Gerhard Herm 

1. The Bedouins of the Sea

Herm begins with the image of Alexander the Great, who in 332 BC built a causeway to show Tyre that 'they too belonged to the mainland.' He wanted to sacrifice in their temple to Melqart, whom the Greeks equated with Hercules, mythical founder of the Macedonian dynasty, but had been denied. Of the three peoples which later came to make up the Phoenician race, that of the desert tribes of the Sinai Peninsula are the most important. They are a Semitic race, a term that lumps together "all the major races which from 3500 BC onward emigrated from the deserts of Arabia towards the flourishing civilizations of the Nile and Euphrates." Sargon I of Akkad was one, as were the founders of the later Assyrian and Babylonian empires. 

The 'Amorite Invasion' took place between 2300 and 2000 BC. The name Amorite is Babylonian in origin, derived from the word for western land. In about 2000 the Amorites conquered or infiltrated the Akkadian Empire and founded successive dynasties, including that of Hammurabi in Babylon. Some Amorites stayed on the Mediterranian coast-- in Palestine and what was to become Phoenicia. They were called the Canaanites; the Phoenicians still usually called themselves Canaanites when Alexander took Tyre.

2. The City in the Cedar Grove

In 1860, the Druzes killed 30000 Maronites in then Turkish Syria.  Napoleon III sent an expedition along with orientalist Ernst Renan.  He was especially interested in Byblos, from biblion, book, Semitic name is Gebal, found an image of Baalat- Gebal.  Later scholarship found the  town to be inhabited in the Old Stone Age.  In 2300 BC, its temple of Baalat seems to have been burned by Sinai hordes. The Semitic Bedouins joined with the Giblites to form the new race. The Amorite invasion is of importance because of the numbers of people it brought in, the Giblites had themselves mixed with Bronze Age peoples around 3500. 

The Palermo stone from about 2650- 2600 BC: Senefru had written how he got 40 ships of timber from Lebanon. The Giblites at that time wore Egyptian dress, jewels, hieroglyphic script, and gave Baalat the appearance of Hathor- Isis.  The Tale of Sinuhe tells of a court official of the Middle Kingdom from about 1971 BC who fled to Lebanon after a succession problem.  The book shows an important trading center and a knowledge of the area.  It possibly influenced the fifth Book of Moses' description of Canaan.    

3. The Coming of the Aryans

The Aryans were responsible for each of the three large invasions into Egyptian territory.  

1. Around 1500 BC, Aryans, probably from Armenia, disrupted the population structure of the Tigris- Euphrates plain.  One of the displaced groups was the Semitic Hyksos (called hekau-khasut "rulers of foreign lands" by the Egyptians) who, with the new technology, the chariot, easily conquered Egypt, then suffering from internal conflict.  Wrapped in a cocoon of luxury, they left no permanent mark on Egyptian culture.  Around 1570 BC, King Amosis of Upper Egypt drove the Hyksos kings from their capital in the Delta and thus began the New Kingdom.  In 1377 BC, Amenophis IV ascended.  He replaces Egyptian pantheon with Aten, and took the name Akhenaten, 'it pleases Aten.' 

2.The Hittites, oldest of all civilized Aryan nations, led by Shuppiluliumash, swept southward and joined with the Amorite Habiru, led by Abdi- Ashirta, against Egypt.  The letters of Rib- Adi, prince of Byblus, to Amenophis III and Akhenaten show his fear of Abdi- Ashirta.  One Canaanite town after another falls to the Habiru.  Rib- Adi begs, but Akhenaten can do nothing.  The Egyptians never again had such control over their northern provinces as before Akhenaten. Rameses II signs a peace treaty with Khattushilish II, Hittite king, and married his daughter, setting the boundary between the Egyptians and Aryans north of Byblos. 

3. The Thekel, a Sea People, attacked Egyptian territory around 1200 BC.  Their ships controlled the eastern Mediterranean, and they allowed no other ships to sail.  They are portrayed in the Wen- Amon papyrus, which describes Egyptian trade representative Wen- Amon's encounter with their influence in Byblus.  They are the subject of the next chapter. 

4. Odysseus and Achilles-- Ancestors of the Phoenicians

In the heyday of trading  between Byblos and Egypt,  navigation was hardly more than advanced rafting.  Cretans, and later Mycenaeans, were the only ones who sailed open waters at that time.  Suddenly, in the 11th century BC, Canaan gained this ability too. Dimitri Baramki, curator of the archaeological museum of the American University in Beirut, believes the Sea Peoples joined with the Canaanites and were absorbed by them, a fusion creating the Phoenician nation.  This is thus the second main pivot in the history of the Lebanese people. 

