. Arabia Felix to Yemen and Hazarmawt and Arabia Deserta ), who claimed the Phoenicians came from near the Red Sea. Lebanese immigration continued and was high in the 1970- 80s during the war in Lebanon, and in early 1990s after Lebanon completely fell to Syrian occupation." Progenitor of Wars and Tyrannies: the Falsehood of Pan-Arabism, Lebanese Global Information Center (LGIC), letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, NOT put to By Eman M. Elshaikh The Phoenicians were master seafarers and traders who created a robust network acrossand beyondthe Mediterranean Sea, spreading technologies and ideas as they traveled. What appears below is part of an essay by a leading Prof. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis who is a prominent Orientalist and Egyptologist. The designation of Phoenician (Greek: Phoinix) is not known to have a reflex native to the Phoenicians. For the first 300 years, the Romans persecuted the Phoenician Christians and they left Phoenicia Maritima and moved to areas like Huran in Syria and other parts. 610595 B.C. In the time CPA has its own distinctive semi cursive script, which looks like an Estrangela written with much squarer letters.". Nothing is black and white, especially when it comes to genetics, religions, social groups, or nationalities. Semitic language. It was first inhabited by the Aramaeans Then it belonged, at least in part, to the biblical kingdom of Bashan, which the Israelites conquered. Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art. their Phoenician origin such as those of the Christian sects) -- see " Statement: Did the Carthaginians Really Practice Infant Sacrifice? 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. Who is Phoenician and who is Arab today? A freelance writer and former part-time Professor of Philosophy at Marist College, New York, Joshua J. the son of Abraham as an "uncultivated land." Who were the Phoenicians? Position Mark Woolmer | Published in History Today Volume 68 Issue 7 July 2018 -- relative to Syriac language, dialect of Aramaic -- in Syria, Lebanon, There is for sure genetic differences between various Christian groups and sects or Muslim groups and sects. And as these ancient Aegeans in the 2nd Mill. Tarshish: Hacksilber Hoards Pinpoint Solomons Silver Source. According So it seems to have migrated from Western Europe relatively recently into the Lebanese population of Christians, but not Muslims. In 332 BCE, Alexander the Great conquered Baalbek (re-naming it Heliopolis) and marched on to subdue the cities of Byblos and Sidon that same year. stone in enriching their part of the world. Although the Phoenicians used cuneiform (Mesopotamian writing), they also produced a script of their own. Our latest articles delivered to your inbox, once a week: Numerous educational institutions recommend us, including Oxford University. If no button appears, you cannot download or save the media. Amrits Phoenician temple in modern Syria dates to the sixthfourth centuries B.C.E.when the Persians controlled the region. Quinn demonstrates that, despite the absence of a common ethnic identity, the Phoenicians used economic and religious associations to foster political and cultural links. Phoenicia, ancient region along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean that corresponds to modern Lebanon, with adjoining parts of modern Syria and Israel. His message was anything but cordial. which names the descendants of fictional Noah, whose elder son, Shem is regarded Many people from Spain, Tunisia, Sicily, Sardinia and other Mediterranean shores are of Phoenician descent . the inhabitants of the countries that fell under Arab domination were It is from Western Europe that nationalism emanated. Catholic churches, Maronites. The Phoenicians are primarily remembered as adept sailors and cunning merchants. (Gen. 10:15-18 NRSV). Sometimes we call it CSI because we gather small clues and start to build the puzzle.. This means that Phoenicians were not related to Egyptians. The free eBook Island Jewels: Understanding Ancient Cyprus and Crete takes you on a journey to two stunning, history-laden islands in the Mediterranean. 20002023 The Metropolitan Museum of Art. however, is the degree to which the Lebanese, from all groups, identify with the country higher than in Indeed, Kaufman notes at several points in his text that Lebanese intellectuals who later delved deeply into Phoenician themes had earlier had links with the quintessentially pan-Syrianist PPS (Parti Populaire Syrien). Theory of Phoenician discovery of the Americas - Wikipedia in preserving the uniqueness of their diverse society which is the corner The region was later taken by Alexander the Great and in 64 bce was incorporated into the Roman province of Syria; Aradus (Arwd), Sidon, and Tyre, however, retained self-government. 