Talk:Phoenicia/Archive 2

message: Is any of the following worth retrieving?
:Phoenician was one of the northwestern Semitic languages, those languages that include Amorite and Ugaritic, in addition to the Canaanite languages that include Phoenician, Hebrew and Aramaic. The Canaanite languages constitute a group of closely-related languages and dialects spoken in the ancient Near East, with written records going back to about 1500 BC.
:Letters from the 14th century BCE, written in Akkadian, the language of diplomacy at the time, which were discovered at Tell el-Amarna in Egypt, contain solecisms that are not 'mistakes' but actually early Phoenician Canaanite words and phrases.
:The earliest known inscriptions in Phoenician come from Byblos and date back to ca. 1000 BC. Phoenician inscriptions are found in Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Cyprus and other locations as late as the early centuries of the Christian Era. Punic, a language that developed from Phoenician in Phoenician colonies around the western Mediterranean beginning in the 9th century BCE, slowly supplanted Phoenician, similar to the way Italian supplanted Latin. Punic Phoenician was still spoken in the 5th century CE: St. Augustine, for example, grew up in North Africa and was familiar with the language."
:Knowledge of Hebrew aided the reconstruction of Phoenician inscriptions. An early essay in Phoenician language studies was Wilhelm Gesenius (1786 - 1842), Scripturae linguaeque phoeniciae monumenta, 1837, analyzing texts from coins and monumental inscriptions. Nowadays one can study Phoenician in the U.S. at Harvard, Johns Hopkins, the University of Michigan and University of Chicago (the only place to study advanced Phoenician).
:Details of the historical inter-relations of the Semitic languages are debated by linguists. Especially controversial are the relationships of languages that are not themselves well known, like Amorite, or archaic languages like Eblaite which has features of both Akkadian and Canaanite languages.
[edit]
::External link
::* The Semitic languages, including Phoenician.
Wetman 16:57, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Deleted text formerly in the article

message: "spread right across the Mediterranean during the first century BC." Surely "millennium" was intended. --Wetman 03:51, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Century/Millennium

message: Disputed statement:
::Ironically, the Phoenicians themselves are largely silent on their own history, because Phoenician writing has largely perished, since their characteristic writing material was papyrus from Egypt, which has distintegrated.
Amazing it is that papyri which date even approximately one thousand five hundred years older than Phoenicia (of 200 BC)  (Moscow and Rhind Mathematical Papyri, Ebers papyrus, Edwin Smith papyrus) are all still intact and legible, but the Phoenicians, who...
# after 1200 BC, formed a major naval and trading power in the region ... the stacked warships like triremes and quinqueremes probably being Phoenician inventions,
# invented their own dye which they were especially famous for in their port town of Tyre,
# discovered transparent glass,
# shipped tall Lebanon cedars to Egypt,
# worked to trade tin that they obtained from mines in Spain and Britain, 
# Herodotus says were sent out by pharaoh Necho II (6th century BC) of Egypt to circumnavigate Africa,
# sailed to Britain (and maybe around Africa) and
# even invented their own alphabet (Phoenician alphabet)
somehow didn't have the "smarts" to write on something that wouldn't get wet and fall apart! 
Repeat:  Are we really to believe that the Phoenicians (who [1] invented their own alphabet and [2] were the naval powers of the ancient world) somehow weren't smart enough to realize that they shouldn't write on something that gets wet and subsequently falls apart?
If you believe this tale, you've been fooled by a Phoenician!
Err... Phoenician? ... or do you think maybe ancient/medieval Romans/Britons revising history?  See Origins of chess.
Sept 4 2005   Paper represents a massive revolution in written language because it is so compact. The entire Akkadian library complex, including the parts that are not excavated yet, would fit nicely on a small bookcase if re-published in paperback. The Gilgamesh Epic, for example, occupies 12 clay tablets or one very thin pocket-book. I've never heard of a single culture that started writing on paper or papyrus and then moved on to stone or clay tablets because they were more durable! For that matter, information stored on paper is more likely to last than information stored on a computer. I guess we're no smarter than the phoenicians! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.167.214.129 (talk • contribs) 3 Sept 2005
2-6-05  I added leather parchment to the area on writing and papyrus.  Sheep and goats were prevalent here, and other historic cultures in the Levant used parchment which has survived - but only erratically.  As to the survival of written records ..... these city/states were sacked more times than most in the area and, in some geologists' opinions, were subject to at least one major tsunami.  In the absence of evidence, it is hard to assert that they chose not to create written records on perishable materials.  
-W  (an "anonymous") - as of 02-17-05 WBardwin.
:Good edits, W. Log in, why don't you?  Most of us non-historians are unaware how recent our manuscripts of surviving Greek literature are. Manuscripts that weren't recopied have perished. The utterly dry sands of Oxyrhyncus preserved some fragments of Menander, but by the second and first century BCE, who was around to read a Phoenician text? All the Etruscan books were lost in very similar fashion, save parts of one whose linen was reused to wrap a late mummy. And vellum doesn't have the  plant-cell cellulose that bacteria have such problems digesting. --Wetman 07:53, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Something Fishy about the History of Phoenicia 

