Phoenician Empire Map Print Watercolour Paper

In around 2500 BCE, the Phoenicians evolved from the Canaanites of the Bronze Age, inhabitants of city-states in Canaan, alongside the Levantine Coast. The Phoenicians were seafarers and traders who established one of the world’s most extensive maritime networks, which facilitated trade between other large civilizations like Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Greece. Phoenicia was organized into independent city-states, each with their own political autonomy and oligarchies.  

The Phoenicians did not refer to themselves as Phoenicians. Instead, they were described by the name of their city-state: for example, someone from Tyre was called Tyrian. At their height, the Phoenicians established colonies all throughout the Mediterranean, as far west as Rome and Sicily. After the Roman destruction of Carthage in the second century, the Phoenician civilization came to an end.