⛵ THE PHOENICIAN MARITIME NETWORK
PAGE 1 OF 5, CITY-STATES OF THE COAST
CANAAN'S SAILORS
SMALL HOMELAND, BIG HORIZON
While Old Kingdom Egypt raised pyramids with grain and bureaucracy, another civilisation bet on the sea. The Phoenicians (Greek name for Canaanite coastal traders) built no vast inland empire. Their power sat in city-states such as Tyre, Sidon, and Byblos on the eastern Mediterranean shore. Narrow coastal strips pushed them outward. They bought and sold what others lacked: cedar timber, glass, ivory, metals, wine, and famous purple dye. Greeks and Romans admired and feared them as the ancient world's sharpest merchants.
🏖 COAST
Phoenicia means the Levantine coast. City-states competed yet shared language, gods, and trade skills.
PORT!
TYRE
- Tyre stood on an island off the Levant coast.
- Walls and harbours protected its merchant fleet.
- It became one of the richest Phoenician city-states.
PURPLE
- Purple dye came from sea snails (murex shells).
- It took huge numbers of shells to dye one robe.
- Kings and elites paid top prices for Tyrian purple cloth.