message: Would someone more knowledgeable than me please check the recent changes by User:207.108.138.120? Anonymous, no citations, no edit summary, you know the drill. -- Jmabel | Talk 00:18, Feb 12, 2005 (UTC)
All looks good, apart from Latin puniceus, which I'm not sure about. - Mustafaa 00:34, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Another questionable addition 

message: In the historical context of this article, is it really appropriate to link "Persia" to Iran? -- Jmabel | Talk 06:29, Apr 16, 2005 (UTC)
* Phoenicia doesnt have anything to do with Iran, (otherwise you have to attach it to every nation in the world) since they all occupied it briefly?!--Skatewalk 03:30, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Iran/Persia 

message: A long time ago, I've read that the origins of the Phoenicians are Greek. Is that true?--Gramaic 06:22, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: No, in fact the Greeks borrowed their alphabet from Phoenicians (see Cadmus myth and Europa myth). But the name we give to Phoenicians is a Greek name. --Wetman 06:30, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

text: If you are referring to professor Cheikh Anta Diop, I do hope you understand he was not with the Nation of Islam.MrSativa (talk) 02:00, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Phoenician Origin

message: The men found in Canaan in prehistoric times, the Natufian, was a Negroid.
The Capsian tool industry, which doubtless came from north Africa to that region, was also of Negroid Origin.
In the Bible, when the first whites races reached the place coming from europe after the last glacial period,
they found a black race there, the canaanites, descendants of canaan, brother of mesraim, the egyptian, and kush, the ethiopian, sons of ham.
The Canaanites thus the phoenican, were originally Negroes, already civilized, with whom nomadic, uncultured white tribes later mixed.
Toward the middle of the second millennium 1450 B.C. under the increasing pressure of white tribes who occupied the hinterland and drove the phoenicians back toward the coast, the sidonians founded the first phoenician colonies in Boeotia, where they installed the excess population.
References: Lenormant, Cheikh Anta Diop.
Examples: Babylonians in the time of Dareios I and Artaxerxes II 
http://greatcommission.com/berlin/60.jpg
http://www.sacred-texts.com/afr/we/we11.htm 
Arabia was originally settled by two distinct races, an earlier Cushite Ethiopian race and a later Semitic Arabian. 'The Cushites were the original Arabians and dwelt there before Abraham came to Canaan 
The Cushites were their superiors in knowledge and, civilization." It had been a Cushite principle to mete out equal justice to aliens. For many years the Semites lived subject to the laws of the Sabaeans, silently increasing in strength. They accepted in part the language, manners and institutions of the Cushites. At last they rose and overthrew those who had given them the light.
I really don't like using "Negro" as a scientific term, given its negative connotations in some circles.  Not that I want to go to the extremes of political correctness, but wouldn't Africans of Sub-Saharan origin be a better designation?  No, wait, that has an unappealing acronym.  What about African-Africans?  Afroriginies?  Anyway, we established that the Phoenicians were essentially Hebrews in the last section, and that they were black Africans in this one--so I'm pretty much picturing their culture as one large Sammy Davis Junior show.  You know, Hannibal with a song in his heart.  Works for me.
*Why Hannibal? Hannibal was a Carthaginian, the people who whose descendents are the (Caucasoid) Berbers. Oh, and "sub-Saharan Africans" is a misleading term to apply narrowly to Negroid peoples, as the Capoid peoples (the so-called Bushmen and Pygmies) are also indigenous to sub-Saharan Africa. 
 
