Phoenicians

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Phoenicians Lydians
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Where in the world?
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Who were the Phoenicians?

• A loose union of city states.
• Each governed by a different king.
• Hills and mountains but little fertile land.
• Phoenicians turned to the sea rather than inland.

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Ships

• Small and fragile by our standards but sailors
  were skilled.
• Propelled by sails oars
• Tyre Sidon are both world famous seaports

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Empire
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Trade

• One natural resource.wood Lebanese cedar.
• Many ancient peoples used this for building.
• Skilled in metal working (probably learned from
  the Egyptians.
• They were also skilled in glassblowing

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Achievements

• The Alphabet
• Needed in order to trade effectively.
• Model for later western alphabets

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Phoenician Purple!

• Came from a shell fish called murex which gave a
  purple dye.
• Very expensive!
• Became the chosen color of the rich and famous.
• Kings wore this and it became known as royal
  purple

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Murex snails used to produce a purple dye
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Byblos - Phoenician city
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Culture Religion

• They imitated the cultures of other people.
• They patterned their govt. after the Egyptians
  Babylonians.
• They spread these cultures throughout the
  Mediterranean by trading cultural diffusion!
• Religion
• Polytheistic
• Didnt believe in the afterlife
• Sacrificed their children to their many gods

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Swastika Crosses on the dress of a Phoenician
sun-princess carrying sacred Fire
Polytheists who believed in angry gods called
baals. They did not believe in an afterlife and
used human sacrifice to appease their gods

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The Lydians
Apadana - Persepolis
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Lydian empire in what is now Turkey
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Money
The Lydians were the first people to use coined
money to set prices when trading Before them
traders had to use the barter system
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According to Herodotus the Greek Historian

• After Cyrus the Great conquered Sardis the
  capital of Lydia, looting and pillaging began in
  the city
• Croesus is believed to have commented to Cyrus
  about what the troops were doing
• Cyrus replied that they were looting Croesus
  city
• Croesus responded that the city was no longer his
  and they were looting Cyrus city

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• As the story goes, Cyrus had Croesus placed on a
  pyre to burn him alive
• Cyrus then regretted his act before it was too
  late
• He had the pyre extinguished and later made
  Croesus his adviser