1 The most likely answer is the Crusades. Syriac, Aramaic, and colloquial Arabic. Furthermore, we urge him to take an advice of his own polls. Photo: Jerzy Strzelecki/CC-by-SA-3.0. while the others remained in their Eastern They were Druze and they converted to Christianity in the 16th and 17th century. According to Jonathan Prag, historian and co-director of the Oxford Centre for Phoenician and Punic Studies, their location at the intersection of important trade routes is part of the reason the Phoenicians developed such impressive maritime skills. when they added to their genetic diversity. The genealogists themselves recognized that South Arabians and the surrounding Arabs had distinct origins, Holy Land notes. We have a Maronite Church speaking Syriac, Byzantine Churches speaking Greek, Assyrian and Chaldean Churches speaking Eastern Aramaic, Syriac Churches speaking Western Syriac, Coptic Churches speaking Coptic and Ethiopian Churches speaking Ethiopian. The Phoenicians is a fascinating exploration of this much-mythologized people: their history, artistic heritage, and the scope of their maritime and colonizing activities in the Mediterranean. the Lebanese, many Syrians and Palestinians come from mostly Phoenician blood which is a mix of the original The Rights Holder for media is the person or group credited. 2 The oldest form of government in the Phoenician cities seems to have been kingshiplimited by the power of the wealthy merchant families. The Phoenicians revolutionized writing in the Western world. 11) to refer to nomads from the east bank of the Jordan river in the inhabitant of any portion of the vast peninsula known to us as Arabia, (Iron Age through Roman period), descendants of the Canaanites of the second millennium B.C.E. Most Christians of Lebanon come from basically the following: Canaanite Phoenician and mixture of the blood of invaders such as Babylonians, Persians, Greek, Roman, Byzantine. One of the most debated questions in the study of the ancient world is whether or not the Carthaginians practiced human sacrificemore specifically, the sacrifice of infants. That territory provided temporary seclusion for persecuted minorities across the centuries until recent history. answer to your question in a short e-mail. scientists say. death or exterminated and replaced by Arabs. What relates to the Lebanese is detailed in the summaries of studies mentioned below: Crusades, Islam Expansion Traced in Lebanon Who is Phoenician and who is Arab today? necessary to explain that these groups are exiled simply because they want freedom and are civil right This site has been online for more than 22 years. not Arabs At the bow (front) of the ship was the forecastle, an area that was used by bowmen or catapults during battle. and Kings of Tyre, Christ's Miraculous Icon westernized or Byzantinized Phoenicians who employed Greek -- much like the Gene study shows the Phoenicians still with us | Reuters Home, Phoenicia, A Bequest Unearthed -- Phoenician Encyclopedia. B.C.). This study suggests the presence of an average of four main groups in the said population: What is the reason for these conclusions? After the Arab invasion Hitherto, the first "Accordingly, we believe that Mr. Zogby et. Metropolitan Archbishop of Homs (Emsa) and all of Phoenicia Libanesis. new faith and remained steadfast in their Christian faith. links about Phoenicia and the Forgotten Christians of the East" (Related Links About Phoenicia), Tabula Rogeriana or Idrisi's World Map (High Resolution -- Upside Down) -- 19 MB. inscription of 853 B.C., commemorating the defeat of a mutinous chieftain, The final part argues against the commonly held view that Phoenician history came to an end with the conquests of Alexander the Great in the east and the destruction of Carthage in the west. (performed by Protopsalt Demitri Coteyya*) (MP3 Arab Americans means exactly that and does not relate to those who come from non-Arab origin. Phoenician civilization flourished between 1550 and 300 B.C.E. invading armies that occupied that part of the world. National Geographic Headquarters 1145 17th Street NW Washington, DC 20036. became Byzantinized or took on "western" Byzantine Africans by . in Greek writings. (Hebrew, erev) mentioned in Exodus (xii, 38) as having accompanied the For information on user permissions, please read our Terms of Service. begins somewhere in the 3rd century B.C. The Bible refers to the Phoenicians as the "princes of the sea" in a passage from Ezekiel 26:16 in which the prophet seems to predict the destruction of the city of Tyre and seems to take a certain satisfaction in the humbling of those who had previously been so renowned. In his conclusion, Kaufman raises this quite justifiable question: '[I]t should be asked if, in an era of national imagining, the Lebanese national movement actually needed the French to come up with their own "cult of the ancestors" or was it an inevitable process that would have occurred with or without French guidance?' In Holy Koran, the word Arab was never used In the Bible, the 18 Part two shifts the focus from texts to objects and examines how Phoenician-speaking peoples interacted with one another in their home cities and in their overseas settlements. Christian community that resided in the cities of Phoenicia Maritima Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. the globe; and come from Phoenicia proper or its far away colonies. qualifications and possible for me to give you a complete, full and logical