' Krethi and Plethi': The Philistines are called the Pelethi or Pelethites.  The Kerethi, or Cherethites, were Cretans.  Oswald Spengler portrays the conquering of Minoan civilization [c. 1380 BC] as the collapse of a decadent culture. Achaeans from Mycenae-- the Pelethi--  took over her palaces and her thalassocracy and maintained it until 1150.  Bronze Age Mycenaeans were defeated by Iron Age barbarians who attacked from the land and the sea.  Mycenaeans were integrated into the sweep east, and attacked the Hittites, swept across Anatolia, entered Syria, destroyed Ugarit and reached the Nile Delta.  In 1149 BC, Rameses III repelled them at Pelusium, most easterly point in the mouth of the Nile.  He put what was left of the Pelethi in prison camps and later allowed them to settle in the Delta.  He allowed some to return to the Gaza strip, where they founded the Philistine five- town league.  Mycenaean pottery is found in the major towns of the Philistine League.  Some of the Philistines not only had close contact with the Achaeans, but were descended from them.  Goliath challenged David in Mycenaean armor.      

5. They Lived on Man- made Islands

The influx of Kerethi, Pelethi and the Sea Peoples was detrimental to Byblos at first.  Tyre and Sidon surpassed her.  The Tyrians seem to have been a different race than the Giblites.  When Cretan- style navigation was introduced to Lebanon with the keeled- ship, new westerly routes opened up to Greece, Italy and Spain.  Hiram, Tyrian king about 1000 BC transferred his city from the coast out to an island.  It was called Sor, 'rocks' in Phoenician.  They were dependent upon rainwater.  At  Aradus, according to Strabo, they laid funnels over fresh- water sources in the salt water.     

6. Establishment and Rise of the Firm of Baal, Sons and Co. 

The rise of Tyre and Sidon marks the beginning of the Phoenician trading empire, which began with piratical methods: they had a reputation as kidnappers, according to Herodotus and kidnapped Io from Argos.  Shipping switched from woods to smaller, more expensive products.  (Ezekiel 27:9- 25), one of the most important accounts of Phoenician economic history, leads one to believe that they had a trade network that included countries around the Indian Ocean.  Tyre and Sidon produced the first transparent glass and probably  introduced the technique of glass blowing.  The famous purple dye possibly came from Ugarit. Over 10,000 murex brandaris and murex trunculus must die for a few grams.  Its thought Greek word Phoinike is derived from porphyra, Greek purple. 

7. Dealings with King Solomon 

In 1836, German theologian Friedrich Wagenfield published forged writings of Phoenician priest Sanchuniathon.  The best history about a long section of Phoenician history is the Bible.  Around 1500 the Aramaean migration swept up a group of Semites, Hurrians and Aryans called the "House of Joseph." Joseph rose to power during the Hyksos rule of Egypt.  When King Amosis forced them out of the Delta around 1570.  They were put into labor camps and called Aperu, probably a designation for a low social class.  The name became the Ebrews or Hebrews of the Bible.  Moses led them into exodus, and they joined the Aramaean migration.  In 1100 BC, they are west of the Sea of Chinnereth and the Dead Sea.  The  Aryan " Sea People" Philistines pressed up from the South and attacked the Hebrews, who formed a defensive alliance of 12 tribes.  Saul, the first king of Israel, met the Aryans at Megiddo and was defeated.  Saul killed himself, Israel fell under Philistine rule.  David, condottiere of a Philistine king, built up and army, let himself be made king of Judah, Israel and Jerusalem.  David died in 966, succeeded by son Solomon.  He wanted to build a temple, and had to rely upon Tyrian architects.  The Temple of Solomon was built in the Phoenician style.  The pillars of Boaz and Jachin have antecedents in gold and emerald pillars in Tyrian temple of Melqart. 

8. Baal and Sons, and Israel  

The ships of Tarshish (I King 10:22) launched in the Red Sea  in the time of Solomon were only nominally Israel's.  Ophir lay somewhere at the end of the Red Sea.  Tarshish is commonly thought of as Tartessos in Spain: this would have meant an Israeli fleet in competition with Phoenicia.  Dutch Jesuit Father Simons, relying on the archaeological evidence of Nelson Gleuck, believes the word is derived from Akkadian rashashu, to melt or be melted.    Gleuck found large copper mining and smelting operations in Solomon's Ezion- geber on the Gulf of Aqaba.  These must have been Phoenician.  The city was built as an integrated whole.  A symbiosis between Israel and Phoenicia.  

