says:

        Sidon was the firstborn of Canaan, and Biblical Canaanites, just like Biblical Judeans, were black people. In case you didn’t know, there still exists in Nigeria and other parts of Africa, descendants of ancient Canaan, including those who had to flee the Ottoman Turk-dominated regions of the Arabian Peninsula and the regions that later became modern Israel.

        1. Nico says:

          so sad you have a need to view history thru a racial lens devoid of any factual basis,I bet you think Cleopatra was black as well.

  5. Jennifer Parkhurst says:

    Genetically, modern Lebanese have been demonstrated to be almost entirely of Phoenician descent. They are closely related to Jews and to those Palestinians who were living in the land when the Zionists began to settle it. Those Palestinians were largely of Jewish descent, as are their descendants. All three are Semitic. This means that Phoenicians were not related to Egyptians. In fact, there is evidence from ancient literature that Phoenicians were actually Israelite, even if they did not practice monotheism in ancient times, but instead worshipped the ancient gods and goddesses of the region. Sidon and Tyre were both cities in the territory of the tribe of Asher. The Phoenician language was very similar to classical Hebrew, and they wrote using the same alphabet. It is not surprising then that their princesses married kings of Israel (see the story of Jezebel, and Psalm 45), and that they provided the cedar and cypress wood used to build the temple in Jerusalem.

  6. C bridge says:

    So we’re the Phonecians Black??

  7. Hans F. says:

    Pheonician anecestry is linked to Assyrians, hence the neo-aramaic language spoken, same look/dna, and the Christian roots in Lebanon/Syria linking the people. Any true Christian in Lebanon is of Assyrian blood or Armenian blood. Blessed people.

  8. Darla S. says:

    I am Phonetician thru my Mother- genetically.
    There are only a few in the world who are….

  9. Roger M Pearlman says:

    per TDC while some of their subjects were, and some intermarriage, ‘Phoenicians’ such as Huram king of Tyre were Pelishtim, thus from Mizrayim and not from Canaan. but a lot of mixing and both from Cham ben Noach.
    TDC = Torah Discovery Chronology

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15 Responses

  1. Robert Hyer II says:

    Phoenicans created cunneiform writing, Summerian and Akkadian both lasting thousands of years before the Hebrews. The Akkadian cunneiform was used more in world trade and existed longer. Phoenicians were monotheistic in their worship of one most high God, El. Phoenicians had a myriad of lesser divine gods not unlike Hindu but one Holiest of the Holies, El, as in ISRA-EL. Phoenicans created the Kiln, a caulk used between overlapping cedar logs for ships and cedar plugs to strenghten sea vessels. Phoenicians built sea ships. Egyptians built flat-bottomed river boats made of reeds, hence they bought cedar logs from Phoenicians for their temples. Phoenicians ruled the Mediterranean and mined tin in today’s England which they mixed with copper to create Bronze. The Phoenicians were from Lebanon. Whether they were Cannanites or other tribes they congealed into a secretive, very lucrative culture who gave writing to the Mediterranen, trade and were peaceful.

  2. David says:

    RE: first comment…..So more “stolen cultural valor” for west Africans. 🙄 The education system taught by a bunch of soft subject associate and bachelor degree holders with teaching certs has failed 100%. We failed to teach people to actually study history without a sense of “rooting” for a certain side (non objective reasoning). Be careful you don’t step in it, I think the first guy is late for his appointment with a street corner pontificating BS with the rest of the “black Israelites”…

    1. Truth says:

      How tf did your comment get short clip headlined in google results saying ridiculously wrongly said Phoenicians are FROM Africa or black? They were Semitic from Israel Syria dumdum.

  3. Amah Jones says:

    The Phoenicians were a people of Canaanite origins, and the Canaanites, just like the people people of ancient Egypt, were black Africans. Black Africa is the origin of all Semitic tongues, and even today, there still exists many ethnic groups in Africa with semitic roots. Canaanites Who Were the Canaanites?

    Alice C. Linsley

    Canaan became the father of Sidon his firstborn, and Heth and the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgashites, the Hivites, the Arkites, the Sinites, the Arvadites, the Zemarites, and the Hamathites. (Gen. 10:15-18 NRSV)

    The Bible passages that speak about “the Canaanites” reflect authors who lived well after the Patriarchal Period (2200-1800 BC). In the Canaan that Abraham knew, there were many peoples and castes living in settlements and in shrine cities such as Hazor. Egypt was the dominant political power and the socio-religious context of the Canaanites was Afro-Arabian, Kushite and Nilo-Saharan. This has been demonstrated by scientific analysis drawing on the disciplines of anthropology, linguistics, archaeology and molecular genetics.

    In Genesis 10 the peoples who descend from Noah through his grandsons Sidon and Het (Heth) are said to be the original inhabitants. Noah was a Proto-Saharan chief living in the region of Lake Chad. He lived approximately 2490-2415 BC, when the Sahara experienced a wet period (Karl W. Butzer 1966). This is the period of the Old Kingdom, a time of great cultural and technological achievement. Two of his sons were Ham and Shem. The ruler-priest lines of Ham and Shem can be traced throughout the Bible. Their lines intermarried. According to Genesis 9:20-26, Noah’s curse fell upon the Canaanites. This transparent attempt to obfuscate the Kushite origins of Israel clearly entered the text long after the time of Moses the Horite. Noah’s three sons were Shem, Ham and Japheth and their lines intermarried. Therefore, if Noah cursed his grandson Canaan, the curse fell upon all his descendants.

