The Oxford Handbook of the Phoenician and Punic Mediterranean

by Carolina Lopez-Ruiz

  In recent decades, the study of the Phoenicians has reached a critical moment. The field has grown in sheer content, sophistication of analysis, and diversity of interpretation, and we now need a current overview of where the study of the Phoenicians stands and where it is going. This is a particularly fragmented and scattered field; while there is growing interest in Phoenicians, the latest advances are mostly published in specialized journals and conference volumes in a variety of languages. For reasons having to do with the history of this field and the physical location of the archaeological evidence, scholarship is also highly concentrated in Europe and not necessarily with English as the obvious language of its diffusion, except for a few syntheses (Markoe 2000; Woolmer 2017). The most recent “handbook”-style treatment of the Phoenician and Punic world, Véronique Krings’s La civilization phénicienne et punique: Manuel de recherche, appeared in 1995 and has served as a point of reference for later scholarship. Following in her footsteps, we hope this Handbook of the Phoenician and Punic Mediterranean, in English, will be an updated, major point of reference for future research and a new steppingstone for a broad readership to further explore Phoenician culture.

  Past research on the Phoenicians consistently ran into the roadblock of poor excavations or lack of excavation. In the scholarship of the 1970s–1990s, one frequently encounters statements such as, “Since key Phoenician sites have yet to be excavated, there is little we can say.…” In contrast, one of the more stunning developments in the field involves new discoveries regarding the extent and nature of Phoenician exploration and colonization in the West—for instance, in Spain (especially in the areas of Málaga, Cádiz, Huelva) and, more surprisingly, in Portugal. To be sure, the scarcity of new large sites in Levantine Phoenicia, at least for the Iron Age, remains frustrating. But more recent projects at key Lebanese sites in Tyre, Sidon, Beirut, and also in Cyprus and northern Israel offer great promise and have begun to close some gaps in our knowledge about the eastern cities and their ties with the western settlers.

  Moreover, there are other reasons academic interest in the Phoenicians has steadily increased in recent decades. Besides the surge in recent archaeological and epigraphical materials, new theoretical trends have taken hold. The interactions among Phoenicians, Greeks, and other local cultures around the Mediterranean have come to the fore in studies that take on postcolonial angles and that stress cultural exchange in colonial and noncolonial contexts, including the “orientalizing” phenomenon, a truly first “global era” in the Iron Age Mediterranean, in which the Phoenicians were instrumental (Aubet 2001; Hodos 2006; Riva and Vella 2006; Dietler and López-Ruiz 2009; Celestino and López-Ruiz 2016). Recent works have also explored the spread of Assyrian and Egyptian models from the art-historical angle, including the role of the Phoenicians and other Levantines (Gunter 2010; Feldman, 2014) and the close dialogue between Greek and Phoenician art as media for the expression of identity (Martin 2017).

  Current interest in the Punic realm (that is, areas of Phoenician activity in the central and western Mediterranean after roughly 500 bce) is also evident, with numerous monographs on Carthage and the Punic Wars, new discussions of the thorny issue of infant sacrifice and the archaeology of the tophet, and collective volumes on the often neglected “Hellenistic period” in the western Mediterranean (fourth to first century bce; e.g., van Dommelen and Gómez Bellard 2008; Prag and Quinn 2013; Quinn and Vella 2014). None of these volumes, however, focuses solely on the Phoenicians and their role in these exchanges and contexts.

  The present Handbook aims to help both the general reader and the scholar navigate this surge of specialized scholarship. The nonspecialist probably still resorts to Sabatino Moscati’s monumental volume The Phoenicians (English translation, 1988), a magnificent catalogue of the famous 1988 Venice exhibit that, indeed, many make responsible for kick-starting interest in the Phoenicians in Europe. In recent decades, students resort to two other compendia, in fact the only ones available: the informative short entries in the dictionary edited by Edward Lipiński, Dictionnaire de la civilisation phénicienne et punique (1992), and the only existing handbook to date, the voluminous Manuel de recherche edited by Véronique Krings mentioned earlier. Neither of these two volumes has been translated into English, and, besides, much has changed in the field in the decades since they were published.