9. The Tyrian Whore

After Solomon's death the artifical kingdom broke up into Judah and Israel.  About 875, Omri stabilized Israel and had built Samaria.  At the palace of Hiram at Tyre, Jezebel's father had been a priestess of Astarte.  Her father Ithobaal had been a priest of Astarte before he usurped the throne.  To promote good relations, Omri married his oldest son Ahab to Jezebel. Elisha took over Elijah's role and openly battled Jezebel by promoting Jehu as a rival to Ahab's son Ahaziah. They killed the heir and threw Jezebel out the window. Her death: (2 Kings 9).  Her daughter Athaliah ruled in Judah: she had the rest of the house of David killed and was herself killed. This victory over the infidels was sealed with a religious purge.  They cut down the groves.  The Jews had sacrificed all their trade opportunities with Tyre and Sidon.  It was a sacrifice to Jahweh: for now Judah, Israel and Phoenicia had to face onslaughts from Assyria and Babylon alone.    

Herm contrasts Jewish monotheism with Phoenician pantheism: a trinity of gods: El, Asherat or Astarte (Baalat in Byblos), and their son Baal (Adon, Adoni in Byblus; Melqart in Tyre and Eshmun in Sidon. El is characterized as an unfaithful husband.  Asherat- Baalat was known to the Sumerians as Innin, to the Babylonians and Assyrians as Ishtar and to the Egyptians as Isis.  Baal- Adon- Melqart had to die once a year and be resurrected, like Osiris, Sumerian Dummuzi and Babylonian Tammuz.  He had been worshipped by the Canaanites.  In a Canaanite legend, he fought a kind of Minotaur and is killed.   Below, there were lesser deities.  The Phoenicians preferred to worship on mountains by springs and rivers and in woods.  Their temples were small, and made of limestone.  The mother and son were worshipped together on the Adonis River, present day Nahr- Ibrahim, where Adon was supposed to have been killed.  Temple prostitution of even respectable women occurred regularly.   Moses had forbidden giving children to Molech (Leviticus 18:21), Abraham illustrates this story.  The Phoenicians never gave it up.  Molech come from the word for sacrifice on a topheth (Jeremiah 7:31)in Hebrew and Phoenician is MLK "molk", which survives in Latin as molchomor "sacrificed offering of a lamb."  The Hebrews broke with the idea that a human can be sacrificed by his fellow man as a part of nature.  From the Phoenicians, the Jews got the pastoral festival of Mazzoth at the barley harvest, the Sukkoth, the fest of the tabernacles, a number of hymns changed into psalms and their temple architecture.  

10. From the Lebanon to the Edge of the World

Dimitri Baramki calls the 9th century BC Phoenicia's 'golden age.'  Tyre appears to have surpassed her neighbors, possibly was their leader, and Melqart was ascendant, being recognized even in Aramaean Damascus, which Tyre considered his birthplace.  A stele erected in 850 near Aleppo gives us our first image of him: he wears a conical hat and carries and axe.  The most famous aspect of his Tyrian temple are two pillars-- one of gold, the other of emerald-- which experts agree evolved from 2 holy stone which once lay under a sacred tree. 

Whether and how the cities worked together is conjecture.  The area ruled by the cities stretched from Acre to a point north of Aradus.  There was no road to link these places till the Roman times.  The cities were ruled by kings of divine manifestation.  No aristocracy in the classic sense, but a large middle class.  Carthage never had a king.  A society of entrepreneurs, they were reluctant to wage war.  Herm speculates that Cyprus was the first and most important colony (c. 1000 BC) of Tyre, Sidon or both. Kypros gets it name from copper, or gives its name to the metal, which is found there in abundance. Phoenicians laid the foundations for the temple of Salamis; another image of Baal was found in Engomi, nearby.  It shows a god with bulls' horns.  Zeno the Stoic had Phoenician blood.  Frenchman P. Cintas first recognized the "phoenician landscape," where colonies could be found. 

Some believe that the colonial period began for Phoenicia as late as a the 8th century BC, coinciding with the Greeks, but Herm believes that the fusion with the Aegean Aryans, the "Sea Peoples" triggered their nautical expansion and colonization.  About 1100, they settled in Rhodes, Thasos, Thera, Cythera, Crete and Melos, which may have got its name from Byblos.  Herodotus recounts a 'Tyrian quarter" in Memphis.  At the western Mediterranean , they founded Gedes (Cadiz) and Lixus, in Africa.  They traded with England and Ireland.  Thucydides says they once had control over most of Sicily.  By the 9th century they had settled in Sardinia.