PLEASE no one listen to this Nation of Islam pseudohistory. "White" and "non-white" are social constructs dating to the fifteenth century with no basis in bio-anthropology. For actual historians, skin colour is rarely a concern except when dealing with fringe lunatics like the poster above. For the record though, the peoples of the Mediterranean Basin probably looked quite similar then as they do now. The ancient Phoenicians were a Semitic people, and in all likelihood their closest "descendents" today are found amongst the population of Lebanon and Syria. Wormwoodpoppies 19:27, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If you are referring to professor Cheikh Anta Diop, I do hope you understand he was not with the Nation of Islam.MrSativa (talk) 02:00, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: The Phoenician like the Canaanites were Negroes

message: http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0410/feature2/index.htmlYuber 23:53, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Interesting article on the descendants of the Phoenicians 

message: I am new to this, but I'd like to ask that some kind of serious source be given for this statement:
"Recent DNA (Y chromosome) studies conducted by the National Geographic Magazine on the bones of ancient Phoenicians and living people from Lebanon and elsewhere in the Mediterranean prove that both Muslims and Christians from those areas carry the same ancient Phoenician genetic material."  
After that statement there's another one for which an article on HLA is given as a source, but there is nothing explaining where the statement about Y DNA is from.  
I have the feeling that whoever wrote this may have picked up some slightly confused information, just possibly, because while studies of modern Y DNA are common, and I would not doubt that they show something like what is stated, it is extremely difficult to get Y DNA (as opposed to mitochondrial DNA) from ancient bones.  If this has been accomplished, I would very much appreciate having a citation to the source where I could read more about it and inform a lot of other people who would like to know about this.  
I just did a little web search and found only web and popular sources, nothing I would consider solid.  I found this: 
"Spencer Wells collects DNA from a 2,500-year-old Phoenician mummy's tooth, to extract its unique genetic code and compare it with DNA samples collected from men and women from Lebanon to Tunisia," from http://www.pbs.org/previews/phoenicians/, and other pages like http://phoenicia.org/genetics.html.  In the National Geographic article itself, from Oct. 2004, Vol. 206 Issue 4, p26, I could find nothing about any Y DNA being extracted from bones. If anyone can find detailed and accurate information on this, I'd really appreciate hearing about it. Iris-J2 21:28, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  DNA evidence 

message: Despite the earlier confident statement on this page that Augustine spoke Punic and (mirabile dictu) refers to books written in it, Augustine's acclaimed biographer Peter Brown states it is in fact "most unlikely" Augustine spoke anything but Latin (Brown, Augustine of Hippo, 2000'; p. 10). Though local languages were spoken alongside Latin by the common folk of Roman Africa, and in remote villages no Latin at all was heard, a man of Augustine's cultural and social position in all likelihood had no more than a smattering of Punic, though he did understand there was some relation between Punic and Hebrew (the latter of which he knew virtually nothing of) - e.g., "Edom" translates as "blood" in both languages (Enarrationes in Psalmos 136,18: Interpretatur autem, quantum dicunt qui illam linguam noverunt, Edom, Sanguis: nam et Punice Edom, "sanguis" dicitur).
Come to think of it, even Augustine's Greek was shaky at best. But that, as they say, is a different  story.
--84.105.40.55 15:26, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Just to interject in the name of factual accuracy...while I can't speak to the case of Punic, in Hebrew, "edom" (אדום) means "red", not "blood", which is "dam" (דם).  Tomertalk 08:26, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Saint Augustine and Punic