  A crucial problem, addressed directly or indirectly in almost all the essays in this volume, involves the very category and even the term “Phoenician.” How coherent and meaningful is it? Were the Phoenicians an identifiable group in the ancient world (by that name or some other name, or by an identifiable bundle of distinctive cultural traits), and how close can we come to a native Phoenician view of their world as opposed to characterizations—some of them pejorative and distorted for other reasons—by others who encountered them? (recently treated in Quinn 2018) And what about “Punic,” a term that has carried with it an emphasis on geography (Phoenician colonies and settlements in the western Mediterranean), chronology (after 500 bce), and language? Some scholars debate whether the Phoenicians even constitute a cohesive culture, a question aggravated by the loss of in-group narratives from the Phoenician world, whose cultural history and identity markers are now conveyed solely by “mute” material and artistic evidence or through the perspectives of others (Greeks, Romans, Israelites, Assyrians).

  Let us not forget that, however, were it not for the survival of the Classical literary legacy, we would face similar problems for the study of those ancient cultures too, including the Greeks. And yet, the reader looking for the reality of the Phoenicians will find in the chapters quite an extraordinary homogeneity that spans material culture, language, and religion—the three pillars that archaeologists and historians traditionally use to identify a culture even when internal narratives are absent. However weary postmodern modes of analysis may have made us of reifying cultures or imposing identities on ancient (or modern) peoples, the fact is that all these authors have a fairly good idea of who the Phoenicians were and what evidence to show for their contributions. In turn, far from trying to impose a unitary view, this collection deliberately reflects different approaches, explicitly or implicitly, to Phoenician culture and identity. The chapters in this Handbook form a kaleidoscopic view of the Phoenicians also through different disciplines, each with its own type of evidence and methodology: prehistory, history, Syro-Palestinian and western Mediterranean archaeology, numismatics, art history, cultural studies, colonial and postcolonial studies, Classical philology, Semitic epigraphy, and more.

  The purpose of this Handbook, then, is to triangulate our subject through a series of perspectives presented by a wide range of scholars in the world of Phoenician studies. We have endeavored to include both well-established voices and researchers newer to the field, with the hope of fostering and showcasing an intergenerational dialogue. Moreover, our contributors are drawn from across Europe and the Mediterranean world to highlight the international scope and relevance of this field. Their distribution overlaps with the regions historically connected with the Phoenicians and where most of the archaeological fieldwork happens (from east to west, we have representation from Lebanon, Israel, Greece, Italy, Malta, Tunisia, Spain, and Portugal), as well as European and English-speaking countries that still invest in Classical and Semitic studies (the UK, Belgium, France, the United States, and Australia).

  A few points on our organization of the volume:

  In part one, “Histories,” the reader will find histories of the main Phoenician areas in the Levant and in the central-western Mediterranean (the latter concentrated on Carthage, as it is the focus of most ancient historiography).

  Part two contains three sections on “Areas of Culture,” organized around language and writing, religion, and material culture. This section is particularly challenging, given the uneven amount of evidence available for different aspects of their culture. We have reached what we think is a representative and feasible division among st
udies of pottery, art and iconography, and numismatics, and then also chapters on shipwreck archaeology and other technologies and industries, some well-known areas of Phoenician expertise (metalwork and other minor industries), and other areas of activity whose importance does not necessarily match their archaeological visibility (navigation, residential architecture, agriculture).

  Part three covers regional studies and areas of cultural contact, which has captivated much recent scholarly attention. Leaning on the histories in part one and areas of material culture in part two, these chapters focus on the different ways in which Phoenician communities expanded their horizons and developed in specific contexts and in contact with other cultures, from the broader Levant and the Aegean to Iberia.

  Finally, part four focuses on the reception of Phoenician culture as an idea, entangled with the formation of other cultural identities, both ancient and modern (such as Greek, Roman, Israelite, “Western,” and modern national identities in the Middle East and North Africa).

  Because of the uneven nature of the sources, both archaeological and written, there are particularly well-documented or interesting pockets of information that deserve separate attention. For instance, a disproportionate amount of material and written sources survive that pertain to the controversial issue of child sacrifice, recently placed under the spotlight through the publication of bone-analysis results from the Carthage tophet, so this is treated in an separate chapter (chapter 21); otherwise, it would be a subset of religion (chapter 19) or funerary ritual (chapter 20). The issue of how to deal with “orientalizing” art, frequently associated with the Phoenicians, also deserves a separate discussion by an expert in that field (chapter 24), supplementing the chapter on Phoenician art and iconography (chapter 23). For similar reasons we devote a chapter to the development of Phoenician archaeology in Portugal (chapter 39), otherwise part of the Iberian Peninsula (chapter 38). And similarly a few chapters partly overlap but also expand on the general areas covered by other chapters.