By 609, they were under Egypt again, King Necho II, who got some to sail around Africa, through the Pillars of Hercules, which they did in 2 years.  Necho built a canal from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea, which was alternately open until the 8th century AD.

11. The End of a Golden Age  

The Golden age of Phoenicia lasted from about 1150 to 850 BC.  The new Assyrian kingdom of Ashurbanipal II ended this for good. They were followed the the Babylonians and the Persians.  The slow decline lasted from 850 BC- 350.  The Phoenicians joined an anti- Assyrian League and were punished by Sennasherib, who came to the throne in 704 BC, for it.  The other towns joined Sennacherib against Tyre, which held out for 5 years.  In 612, Nineveh was overthrown by the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar II..  Phoenicia had a brief freedom. Then their ally Necho II was defeated by the Babylonians in 605.  Nebuchadnezzar sought to take Tyre from 585 to 572.  Cyrus II conquered the Babylonian empire in 539.  Under the Persians they again enjoyed a relative independence.  

The first sea battle between the Phoenicans and the Greeks took place off Salamis under Persia.  Tyre and Sidon suffered their first naval defeat.  They were defeated in both major naval encounters in the Second Persian Invasion.  Tripolis was founded by Sidon, Tyre and Aradus in conjunction in the 4th century: Phoenicia's first parliament, according to Diodorus Siculus.  

12. Admired and Hated by the Greeks

If Europe is so different that Asia, why is Europa abducted from Phoenicia?  She was taken off to Crete and Agenor, her father sent her 4 brothers after her.  Phoenix is who the Phoenicians are named after. Cilix gave the Cilicians their name.  Thasos erected a statue to Melqart at Olympia, then sailed to the island named after him.  Cadmus founded Thebes, calling it Onga: Heracles, Dionysius, Oedipus and Antigone were supposed to have been born there.  In the Odyssey , Phoenicians appear as rogues; in the Iliad they are clever craftsmen and artists.  Aphrodite was imported from Phoenicia.  Cyprus and Cythera claimed to have first received her.  She was called Porne, the whore.  Adonis was the son of Phoenix and Smyrna.  He sent a third of the year with Persephone, a third with Aphrodite and a third free.  Ares changed into a boar and gored the god, killing him.  Dionysus came from afar, and died and was resurrected.  Heracles comes from Tyre's Melqart.      

13. The Rise of Carthage

If Josephus is correct, Dido was the great- granddaughter of Mattan of Tyre; in the native tongue her name was Elisha or, Graecized, Elissa.  At the death of Mattan, his son Pygmalion ruled jointed with his sister.  Elisha's husband Acharbas was a priest of Astarte, who held the real power in the city.  Pygmalion had his brother- in- law killed.  Pygmalion is also the name of the hero in the Galatea myth, in which Pygmalion is so in love with Aphrodite that he creates a sculpture of her with which he falls in love.  She enters the statue and bears him two sons as Galatea.  The historical Pygmalion seems to have been husband of a Cypriote priestess of Astarte.  

Carthage was not part of the Phoenician colonizing programme, but its inhabitants were more rigid devotees of the old Phoenician religion.  In Africa, the immediately had trouble with the Phoenician colony of Utica.  The King there threatened to destroy the colony if Elissa did not marry him.  The princess responded by throwing herself into a pyre as did Dido in Virgil.  The name Qart- Hadasht, which the Greeks modified to Carchedon and the Romans to Carthage can be translated as "new city" or "new capital city."  Greek expansion led to the emergence of a Carthaginian sea empire.  About 600, the Greeks founded Messalia, which is Marseilles, on the south coast of France dealing another economic blow to the copper merchants.  About 580, they were making their first attempts to drive the Phoenicians out of Sicily.  Tyre could not help: they were being besieged by Nebuchadnezzar.  The Greeks attacked Sardinia, which was defended successfully by a joint Phoenician/ Etruscan venture.  The Etruscans were Trojans, according to V.I. Georgiev, who traced the similarity of their languages, and notes that an early Greek word for Trojans was Troes and Trosia for Troy, leading him to break down E- trus- can

Carthage disarmed their own militia, except for an elite corps and used hired mercenaries, principally Berbers of Tunis, Celtic Iberians and cavalrymen from Numidia and Mauretania.  The Phoenician ability to hold their own was radically altered by the creation of Greek tyranny.  In 498, Hippocrates came to power in Gela.  Herodotus says that the battle between Gelon and Hamilcar occurred in 480, exactly at the time of the invasion of Xerxes. Both ended in Greek victories.  In 510, the Etruscan Tarquins were overthrown and Latin Rome took command in Italy.  

14. The Punic Empire of the Phoenicians