The Phoenicians

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The Phoenicians

• Do Now Quiz

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Canaanites 3000 BCE
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Where is it today?

• Lebanon
• Syria
• Israel

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Geography

• Coastal plain between the Mediterranean Sea and
  the Lebanon Mountains
• Canaan
• Land was not suitable for farming

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Language

• Semitic language

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Government

• Did not establish a unified monarch.
• Independent city-states.

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Major Cities

• Tyre
• Sidon
• Beirut
• Byblos

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Economy

• Industry and trade.
• Trade
• Israelites, Mesopotamians and Egyptians.
• Established commercial cities Rhodes, Cyprus,
  Sicily, Sardinia, Spain and N. Africa.
• Excellent sailors
• Best ships of their time.
• Had to be, lacked natural resources.

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Religion

• Polytheistic and tied to nature.
• Each city-state had their own rituals.

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Phoenician Alphabet

• Relied on cuneiform for approx. a millennium.
• Devised an alternative to cuneiform.
• Alphabet that consisted of 22 symbols
  representing consonants.
• Did not have vowels.
• Easier to read, more people were literate than
  ever before.
• Greatest contribution to modern civs!

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The Fall

• Cyrus the Great conquered Phoenicia in 539 B.C.
• Cyrus the Great was a Persian leader. (Iran)

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Create a propaganda poster

• Why would someone want to move to Phoenicia?