message: I believe this section could do with some more detail. As it stands, it is a bit too vague. --Impaciente 09:16, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Request for expansion of "Decline" section

message: It is good that people are interested in the past and human history especially that of extinct peoples like the Romans, Ancient Greeks, Phoenicians, Scythians and so on. What is not healthy is trying to tie these Dodo peoples with modern living peoples. The Lebanese are a nationality with a territory in West Asia, citizenship, language and culture. The Phoenicians do not have a territory, citizenship, language and culture. They are defunct. Comparing the Phoenicians with modern Lebanese is like comparing the flora and fauna of the Levant in the 21st century with what was present in the same geography many thousands of years ago. What do they have in common? Geography that is all. These two peoples, one living, one extinct have different languages, different cultures, different religions - everything is different. So why on Earth compare the two peoples? Just over two hundred years ago, Australia was totally inhabited by Australian sub groups of humans, now the the same geography is inhabited by diasporic European caucasoids and various Asian peoples. Use some common sense.
I am Maltese born, live in Australia and frankly that Wells idea of discovering living Phoenicians in Lebanon, Malta and North Africa is idiotic and a waste of money. There is no way some bones found in a Phoenician style sarcophacus can extract enough DNA to prove anything. Wells cannot even prove that the bones belong to a dead Phoenician. What can be compared are the gene frequencies of living populations. Maybe 50% of Maltese men DNA tested have Y chromosome markers linking them to the Levant or Greece or Turkey or Mars. It doesn't prove actual relatedness. Haplogroups belonging to J or E are found all over Europe in varying frequencies. I suppose every man in York England is descended from Vikings or every Scotsmen from the Scotti or every Finn from Siberian Ugric speakers. Use common sense.  
—Preceding unsigned comment added by Iamfromlija (talk • contribs) 
:"not healthy" you say... lol... "not healthy" for whom? 
:--ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 14:21, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dead as Dodos 

message: Having read the Wikipedia article on Phoenicia, I noticed it said relatively little about the ancient empire's form of government. If anybody has any information about Phoenicina government - such as, what type it was and how it worked - I'd love to hear it! (Unsigned)
: City states.  Each city had its own king.  At the article Tyre, you can link to a list of the kings of Tyre, but that's just one city.  ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 23:51, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Phoenician Government 

message: There should be a map on the article showing the phoenician land and how it expanded and what countries lie on these land now. --A rihani 18:19, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: A while back I looked at all the other language articles for a pic and noticed that most of them have none, but that Arabic had a nice map.  The only problem was that the legend was in Arabic. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 14:50, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It is a nice map… The legend text is something like "The Commercial Network of the Phoenicians" (شبکة التجارة الفينيقية). The orange area is just tagged "Phoenicia" (فينيقيا), and the red line is tagged something like "sea route" (طرق بحرية). That would probably suit this article better than what A rihani specifically describes, as Phoenicia proper never underwent much in the way of expansion… --Americist 22:06, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I went ahead and made and uploaded a version with an English legend. My Arabic's not good enough to be able to tell what license the image is under at the Arabic Wikipedia, so I hope the image is legal. Americist, your Arabic seems to be good: can you check the licensing info for me? — ዮም (Yom) | contribs • Talk • E 07:08, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Map

message: I heard somewhere that the Phoenicians used to worship the clitoris. Is this true?
May I ask where you heard this? Thank you in advance,Oroblanco 06:37, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Since this has sat uncommented I would note that the above is a joke. Unless I see a cite to the contrary please disregard the above, several books on the Carthaginians, never come across this nonsense - PocklingtonDan 21:55, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Religion

