PHOENICIA, PHOENICIANS - Greek designations for the country and the people on the coast of Syria. The term Phoenicia is sometimes used very broadly by the geographers, but generally the area W. of the Lebanon and of Galilee is meant. The name Phoinikes is to be explained from Greek phoin (os) plus the suffix -ik, used in ethnic names. As the word means 'dark red,' 'purple,' it described the Phoenicians as the 'purple-men' or vendors of the fine cloth dyed in this colour, made from the glands of the murex shell-fish of the Syrian Coast. The Phoenicians themselves seem to have called their region 'Canaan.' That name, which appears in the OT as a term for western Palestine, is found in the Tell el-Amarna letters as Kinakhni (with variants of spelling). Some scholars hold that the name obtained the -ni under Hurrian influence, and that the main element means 'purple,' in which sense kinakhu appears in the cuneiform texts from Nuzi. If that were true the name would, indeed, have applied to Phoenicia at first, and been secondarily extended inland, just as 'Palestine' was a millennium later. In the Amarna letters Kinakhni already has a broad use, including Palestine.
Phoenicia was a particularly desirable object for a great civilized country like Egypt to control, since the lumber of the Lebanon was a much desired product and could be transported by water. The city we hear of most is Gebal (q.v.) which the Greeks later called Byblos. Thither journeyed the Egyptian ambassador Wen Amon c 1100 BC, at a time when Egyptian prestige was low. Gebal was still important in the days of King Ahiram, whose sarcophagus and inscription, dating from about the time of Solomon, were found by French excavators in 1923 at Jebeil.
The Phoenicians, having only a narrow hinterland were forced out on the sea by population pressure and commercial opportunity. They were able to step into the vacuum created by the downfall of Cretan sea-power about the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. In the OT 'Sidonians' sometimes appears as name for the Phoenicians or at least for a portion of them that included Tyre (cf 1 K.16.31, Is.23.2, 4, 12). Similarly in the Homeric poems, where Tyre is never mentioned, Sidonians is the name for Phoenicians, and their skill in producing finely decorated metal ware is especially noted. This terminology evidently reflects a period of Sidon's leadership either prior to Hiram of Tyre or at a later juncture. Both Homeric and Biblical criticism have to be heeded here. In Graeco-Roman times people of Sidon claimed for their city the original leadership in Phoenicia, and even the founding of Tyre. The truth of such claims cannot be taken for granted. Essentially Phoenician history becomes the history of Tyre (q.v.) and of Sidon (q.v.), which managed to have periods of hegemony when Tyre was in the dust.
The Phoenicians carried out a remarkable activity in colonizing places throughout the Mediterranean. Their 'Tarshish ships' sailed as far as Spain (see TARSHISH). Phoenician inscriptions have been found in many places, including the Nora stone of the 9th cent. from Sardinia and several inscriptions from Cyprus, one of equal age. Their most important and lasting colony was Carthage; the inscriptions from there are commonly called 'Punic.' A living descendant of the Phoenician language is Maltese, for Malta was colonized by them. The Phoenician control of the seas was, however, imperilled by the rise of Greek sea-power. The Phoenicians must have welcomed Persian backing, and indeed made possible Persia's attempt to subdue Greece. Their turning against Persia under Artaxerxes iii. Ochus in 351 BC was premature, as Tyre's adherence to Persia at Alexander's coming in 331 BC was catastrophic.
The search for metal for the use of their metal-workers was a factor in Phoenician exploration and colonization. The word Tarshish means 'smelter.' Spain was especially rich in metals (see Strabo iii. 2, 8). The joint venture of Phoenicians and Hebrews in Red Sea commerce (1 K.9.26f) involved among other things the quest of gold. It seems probable that Phoenician mariners got as far W. as the coasts of England in order to obtain tin. Pharaoh Neco employed Phoenicians to circumnavigate Africa (Herod. iv. 42). Strabo affirms that they had always been superior to all other peoples in seamanship (xvi. 2, 23).
