Who Were the Phoenicians? Part V

The question seems to be inregard to the ancient Phoenicians, were they explorers and colonizers, or merchants and tradesmen?

Hugh Nibley wrote: “For a long time the Near East had been getting crowded, the pinch being first felt in Syria and Phoenicia--due perhaps as much to deforestation and over-grazing as to population increase. Of this area Ebers writes: "Their small country could not contain its numerous population; accordingly there sailed out of the Phoenician harbors many a richly laden vessel to search out favorable places of settlement for emigrants bound for the coasts of Africa, Crete, Cyprus and Sicily." Such colonies would continue to enrich the Mother city (hence our word "metropolis") by furnishing her with markets and raw materials.”

The problem with this thinking is that in the eras under discussion, such voyages were not conducted by private enterprise—there was no such thing. Enterprise was in the hands of monarchs and kings who were the only ones that could afford such extensive and questionable ventures. The day of privateers was far into the future where thievery and plunder paid for the voyages, but in 600 B.C., the Greeks and Egyptians controlled the Mediterranean with their war ships who were usually in constant conflict trying to protect their expansionist concerns. These type kingdoms expanded their control over areas through conquest and colonization—never for profit of trade.

Phoenician king giving a command to a sea captain where to sail (left) and a Phoenician king checking on the success of his trading empire (right)

In fact, the Phoenicians did not colonize areas. They established ports for trade around the rim of the Mediterranean. These ports, in time, grew into population centers, but for the most part the Phoenicians were interested only in trade—and having ports where they could dock their ships to unload one trade good and obtain another. The fact that they had these centers has caused later historians to believe such ports were “colonies to enrich the Mother city furnishing her with markets and raw materials” were, in fact, ports where loading and unloading could take place. As these ports grew in prominence in the trade world, they attracted other types of merchants and groups who could profit from the Phoenician trade.

The point is, trade ventures were conducted by the Phoenicians with their ventures far and wide limited to known areas where the risk was limited, and to known destinations where the profit of tin and other products was also well known. Ships were expensive to build, especially the type of ships required for cargo space in long-distance trade. It was also expensive to mount a voyage since experienced mariners had to be paid and ships carried upwards of 80 to 100 men to man.

While archaeologists and anthropologists might want to claim that the Phoenicians spent most of their time in the so-called punic voyages of discovery, in reality, they obtained their wealth and accomplishments, and spent almost all their time, within the Mediterranean harvesting and collecting certain shellfish from which a purple dye was made. This process was very involved and timing was critical, thus requiring ships and crews on a timed and regular basis to be in certain locations and reaching certain ports on schedule. This dye, known as Tyrian purple, or royal purple, “fetched its weight in silver at Colophon in Asia Minor.” They also made an indigo dye, sometimes referred to as royal blue or hyacinth purple, which was made from a closely-related species of marine snail and is the route word of which the term “Phoenician” came into being—and stood for “the Purple Empire of the Ancient World.”

The Phoenicians have been credited with sailing prowess far beyond the Mediterranean, but again, in reality, the only voyages the Phoenicians are known to have entered into is that to Pretania (Britain) for tin. As mentioned earlier, tin was the wealth of trade. But the life-blood of the Phoenician trading world was in the purple dye obtained from the shellfish within the Mediterranean.

To consider that the Phoenicians would be involved in punic voyages of discovery and settlement like Portugal, Span, and later Europe, is foolhardy at best. These were merchants, not explorers; they were traders, not settlers. Phoenicia, which was a conglomeration of city-states, like Greece, but had no military interest such as Greece and later Rome, nor any expansionist interests, such as Spain and Europe. Their interest was in the business of trade. Whatever they did, it was to increase their trade business—colonization never did that, nor exploration. Columbus, for all his accomplishments for Portugal and Spain, never earned those monarchs a profit. It took a military venture of conquest and plunder to bring gold back to Europe from the Western Hemisphere.

(See the next post, “Who Were the Phoenicians? Part VI.” Did the Phoenicians sail to the Western Hemisphere?)