message: "Historian Gerhard Herm further asserts that, because the Phoenicians' legendary sailing abilities are not well attested before the invasions of the Sea Peoples around 1200 BC, that these Sea Peoples would have merged with the local population to produce the Phoenicians, who seemingly gained these abilities rather suddenly at that time. This idea is backed up by archaeological evidence that the Philistines, often thought of as related to the Sea Peoples, were culturally linked to Mycenaean Greeks, who were also known to be great sailors even in this period."
This paragraph is rather out of date with current lines of thinking. 
-The Phonecians (or their predecessors) the Canaanites were perhaps some of the most active traders in the Western Mediterranean well before the emergence of true "Phonecian" culture. They had trading links as far west as Crete in the 14th century and, while not dominating Levantine trade during the Late Bronze Age, were certainly one the main players. Thus they did not "rather suddendly" gain sailing ability.
Good articles relevant to this point are perhaps the Ulu Burun excavations published by George Bass in 1984 and 1986 (as well as other years).
----------------------------------
A sidenote to this:
The "seapeople incident" is more precisely the destruction of Ugarit. While the feared perpetrators are still debatable, Ugarit - the victim - is pretty well known.
It seems obvious that at least some of its population survived, especially traders out on sea.
A sudden influx of people (Canaanites from Ugarit) in some cities of the area would be more than logical. As well as a sudden growth in seatrade to at least partially fill in the sudden gap in international trade left open by the demise of the major port of that time.Hirsch.im.wald 17:23, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sea Peoples/Phonecians 

message: I was tempted to remove this whole section since it is such unscientific nonsense, but then again the legends around something are as interesting to read about as the facts sometimes. Since the article on gold has a section on alchemy and notes it is discredited, I felt it was probably correct to keep this section here but note that it is discredited. The text before was a little unencyclopedic and unquestioning, so I have corrected this and left the section in place - any questions, please leave a message on my talk page. Cheers - PocklingtonDan 21:53, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree completely.  No self-respecting encyclopedia or historical resource would include such nonsense.  We might as well have a section called "Phoenicians on the Moon" or "Phoenicians in Australia."  In fact, I'm going to delete the entire section right now. Thatsfifteenminutes 16:28, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's a pity that this myth has been deleted, as, no doubt some believer will insert another paragraph at some time in the future. In relation to the "Phoenicians and Cornish Tin" myth, the WP article on Joseph of Aremithia claimed that because of the "well-documented" [Diodorus Siculus] story of Phoenicians in Cornwall is true then Joseph the Tin Merchant is also likely to be true, although without an contemporary evidence.  Isn't it better to relate the myth and then indicate scholarly disbelief (with citations)? === Vernon White (talk) 17:56, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree, but if you want to fix up that section, by all means have at it.  I just don't think it's worthwhile to address bogus rumors (and frankly, one I'd never heard before in years of studying ancient Mediterranean history).  Should we address bogus rumors throughout wikipedia, or should we simply provide good information? Thatsfifteenminutes 16:15, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's only your POV (opinion) that the sections you deleted are bogus rumours.  Many books have been written that address the massive amounts of evidence for Phoenician presence in America. But anyone who writes such a book is immediately ostracised by people like you, and even any reference to such a book is always covered up as much as possible by people like you as we have just now seen.  There are photographs of the Phoenician coins that were found at the website, and yes, they have been published.  Punic inscriptions have been found from Monhegan Island in Maine, to South America, and there are whole books about this, with photographs of them. But this evidence totally contradicts what powerful people are trying to push about America's history, so they routinely attack such evidence with a vehemence rarely seen in academia, just as I commented before.  What we have seen now with this censorship is proving my remarks were 100% correct. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 17:13, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not my point of view.  It's fact.  The Phoenicians did not come to America.  Such claims are as factual as claims that aliens helped build the pyramids at Giza.  This is not censorship, it is an attempt to provide people with correct information without confusing them with ridiculous "theories" (such a word shouldn't even be used because a real historical or scientific theory actually has a basis in hard evidence).  This is not a debate about "what powerful people are trying to do" to you and your poor censored ideas.  Great logic there. Thatsfifteenminutes 16:08, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