  Our hope is that this Handbook showcases the research and conclusions of some of the most established voices in the field of Phoenician studies and also introduces new voices to the conversation. Moreover, as will become clear to the reader, many of the authors represented here are quick to point out just how little is known about their topics and how much work remains to be done. We hope this volume will be a useful tool to support further research and trigger new interpretive trends, internationally and across disciplines.

  References

  Aubet, M. E. 2001. [1993]. The Phoenicians and the West: Politics, Colonies, and Trade. Second Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

  Celestino, S., and C. López-Ruiz. 2016. Tartessos and the Phoenicians in Iberia. New York: Oxford University Press.

  Dietler, M., and C. López-Ruiz, eds. 2009. Colonial Encounters in Ancient Iberia: Phoenician, Greek, and Indigenous Relations. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

  Feldman, M. 2014. Communities of Style: Portable Luxury Arts, Identity, and Collective Memory in the Iron Age Mediterranean. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

  Gunter, A. 2010. Greek Art and the Orient. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

  Hodos, T. 2006. Local Responses to Colonization in the Iron Age Mediterranean. New York: Routledge.

  Krings, V., ed. 1995. La civilization phénicienne et punique: Manuel de recherché. Leiden: Brill.

  Lipiński, E. 1992. Dictionnaire de la civilisation phénicienne et punique. Paris: Brepols.

  Markoe, G. 2000. Phoenicians. London: British Museum Press.

  Martin, R. S. 2017. The Art of Contact: Comparative Approaches to Greek and Phoenician Art. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

  Moscati, S. 1988. The Phoenicians. Milan: Bompiani.

  Prag, J., and J. C. Quinn, eds. 2013. The Hellenistic West: Rethinking the Ancient Mediterranean. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

  Quinn, J. C. 2018. In Search of the Phoenicians. Princeton, NJ, and Oxford: Princeton University Press.

  Quinn, J. C., and N. Vella, eds. 2014. The Punic Mediterranean: Identities and Identification from Phoenician Settlement to Roman Times: Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

  Riva, C., and N. Vella, eds. 2006. Debating Orientalization: Multidisciplinary Approaches to Change in the Ancient Mediterranean. London: Equinox.

  Van Dommelen, P., and C. Gómez Bellard, eds. 2008. Rural Landscapes of the Punic World. London and Oakville: Equinox.

  Woolmer, M. 2017. A Short History of the Phoenicians. London and New York: I. B. Tauris.

  Chapter 2

  Research Tools

  Philip C. Schmitz

  The academic study of the Phoenicians and their civilization began relatively recently (see chapter 3, this volume), but has quickly generated a large bibliography of important studies. One of the difficulties that learners face is that the historical study of Phoenician civilization must draw on a large number of sources from several different fields of research, not all of which are in regular communication with each other or are widely known to the general readership. Another difficulty is that the Phoenician language is attested in a relatively small surviving sample and is consequently not much studied or well understood. The following discussion focuses attention on published works that provide the tools for first-hand learning about the Phoenician language and the lifeways shared by Phoenician cities around the Mediterranean. Some foundation in Greek and Latin, and a basic acquaintance with ancient history, is presumed in the discussion that follows. General knowledge about the Hebrew Bible, and the more technical field of biblical studies, often proves of help also.

  Unlike other contributions in this Handbook, this chapter does not present a narrative but, rather, basic guiding notes and bibliographical resources by topic.

  Terminology

  The names “Canaan” and “Phoenicia” as geographical designations, and the names “Canaanite” and “Phoenician” as ethnic and linguistic labels are used variously by ancient and modern writers.

  The divine name dBe (BAD) ga-na-na in the third-millennium cuneiform texts from Ebla was at first thought to include the geographic name “Canaan.” Topographic analysis, however, does not support this identification. Attestation of the name “Canaan” begins securely in the first third of the second millennium bce.

