The World of Phoenicia :: World History

The World of PhoeniciaAround the 12th ampere-second BC, the Greeks gave the coastal region of the eastern Mediterranean the name Phoenicia. This name was so widely accepted that even the Romans adopted it at a afterwards date. Phoenicia was the land between the Orontes River and Mount Carmel. The land was characterized early as the m other country or origination of the surviving Syro-Canaanite civilization. This unique civilization survived the more threats from other cultures of the 12th century BC. The Syro-Canaan civilization produced legion(predicate) interesting objects. Such objects include institutions, handicrafts, and maritime trading. All of these flourished immensely in Phoenician in this boundary (CANE, 1321). Phoenicia was neither a nation nor a country. Instead, Phoenicia was simply a meet of city-states that was distinguished from adjacent areas by its habitual outreach into the Mediterranean world (Freedman, 349). Phoenicia was alike known for its preferred de aling and trading with the Greeks and Indo-Europeans. Although it dealt and traded mainly with the Greeks, Phoenicia maintained a unique culture with its own apparitional beliefs, language, preferred trading techniques, and semipolitical setup. With help from their unique ways, the Phoenicians eventually began to expand through the Mediterranean, Near East, and the heart East (Freedman, 349).Religion for Phoenicia, like many other Semitic cultures, compete a very important role in the Phoenician culture. In the 12th century BC, the Phoenicians strongly believed in paganism and worshipped many gods. The gods names, however, were not always consistent. Phoenicians had their own sacred text, their own forms of prayer, and even had turn over within their culture. Gifts were also used as offerings and the Phoenicians also had a personalized structure within their beliefs. All of these things helped form and keep the Phoenician devotion quite unique and peculiar as well. Literary and epigraphic texts are offset of the written sources of information about Phoenician religion. Literary texts include many sources such as the Hebrew Bible, Greek texts by Christian, classical, and Hellenistic writers. Epigraphic texts include cuneiform texts in Akkadian language and inscriptions in Phoenician language. One usher out easily notice all the different sources in which the Phoenician religious texts came about. Hence, the Phoenicians were exposed to many groups and many beliefs in which they built their own religious beliefs. It must be noted, however, that any source other than texts written by Phoenicians can not be solely relied upon and are secondary (Freedman, 358).