    Israelites and Canaanites are related peoples

    In II Chronicles 8:7 and I Kings 9:20 the term “Canaanite” is used to distinguish the Israelites from the other clans living in the land. However, it is clear that the Israelites were related to these Canaanite clans. The Canaanites were blood-related Afro-Arabian peoples whose ancestry can be traced back to the Nile Valley. They were ruled by chiefs who maintained mound-city shrines throughout the land of Canaan. The Kushite peoples included Edomites, red and black Nubians, Nilotes, Egyptians, Sudra, Horites, and the Ainu. The Ainu are often regarded as the First Nation people who built Heliopolis and spread across the ancient Afro-Asiatic Dominion.
    http://jandyongenesis.blogspot.com/2012/02/who-were-canaanites.html

    1. Nico says:

      deluding yourself does not make any of it factual, sorry but youve been misled

    2. lol says:

      No they weren’t. Semitic languages came from the fertile crescent.
      Stop stealing other peoples’ cultures. Stick to bicycles

  4. Jon Smyth says:

    Jennifer wrote:
    “In fact, there is evidence from ancient literature that Phoenicians were actually Israelite”.

    If I’m not mistaken this idea (not evidence) came from one of the Greek writers (Herodotus?), who claimed the Phoenicians came from near the Red Sea.

    Thutmosis III (c.1450 BC) refers to peoples who lived between the Orontes & the Med. Sea as Fenkhu, which undoubtedly is a phonetic rendition of what we later call Phoenicians. And this was long before the coming of the Greeks.

    What should also be considered is that Amenhotep III (c. 1370 BC) inscribed a written record on several statue bases at Kom el-Hetan, of a number of cities on Crete and on the Greek mainland, identifying them as “lands of the Fenkhu”.

    We have no written record of what the ancient Greeks/Cretans called themselves, but it seems the Egyptians called them Fenkhu. And as these ancient Aegeans in the 2nd Mill. BC were known to have traded with & colonized parts of the eastern Med. it seems quite natural that their name would spread with them. Suggesting the original Fenkhu/Phoenician were Aegeans.

    1. joe says:

      t should be emphasised that in ancient Greek literature, including Homer, despite the use of the term Phoenicians, the term Sidonians is more generally employed. The interpretation of “Phoenicia” as identical with Canaan appears only in later periods (Stephen of Byzantium, Sanchoniathon) to be followed accordingly by the Church Fathers who identified Canaan with Phoenicia. Hecateustells us that “Phoenicia was formerly called Chna” (Canaan), However Philo Bybliusmentions in his Mythology “Chna who was afterwards called Phoinix”. This informs us that the name Canaan was changed to Phoenicia. Yet today it is customary to see the terms Phoenicians, Sidonians, and Canaanites as a single identity, and therefore interchangeable; which has produced the tendency to designate as “Phoenicians” the inhabitants of the region even in periods prior to the appearance of this name in history. To cite Albright, “The word ‘Canaanite’ is historically, geographically, and culturally synonymous with ‘Phoenicia'”.

      1. Amah Jones says:

        Sidon was the firstborn of Canaan, and Biblical Canaanites, just like Biblical Judeans, were black people. In case you didn’t know, there still exists in Nigeria and other parts of Africa, descendants of ancient Canaan, including those who had to flee the Ottoman Turk-dominated regions of the Arabian Peninsula and the regions that later became modern Israel.

        1. Nico says:

          so sad you have a need to view history thru a racial lens devoid of any factual basis,I bet you think Cleopatra was black as well.

  5. Jennifer Parkhurst says:

    Genetically, modern Lebanese have been demonstrated to be almost entirely of Phoenician descent. They are closely related to Jews and to those Palestinians who were living in the land when the Zionists began to settle it. Those Palestinians were largely of Jewish descent, as are their descendants. All three are Semitic. This means that Phoenicians were not related to Egyptians. In fact, there is evidence from ancient literature that Phoenicians were actually Israelite, even if they did not practice monotheism in ancient times, but instead worshipped the ancient gods and goddesses of the region. Sidon and Tyre were both cities in the territory of the tribe of Asher. The Phoenician language was very similar to classical Hebrew, and they wrote using the same alphabet. It is not surprising then that their princesses married kings of Israel (see the story of Jezebel, and Psalm 45), and that they provided the cedar and cypress wood used to build the temple in Jerusalem.

  6. C bridge says:

    So we’re the Phonecians Black??

  7. Hans F. says:

    Pheonician anecestry is linked to Assyrians, hence the neo-aramaic language spoken, same look/dna, and the Christian roots in Lebanon/Syria linking the people. Any true Christian in Lebanon is of Assyrian blood or Armenian blood. Blessed people.

  8. Darla S. says:

    I am Phonetician thru my Mother- genetically.
    There are only a few in the world who are….

  9. Roger M Pearlman says:

    per TDC while some of their subjects were, and some intermarriage, ‘Phoenicians’ such as Huram king of Tyre were Pelishtim, thus from Mizrayim and not from Canaan. but a lot of mixing and both from Cham ben Noach.
    TDC = Torah Discovery Chronology

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