The Greeks, probably in the 10th cent. BC, received their alphabet from the Phoenicians (Herod, v. 58), but this author's words leave room for positing an earlier script. Cretan Linear B, deciphered by Ventris, has proved this an actuality. The Ras Shamra texts have shown that there was a cuneiform alphabet, written on clay tablets, in use at Ugarit in the 15th cent. But the alphabet of the Sinaitic inscriptions of which specimens have also been found in Palestinian excavations, was the predecessor of the Canaanitic alphabet, of which the Phoenician is an example. That the Sinaitic was developed from the hieroglyphs of Egypt seems certain. The Phoenicians wrote the alphabet more gracefully than did the Hebrews. Some very fine Phoenician inscriptions are extant, notably from Byblos and Sidon (cf Pritchard, ANET, p. 502). At Byblos early Phoenician 'Pseudo-hieroglyphic' inscriptions of c 1800 BC were also found by Dunand in 1929, which Dhorme has attempted to decipher.
Among the fine products of Phoenicia which were in great demand in the world were the carved ivories, used for inlay purposes on furniture. Remarkable specimens of this have been found in Spain, Palestine (Megiddo and Samaria) and Mesopotamia (notably at Calah, modern Nimrud). Of Phoenician metal work the finest specimens were found at Ras Shamra (q.v.), hence from a time antedating the classic Phoenician period. Phoenician glass ware was also famed in antiquity.
The Phoenicians were engulfed in the Hellenistic civilization after Alexander's conquest, and continued to thrive, especially after Rome took over the E. in 63 BC. Philo of Byblos, a writer of about AD 100, undertook to relate Phoenician history to the Greeks, based for the older period on a writer called Sanchuniathon (whose existence some have doubted). The quotations preserved by Eusebius and Porphyry have been much discussed, but only become clear as texts like those from Ras Shamra lend aid, for Greek transcriptions of Semitic words are often difficult to analyse, especially when corrupted by copyists.
Phoenician religion was no uniform thing, but rather represents the diverse cults of the Phoenician cities. Underlying, of course, was a common Canaanite religious heritage. A triad of gods, father, spouse and son or daughter, seems to have been favoured in most cities. At early Ugarit the god El, the goddess Ashirat, and the virgin Anat were prominent. But there were further deities in considerable number. At Byblos the chief deities were the Ba'alat Gebal, or 'lady of Gebal,' El and Adonis, the latter the youthful god, whose dying and rising was the object of celebration; we can see from Egyptian inscriptions that El was once more important at Byblos than his spouse. Sidon had Astarte, Baal and Eshmun for its gods; the last named was a youthful figure and originally a god of healing. At Tyre the god Melkarth ('king of the city'), whom the Greeks identified with Heracles, was the 'Baal of Tyre,' but at the same time a dying and rising god, with Astarte for consort. The importation of this Tyrian Baal into Israel by Jezebel led to fanatical opposition by the Hebrew element in the country, but of course pleased the old Canaanite element, which formed a substantial part of the population of the chief Israelite cities (cf Jg.1.27-33). The religion of the Carthaginians was basically that of the Phoenicians, and the sources for the former shed light on the general picture. The invasion of basically Phoenician heathenism into Judah is vividly reflected in the references to the offerings of Molech (2 K.23.10, Jer.32.35), whether that word be taken as a title of god or understood as 'sacrificial vow' in the light of Punic inscriptions (so Eissfeldt). The great popularity of Heracles in the Greek world in those times might suggest that his counter-part the god Melkarth of Tyre is meant. Phoenician and Punic personal names give many indications of the religious ideas of the people. The sacrificial cult of Israel and of the Phoenicians has much terminology in common. A Phoenician deity that was readily equated with Israel's God on the one hand and Zeus Olympics on the other hand was Baal-shamem, 'lord of the heavens,' i.e. god of the sky (but not sun-god). Antiochus iv. Epiphanes introduced his worship in Jerusalem (Dn.9.27, 12.11, but with 'Baal' corrupted or veiled by editors).
[Article: Dictionary of the Bible, J.Hastings, 2nd Ed., T&T.Clark, 1963 - E.G.K.]