text: The amazing thing is, lots of sources on this subject can easily be found in the public libraries of every single county in the USA, despite all the best efforts of those who want to censor this information from ever being seen.  If you want to dispute the info, come up with countersources in your books that dispute it for you - don't just summarily blank it out.  The amount of material on the controversy here could fill a dedicated sub-article on Phoenicians in America with ease, and I predict that is exactly what will happen since attempts at censorship or trying to keep people from finding out something, usually backfire on mediums that aren't restricted to a few, but that enjoy popular access, like Wikipedia. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 18:52, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yes, there are a lot of books in public libraries that respond to public demand on such topics as "Phoenicians in America".  Libraries usually place them in Dewey Decimal class 001.9: Controversial knowledge.  In politically incorrect days, this class was labelled "uncertain and spurious knowledge."  It would be good to have an article Phoenicians in America, citing all the sources to which User:Codex Sinaiticus refers, together with an evaluation of their reliability.  The guide-lines for WikiProject: Saints suggests separation of the facts of the life of a saint from their veneration.  Such a separation could be useful to this subject. === Vernon White (talk) 00:02, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Phoenicians in America ? 

message: I am most puzzled by the following phrase at the beginning of the article: "...that spread across the Mediterranean during the first millennium BC, between the period of 1200 BC to 900 BC. "  Well, which is it?   Thermaland 11:33, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Chronology 

message: The article as it now stands claims that the word "Spain" (originally, "Hispania") derives from Phoenician I-Shaphan. Looking at the Hispania article, one encounters a raft of theories concerning the etymology of the name, of which this is but one, and not necessarily the most probable. I have no reason to doubt that there are several credible etymologies, so I've quite simply changed the sentence to "Some scholars believe...". David ekstrand 23:10, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: The Etymology of Spain

message: The Melungeons are also sometimes claimed to be descendants of the Phoenicians.
Take a look at the article Melungeons and you'll know why I want this to stay here until a source is presented.--91.148.159.4 22:32, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Moved from article 

message: Several sections on this page are incredibly innacurate - someone might like to get a copy of one of the better recent books on Phoenician scholarship and update it (I'm too busy at the moment to do a full revision). A good starting place would be M. E. Aubet's "The Phoenicians and the West: Politicis, Colonies, and Trade, 2nd Edition." Cambridge: Cambidge University Press, 2001.
Two quick points though - 
*The "Origins of the Phoenicians" section is widly innacurate as a brief quote from Aubet's book will illustrate:
"In modern terminology, it is customary to use the name 'Canaanite' to designate those people who spoke North West Semitic and lived in the territory of Syria-Palestine at least from the beginning of the second millenium BC. The same populations, who have a common historical, geographic, cultural and linguistic base, are known as Phoenicians from the year 1200 BC onwards, thus establishing an artifical barrier between the Bronze Age and the Iron Age and conferring chronological implications on the two terms. According to this the 'Phoenicians' succeded the 'Canaanite' from 1200 BC until the conquest by Alexander the Great in 333 BC." (Aubet, pp. 11-12)
Perhaps someone can make a few edits/do some more reading.--Dcsmith 14:00, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Major Revision Needed 

message: Just because Egypt conquered their lands and the Hebrews 1500yrs later attached them to Mizraim! (which makes sense, since the Hebrews attached their enemies to Egypt) That don't make them Negros!
The Cannanites are simply a branch of the Amorites. They speak the same languae as the Wetsern Semites and thats what they are. The Britannica says they are Amorites, who do you want me to believe an afrocentric or the Britannica?--Skatewalk 03:27, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: The Cannanites are Semites not Negros!