http://jandyongenesis.blogspot.com/2012/02/who-were-canaanites.html, deluding yourself does not make any of it factual, sorry but youve been misled, No they werent. Syrians under the name Arimi (the Biblical, Aram) and the Arabs under Among Lebanese The first juxtaposes the modern picture of the Phoenicians as a coherent people or culture with the very different story presented in the ancient sources. What is cool is that we found this lineage in the Lebanese Christians that we don't see elsewhere in the Middle East, or at least we haven't seen it yet, Wells said. So, indeed Christians appear to descend more from the pre-Arab populations of Lebanon, and presumably the Phoenicians [and others], compared to the Muslims [and Ashkenazi Jews] who are more similar to other Arabs. Persia and Iraq preserved the culture of the Syrian Jacobites/Phoenicians (or Jacobite-Aramaean); The Phoenician warship carried two sails and coverings on the deck to hide officers. Phoenician artisans were skilled in wood, ivory, and metalworking, as well as textile production. Federation of the cities on a large scale never seems to have occurred, although the cities at times fell under common rule as vassals of adjacent empires. Phoenician art is in fact an amalgam of many different cultural elementsAegean, northern Syrian, Cypriot, Assyrian, and Egyptian. Arabic speaking Syrians and Iraqis are Aramaeans. It is hard to write both a history of events and a history of historiography at the same time, but since in Lebanon the historiography has always been of great political moment in the real world, this was what was needed here. TDC = Torah Discovery Chronology, Your email address will not be published. In fact, there is evidence from ancient literature that Phoenicians were actually Israelite. The study matched the western European Y-chromosome lineage against Please note that content linked from this page may have different licensing terms. Her work often involves the excavation of shipwrecks in areas where the Phoenicians traveled. This sentence suffices to respond to him. Updates? This article was most recently revised and updated by, https://www.britannica.com/place/Phoenicia. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. Highlight any text; our page(s) will read it. particular subject, please visit my web page entitled "Living Phoenicians" The fact that there is no Arab Church with specific cultural identifiers such as Arab style church buildings, Arab vestments, Arab iconology or traditions is a proof that this so-called church never existed in the same sense like the others. Art of the First Cities in the Third Millennium B.C. with the majority a Their two main cities were Sidon and Tyre. In one story, Herodotus says the Phoenicians were sailing in the Atlantic Ocean toward the British Isles, where they traded for tin. Colonization of areas in North Africa (e.g., Carthage), Anatolia, and Cyprus also occurred at an early date. When asked to describe their principal identifier, more than 70 per cent say "being Lebanese" double ", World Map -- No Arabia in the 12th century MAP, We are Visit several key historical places on both islands and discover many of the great objects that have been unearthed there by archaeologists. solved without genuine will for coexistence, tolerance and peaceful Glassblowing was probably invented in the coastal area of Phoenicia in the 1st century or earlier. themselves. Ignatius Khalaf 1455-1483 may have been my ancestor; DNA tests of both Lebanese Muslim & Christian "support that [both] populations share an ancient genetic [Phoenician] heritage.". In terms of understanding how they arose as one of the first truly maritime cultures, Cvikel thinks the archaeological evidence will speak for itself as more Phoenician shipwrecks are found. During the preeminence of Sidon in the Achaemenid period, for example, the female deities in each city increasingly resembled Sidons goddess Astarte (Ashtart). Egypt was the dominant political power and the socio-religious context of the Canaanites was Afro-Arabian, Kushite and Nilo-Saharan. of others. When you reach out to him or her, you will need the page title, URL, and the date you accessed the resource. This can give you clues to where the wood for the construction of the ship came from. to nomadism. They soon had created an empire for themselves. Nonetheless, beliefs and rituals shared many characteristics, some of which may have been the result of extended cultural contact. 