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Updated: May 8, 2025
And, as we are told in that fine work 'Kypros, the Bible, and Homer: Oriental Civilisation, Art and Religion in ancient times, "The oldest extant Phoenician inscriptions, themselves the earliest examples of letters properly so called, come from Cyprus." As, moreover, when face to face with the relics of the Phoenicians we are, as Dr.
We have already noticed the advantageous situation of Egypt for navigation and commerce: in some respects it was preferable to that of Phoenicia; for besides the immediate vicinity of the Mediterranean, a sea, the shores of which were so near to each other that they almost prevented the possibility of the ancients, rude and ignorant as they were of all that related to navigation and the management of ships, deviating long or far from their route; besides the advantages of a climate equally free from the clouded skies, long nights and tempestuous weather of more northern regions, and from the irresistible hurricanes of those within the tropics besides these favourable circumstances, which, the Egyptians enjoyed in common with the Phoenicians, they had, running far into their territory, a river easily navigable, and at no great distance from this river, and bounding their country, a sea almost equally favourable for navigation and commerce as the Mediterranean.
It was probably under these circumstances, when Athens owed the recovery of her greatness in no small measure to the Phoenicians, that those relations of friendship and intimacy were established between the two peoples of which we have evidence in several inscriptions. Phoenicians settled in Attica, particularly at Phalerum and the Piraeus, and had their own places of worship and interment.
We have seen that, as early as the time of Shalmaneser, the Assyrians ventured themselves in ships, and, in conjunction with the Phoenicians of the mainland, engaged the vessels of the Island Tyre. It is probable that the precedent thus set was followed by later kings, and that both Sargon and Sennacherib had had the permanent, or occasional services of a fleet on the Mediterranean.
It is not certain, however, that the helix, though abounding in the Eastern Mediterranean, ever attracted the notice of the Phoenicians. The molluscs needed by the Phoenician dyers were not obtained without some difficulty. As the Mediterranean has no tides, it does not uncover its shores at low water like the ocean, or invite man to rifle them.
This temple was revered throughout Western Asia and attracted throngs of pilgrims. It could be said without exaggeration that outside Pi-Bast thirty thousand strangers camped daily, Arabs, Phoenicians, Jews, Philistines, Hittites, Assyrians, and others.
Otherwise, the markets would soon have been closed against them, and, in lieu of the peaceful commerce which the Phoenicians always affected, would have sprung up along the shores of the Mediterranean a general feeling of distrust and suspicion, which would have led on to hostile encounters, surprises, massacres, and then reprisals.
Herodotus, who admires the learning of the Persians, the science of the Babylonians, and the combined learning and science of the Egyptians, limits his commendation of the Phoenicians to their skill in navigation, in mechanics, and in works of art.
This was not the result of cowardice; navigation in unknown waters and with armed vessels requires brave hearts, and that such were to be found among the Phoenicians, they often showed.
The Phoenicians naturally paid attention to astronomy, so far at least as might be serviceable to them in their navigation; and while other nations were applying it merely to the purposes of agriculture and chronology, by means of it they were guided through the "trackless ocean," in their maritime enterprises.
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