page_title: Tyre, Lebanon
section_title: Independent Phoenician period (1200–868 BCE)
hierarchical_section_title: Tyre, Lebanon / History / Independent Phoenician period (1200–868 BCE)
caption_attribution_description: English: National Museum of Beirut – Tyre stele 1 العربية: نقش فينيقي لخادم إله الخصوبة بعل حمون على لوحة من مدينة صور، في متحف بيروت الوطني.
context_page_description: Tyre is one of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world, though in medieval times for some centuries by just a tiny population. It was one of the earliest Phoenician metropolises and the legendary birthplace of Europa, her brothers Cadmus and Phoenix, as well as Carthage's founder Dido. The city has many ancient sites, including the Tyre Hippodrome, and was added as a whole to UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites in 1984.
  The historian Ernest Renan noted:
  One can call Tyre a city of ruins, built out of ruins.
  Today Tyre is the fifth largest city in Lebanon after Beirut, Tripoli, Aley and Sidon, It is the capital of the Tyre District in the South Governorate. There were approximately 200,000 inhabitants in the Tyre urban area in 2016, including many refugees.
context_section_description: During the 11th century BCE the collection of maritime merchant-republic city-states constituting Phoenicia began a commercial expansion. Especially Tyre and Sidon benefited from the elimination of the former trade centers in Ugarit and Alalakh. Hence, Phoenicia came to be characterized by outsiders and the Phoenicians as Sidonia or Tyria. Phoenicians and Canaanites alike were called Sidonians or Tyrians. Yet, such was Tyre's maritime dominance
  "that the Mediterranean Sea became known as 'the Tyrian Sea".
  There is very little archaeological data from Tyre during this period of Iron Age II and thus it is not known how it imposed its hegemony on others. However, it is widely assumed that it relied on trade as well as cultural exchange, rather than on military conquest. Most prominently, Tyre has been credited for spreading its alphabet and a Vigesimal numerical system.
  A decisive factor in this global rise were apparently the extraordinary skills by Tyrian scholars in astronomy to navigate their ships. And as the space on the island city was limited, the inhabitants constructed multi-storey buildings. They thus acquired a reputation for being great masons and Engineers, also in metalworks and especially in shipbuilding.
  Written tradition has largely credited one individual with the strong growth of Tyre's prosperity from the 10th century BCE onwards: Hiram I, who succeeded his father Abibaal in 969 BCE. More than a millienium later, Flavius Josephus recorded the legend that Hiram expanded the urban territory by projects connecting two islands or Reefs to form a single island on which he had temples erected for Melqart, Astarte, and Ba'al Shamem.
  Beyond the borders of his kingdom, Hiram evidently forged close relations with the Hebrew kings David and Solomon. Reportedly, he sent cedar wood and skilled workers for the construction of the great Temple in Jerusalem. Imports from Cyprus played an important part in this period.
  Furthermore, Hiram's regional cooperation as well as his fight against Philistine pirates helped to develop trade with Arabia, and North and East Africa. Commerce from throughout the ancient world was gathered into the warehouses of Tyre, as its fortifications offered protection for valuable goods in storage or transit. And Tyrians not only settled in Memphis, south of the temple of Hephaestus in a district called the Tyrian Camp. They also founded
  "colonies on the coasts and neighbouring islands of the Aegean Sea, in Greece, on the northern coast of Africa, at Carthage and other places, in Sicily and Corsica, in Spain at Tartessus and even beyond the pillars of Hercules at Gadeira (Cádiz)."
  However, after Hiram's reign of 34 years, several Tyrian kings were killed in succession fights: 
  "the king was chosen among the royal families and reigned for life. He was backed by a council of the elders (or magistrates,) and their decisions were controlled by the great merchant families."
caption: "Grhmn" – Phoenician inscription of a servant of the fertility deity Baal Hammon on a stela from Tyre, National Museum of Beirut
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