9 in southern Arabia, where it is clearly used for Bedouin. By the late eighth century B.C., the Phoenicians, alongside the Greeks, had founded trading posts around the entire Mediterranean and excavations of many of these centers have added significantly to our understanding of Phoenician culture. I am not absolutely sure of the right words but I believe I Living Text on this page is printable and can be used according to our Terms of Service. seeking here is nothing but a continuation of the annihilation of these Middle Eastern minority groups who Having said this, We noticed some interesting lineages in the data set. and Muslim continues to be Phoenician stock and those people were NOT put to were very very few in the whole Middle East with the ethnolinguistic Mr. Zogbys own poll contradicts his own allegations and proves that Mr. Maaloufs conduct is proper and However, it is clear that the Israelites were related to these Canaanite clans. He studied at the University of Quaraouiyine and wrote A-arf al-Idrs. You cannot download interactives. It is also thought that many of the gods of ancient Greece were imported from Phoenicia as there are certain indisputable similarities in some stories concerning the Phoenician gods Baal and Yamm and the Greek deities of Zeus and Poseidon. It was closely related to Hebrew, with which it enjoyed mutually intelligibility until both languages were displaced by Aramaic. According to them, "around 3 million Americans descending from Lebanese origin live in the United States. They provided the model for the Egyptian manufacture of faience and set the standard for work in bronze and silver. Holy Liturgy, chants honoring Lebanese bishops and archbishops, the Polychronion, continue maintained a more authentic Phoenician Maronite and Syriac traditions, We want people all over the world to learn about history. Key People: Wilhelm Gesenius Related Topics: extinct language Punic language See all related content Phoenician language, Semitic language of the Northwestern group, spoken in ancient times on the coast of the Levant in Tyre, Sidon, Byblos, and neighbouring towns and in other areas of the Mediterranean colonized by Phoenicians. Following are two pie charts from LGIC that represent ethnicity and religious affiliation of the aforementioned immigrants: But what about Arab Americans, for example? [1] It constitutes identification of the Lebanese people with the ancient Phoenicians . Archbishop of Beirut, The Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East and Greek This applies to most of the divided by the ancient geographers into Arabia Petraea, Arabia Felix Who Were The Phoenicians? | History Today ), Trade Routes between Europe and Asia during Antiquity. These Lebanese-Americans, up to five generations, migrated from Lebanon in several waves starting in the 19th century. An authoritative and engaging new study questions whether this Eastern Mediterranean culture had a homogeneous language or cultural heritage. Telling a Tell with Artificial Intelligence, Worlds Oldest Blueprints Discovered for Desert Mega-Structures, http://jandyongenesis.blogspot.com/2012/02/who-were-canaanites.html, Site of Julius Caesars Assassination Opened. "On March 14, 2005, Mr. Zogby, [President of the Arab American Institute in Washington, DC] sent a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The core of Phoenician territory was the city-state of Tyre, in what-is-now Lebanon. Sidon and Tyre were both cities in the territory of the tribe of Asher. 7 For example, according to the Greek historian Herodotus, Phoenician sailors, at the request of the pharaoh Necho II (r. ca. He notes too that over time, claims of affiliation with Phoenicianism became effectively voided of their earlier anti 'Arab' content but instead came to be raised by many or most Lebanese in the context of a broad, very syncretic view of their general civilisational affiliation. You can find them at the end of article or in Bibliography) His presentation of the history of the Phoenicians in the pre-Hellenic era is, at a scant three pages along, quite inadequate as a basis on which to build the critique of 'Phoenicianism' that occupies the rest of the book. We have more than 420,000 words. It is offensive to refer to those who come from non-Arab origin in the Middle East of as Arab Americans. Copyright 2023 History Today Ltd. Company no. He See "Christian Milestones" Nobody spoke Arabic in the East. If you have questions about licensing content on this page, please contact ngimagecollection@natgeo.com for more information and to obtain a license. their Byzantine, Maronite, Syriac, Assyrian or Chaldean (Coptic in Egypt) The Phoenicians: Who Were They? - Grunge Your email address will not be published. The volumes starting point is to emphasise the lack of definitive evidence to support the notion that the Phoenicians ever self-identified as a single ethnic group or acted as a stable collective. Here is your ticket to join us as we discover more and more about the biblical world and its people. In face, the Qahtan were mainly Sabaean and Himyarites while the Adnans were the real Arabs from which the Prophet Mohammad descended. 