  Second-millennium attestations of the name “Canaan” in cuneiform come from the Mari archives (mid-eighteenth century bce), Alalakh (fifteenth), the Amarna letters (fourteenth), Ugarit (thirteenth), a Middle Assyrian letter from the time of Shalmaneser I (1263–1234 bce), and five tablets from HḪattuša (thirteenth century). Egyptian attestations range from the eighteenth dynasty (fifteenth century) to the twenty-second dynasty (tenth–eighth centuries bce).

  A consensus deriving from these sources and biblical boundary descriptions holds that “Canaan” was a second-millennium geographical term describing approximately the coastal territory from Tripoli in the north to Gaza in the south, perhaps terminating at the “Brook of Egypt.” The eastern boundary of Canaan would be formed (probably) by the Lebanon mountains and the valley of the Jordan River. The contemporary consensus is that second-millennium bce Canaan approximated the boundaries of the Egyptian administrative district by that name.

  From the Greek “Dark Age” onward, the Greek word Phoinikoi came to refer to the urban populations of the eastern Mediterranean seacoast. The populations of Canaanite cities from coastal Syria and Lebanon to the northern shore of Palestine, such as Ras al-Bassit (Posidaion), Tell Sukas (Sianu), Arwad (Arados), Tell Kazel (Sumur, Simyra), Tripoli, Byblos, Beirut, Sidon, Tyre, Ushu, Akhziv, Akko, Tell Keisan, and Dor might be called “Phoenician.” Their language might be referred to by the name of the city, or as “Phoenician.” These populations were similar in material culture, social organization, religious belief and practice, and economic enterprise. The “Phoenicians” are further remembered for promulgating the twenty-two-letter alphabet in which their documents were com
posed. The Phoenician alphabet became the stimulus for all succeeding alphabetic systems. There is no clear evidence, however, that the label “Phoenician” had any non-Greek origin, or that it was used (at least before the Hellenistic period) as a term of self-reference by speakers of the language referred to by that name.

  Greek Sources

  Several Greek histories of the Phoenicians once existed. Unfortunately, none of them is complete but, rather, were fragmentarily transmitted through quotations of later historians, for which the main resource is Jacoby’s Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker (FGrH), reedited with translations and commentaries by current authors in Brill’s New Jacoby Online (BNJ). Besides the histories by Menander of Ephesus and Dius discussed here, we know of the Phoinikiká by Hestiaeus (FGrH 786 F1; Joseph. Ant. 1.107), the Archaeología Phoinikikē, by Hieronymus “the Egyptian” (FGrH 787 F 1–2; Joseph. Ant. 1.107), and a work by the enigmatic Mochus (-Laitos) (FGrH 87 F 67 and 784 F 6; Joseph. Ant. 1.107). Philostratus also composed a Phoenician history (FGrH 789 F 1a–b; Joseph. Ant. 10.228; Ag.Ap. 1.143–44), as did Philo of Byblos (FGrH 790), of which there are extensive fragments. The Suda mentions two local histories: of Byblos, by a certain Aspasius of Byblos (FGrH 792), and a history of Tyre, perhaps by the same author (FGrH 793).

  Menander of Ephesus, a historian who lived probably sometime between 225 and 133 bce, composed in Greek a chronicle that included a list of the rulers of Tyre, the length of reign of each, and brief narratives about significant events in the reigns of some of them. A student of Eratosthenes (Suda s.v.v. Eratosthenēs, Istros; FGrH no. 783, T 1a–b), he may have resided at Pergamum (Tatian, Ad Graec. 37; Clement of Alexandria, [Str?] 1.140.8). His work survives in several citations by Josephus (Ag.Ap. 1.116–19, 121–25, 156–58; Ant. 8.144–49, 324; 9.284–87), and is mentioned by Tertullian (Apol. 19.5–6). Josephus cites Menander to support his general argument that Jews in his own day were the heirs of an ancient nation, thereby refuting Apion’s dating of the Exodus to the first year of the seventh Olympiad (i.e., 752 bce), the same year, says Apion, that Carthage was founded by the Phoenicians (Ag.Ap. 2.17). From tais phoiníkōn anagraphais, “Phoenician records,” Josephus (Ag.Ap. 1.109; 2.19) determines that Hiram of Tyre was a friend of Solomon, that Hiram lived more than 150 years before the foundation of Carthage, and that Solomon built the temple 612 years after the Exodus from Egypt (Ag.Ap. 2.19).