page_title: Phoenicia
section_title: Trade
hierarchical_section_title: Phoenicia / Foreign relations / Relations with the Greeks / Trade
caption_attribution_description: English: Cup with mythological scenes, a sphinx frieze and the representation of a king vanquishing his enemies. Electrum, Cypro-Archaic I (8th–7th centuries BC). From Idalion, Cyprus. Français&#160;: Coupe ornée de combats mythologiques, d'une frise de sphinx et d'un roi terrassant des ennemis. Électrum, Chypro-Archaïque (VIIIe-VIIe siècles av. J.-C.). Provenance&#160;: Idalion, Chypre.
context_page_description: Phoenicia was an ancient Semitic-speaking thalassocratic civilization that originated in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, specifically modern Lebanon. It was concentrated along the coast of Lebanon and included some coastal areas of Syria and northern Palestine reaching as far north as Arwad and as far south as Acre and possibly Gaza. At its height between 1100 and 200 BC, Phoenician civilization spread across the Mediterranean, from Cyprus to the Iberian Peninsula.
  The term Phoenicia is an exonym originating from ancient Greek that most likely described Tyrian purple, a major export of Canaanite port towns; it did not correspond precisely to Phoenician culture or society as it would have been understood natively. Scholars thus debate whether the Phoenicians were actually a distinct civilization from the Canaanites and other residents of the Levant.
  The Phoenicians came to prominence following the collapse of most major cultures during the Late Bronze Age. They were renowned in antiquity as adept merchants, expert seafarers, and intrepid explorers.
context_section_description: The Phoenicians were given their name by the Greeks due to their trade: Their most famous trading product was purple dye, called phoenos by the Greeks. Between the 20th and 15th centuries BC, the Canaanites/Phoenicians traded with the Minoans until the latter's collapse. Towards the end of the Bronze Age, there was trade between the Levant, Egypt, Cyprus, and Greece. The Ulu Bulurun shipwreck discovered off the coast of Turkey contained Canaanite storage pottery along with pottery from Cyprus and Greece. There are also Greek accounts of Phoenician traders arriving to port with "trinkets and baubles." The Greeks regarded the Phoenicians as skilled metal workers, and in the eighth century BC sent envoys to the Levant for metal goods.
  The height of Phoenician trade was roughly between the seventh and eighth centuries BC. There is a dispersal of imports (ceramic, stone, and faience) from the Levant that traces a Phoenician commercial channel to the Greek mainland via the central Aegean. Athens shows little evidence of this trade with few eastern imports, but other Greek coastal cities are rich with eastern imports.
  Al Mina, located in Syria, is emblematic of the trade that took place between the Greeks and the Phoenicians. It is theorized that by the eighth century BC, traders from the Greek island of Euboea established a commercial enterprise with the Levantine coast, with Al Mina as their base; however, the veracity of these claims remains disputed.
caption: Bowl with mythological scenes, a sphinx frieze and the representation of a king vanquishing his enemies; Electrum, Cypro-Archaic I, 8th–7th centuries BC, from Idalion, Cyprus.
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