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. Their commercial empire would last for nearly a millennium. In reality, the Lebanese are Phoenicians, who got hellenized and aramaized in Late Antiquity. Cobban, Helena, (2006), Theyre at that transition point for the movement of goods, trade, and people out of the Mediterranean, he says. was Homer, who flourished in 1000 or 800 B.C. The Phoenician Expansion c. 11th to 6th centuries BCESimeon Netchev (CC BY-NC-SA). Having shown that there is no direct evidence for anyone self-identifying as Phoenician prior to late antiquity or that the Phoenicians ever had a sense of shared identity, ancestry, or native land part one closes by exploring the external perspectives of the Phoenicians, as presented in Classical literature. The American Aramaic Community, Help us and translate this definition into another language! at the hands of the Sea Peoples, of whom the best known are the Philistines. In his article, Arab Further, all of these churches and their cultures The fact that we do detect significant excesses of the lineages Hg J* and R1b in the relevant Lebanese subpopulations requires explanation, Wells said. 664332 B.C. We use laboratory analysis to identify the tree species. Beginning in the 9th century, the independence of the Phoenician city-states was increasingly threatened by the advance of Assyria, the kings of which several times exacted tribute and took control of parts or all of Phoenicia. The city of Sidon was initially the most prosperous but steadily lost ground to her sister city of Tyre. The book is divided into three parts. from their original churches and came in communion with the Papacy (see "A Bequest Unearthed, Phoenicia" Encyclopedia Phoeniciana. Besides, racial diversity is the key to human health. In the Old Testament (2 Chronicles), the master craftsman Hiram of Tyre was commissioned to build and embellish the temple of Solomon in Jerusalem. if any, eastern cultural heritage in the Victorian style Protestantism. The Copts (Christians) of Egypt and the 'Assyrians' and 'Chaldaeans' of Iraq and Iran show very well what happened: those who remained Christians preserved initially their language (Coptic and Aramaic ' Syriac) and lost it gradually in later dates. World History Foundation is a non-profit organization registered in Canada. Phoenician Bronze Bowl from NimrudOsama Shukir Muhammed Amin (Copyright). The expansion of Islam from the Arabian Peninsula beginning in the seventh century A.D. likely introduced lineages into people who subsequently became Lebanese Muslims, they add. Instead, it shows how interest in the Phoenicians increased during the Hellenistic and Roman periods. The American Maronite Community, Further, an essay includes similarities with Maltese, the language of Malta, and identifies similarity with Lebanese. This way, the Greeks could not find out where the Phoenicians got their tin. The Canaanites were blood-related Afro-Arabian peoples whose ancestry can be traced back to the Nile Valley. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. the year 630+ A.D. Phoenicia as a political entity was still there and so Any interactives on this page can only be played while you are visiting our website. The All-Access membership pass is the way to get to know the Bible through biblical archaeology. Unlike previous studies that have relied on mitochondrial DNAwhich is You can find them at the end of article or in Bibliography). from Yemen after the Dam of Maarib collapsed and their economic life ruined in Yemen. So extraordinary was the skill of the artists of Sidon in glass-making that it was thought the Sidonians invented glass. Someone from the kibbutz went diving and he saw a big pile of stones that doesnt belong there. When Emperor Constantine became Christian they returned home. The findings not only confirm well-documented history but also present (Middle Bronze Age through Late Bronze Age). New York: Scribner, 1995. 132133. 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 temples elevated cella in the middle of its court and surrounding colonnade are still standing. Arabs, for there are some organizations which do not support his political and ideological views. This is so only among the Druze faith who do not automatically rule that it is legal to execute converts from Druze to any other religion. These are the same Anybody who tells you otherwise is an idiot. referred to these organizations as exiled groups. While he did not elaborate on their status, we find it For the most part, the great military powers preferred to leave the Phoenicians to their trade but that did not mean there was no envy on the part of their neighbors. peninsula and everything in it, even including the eastern desert of In the Old Testament, Mark, Joshua J.. The Phoenician language was very similar to classical Hebrew, and they wrote using the same alphabet. "Are we Arab? [The people of the land] shared an ethnic identity as Can'nai, inhabitants of the land of Canaan yet, despite a common linguistic, cultural, and religious inheritance, the region was very rarely politically united, with each city operating as a sovereign state ruled over by a king (26). COPYRIGHT 2023 BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY SOCIETY 5614 Connecticut Ave NW #343, Washington DC 20015-2604. Amitabh Avasthi In recent years, archaeologists have tried to fill in some of the gaps in our knowledge about the Phoenicians. Phoenicia - Wikipedia 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. Wells said such an alternative explanation is more complicated and less plausible than the simpler explanation that the migrations known from history are responsible for the observed genetic effects. The Ghassanides is that old stock or main group came from Yemen, as we already know.
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