Talk:Phoenicia

message: So, this is still a hot mess? Whether WP:ARBPIA covers it or not is one question, but more interesting (for the readers) is the question of whether we can get it right. So let's try to get it right. The State of Palestine, as far as I can tell, has only the Gaza strip on the coast, and it does not extend as far north as File:PhoenicianTrade.png extends south. I know, this is maps, and guesswork, etc. But let's focus on the main question: the reader of Phoenicia isn't interested in the P-I issue; they simply want to know where to find this on a modern map. So let's try to find some neutral and correct wording. , I see you've touched on this issue before and I'm interested in your thoughts. Also found on this talk page (Talk:Phoenicia#Palestine_and_the_Kingdom_of_Israel) is an ancient comment by  which was never answered--and George seems to have left the building in 2011. Drmies (talk) 18:00, 7 January 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Not sure yet, but the EW is still going on. Doug Weller talk 12:43, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Not that I want to restart a war, but I am of the opinion that we cannot privilege one or the other of the two contenders in a dispute that is not yet settled, and that, therefore, we should call that region by the two names in alphabetical order, i.e. Israel/Palestine. BTW there is a typo in the lede, a twice repeated "of the" before Canaanite subgroup. Carlotm (talk) 10:18, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Israel/Palestine 

message: In 5.1 Genetic studies (first paragraph) one may read: "...followed by "Cyprus and South Turkey; then Crete; then Malta and East Sicily". Yet East Sicily was predominantly Greek, whereas Phoenicians were settled on the Western side of Sicily. Carlotm (talk) 08:39, 18 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Error? 

message: This article says the origin of the Phoenicians was Semitic while a recent scientific study discovered that the complete mitochondrial genome recovered from the Young Man of Byrsa (i.e. a Phoenician) identify that he carried a rare European haplogroup, likely linking his maternal ancestry to Phoenician influenced locations somewhere on the North Mediterranean coast, the islands of the Mediterranean or the Iberian Peninsula. In other words, at least that man had European, not necessarily Semitic origins. While this evidence cannot be called conclusive as regards the Phoenicians as a group, this probably should call for attention in racially classifying Phoenicians (and also for mentioning that study in the article). The study is here: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0155046  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.50.187.218 (talk) 13:14, 24 July 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think it really says anything about Phoenicians other than that their sailors slept with women in the places they visited - well, they were sailors, and sailors are known for having a girl in every port. Doug Weller talk 14:56, 24 July 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Seriously Doug Weller, you're going off of modern rumors about American "sailors" promiscuity, rather than ancient Middle-Eastern and / or Roman sailors, as well as excavators and / or historians? IrishLas (talk) 03:20, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Genetic origin 

message: It states the coastline of Palestine it should state Israel.
It included the coastline of what is now Lebanon, Palestine, Gaza, Syria, and south-west Turkey, though some of its colonies later reached the Western Mediterranean (most notably Carthage) and even the Atlantic Ocean. The civilization spread across the Mediterranean between 1500 BC and 300 BC.
It included the coastline of what is now Lebanon, Israel, Gaza, Syria, and south-west Turkey, though some of its colonies later reached the Western Mediterranean (most notably Carthage) and even the Atlantic Ocean. The civilization spread across the Mediterranean between 1500 BC and 300 BC. 79.74.254.68 (talk) 20:20, 4 September 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Done — nihlus kryik  (talk) 06:29, 5 September 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Semi-protected edit request on 4 September 2017 

message: I am trying to figure this one out. We have a map of Phoenician cities in which the Tyre is shown but that's in Lebanon, nothing in ancient Palestine or Israel. We have a copy of an old map which claims to be of Phoenicia but is titled "Towns of aram" and is described as a map of Damascus. What's that doing here? Aram (biblical region) is in Syria. We have a hand drawn OR "map of Phoenicia", apparently intended to give a rough idea of the part of the Levant known as "Phoenicia", it does not correspond to any historical empire or polity. The cities indicated are the ancient Phoenician city states, perhaps in the Late Bronze Age (?)" - that's copied from the description. 
Sources: Early Antiquity edited by I. M. Diakonoff University of Chicago Press."Ancient Phoenicia approximately corresponded to the modern state of Lebanon.
The Ancient Near East By John L. McLaughlin  "Phoenicia was never a unified country but rather a collection of city-states, the most important being Akka, Aradus, Byblos, Sidon, and Tyre. Often one city took on greater significance and influence in the region; Byblos was dominant in the early years, followed by Sidon in the north and Tyre in the south."
The Phoenicians and the West: Politics, Colonies and Trade By Maria Eugenia Aubet Cambridge University Press "The territory called Phoim'ke by the Greeks extends along the coastal fringe of the eastern Mediterranean and its geographical boundaries coincide roughly with those of modern Lebanon. This region, which we call Phoenicia, situated between the mountains of Lebanon and the Mediterranean sea, is all that had been preserved of ancient Canaan,"
Phoencians by Glenn Markoe, University of California Press . "Geographically, the Phoenicians are no more easily defined. According to the ancient classical authors, they occupied the entire Levantine coast between the Suez and the Gulf of Alexandretta. In actuality, however, their heartland was considerably smaller, consisting of a narrow coastal strip between the Lebanon mountains and the Mediterranean sea stretching from northern Palestine to southern Syria - a slightly extended version ofmodern Lebanon. The dichotomy suggests that the term ‘Phoenician’ in antiquity was broadly applied to any Semitic sea-trader.
Such ambiguity, ironically, may reflect historical reality. Unlike their Syrian or Palestinian neighbours, the Phoenicians were a confederation of traders rather than a country defined by territorial boundaries.Their empire was less a stretch of land than a patchwork of widely scattered merchant communities. Maritime trade, not territory, defined their sphere." 
Doug Weller talk 09:02, 5 September 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: You know a lot more about this than I do. However, I have seen maps with Dor, Israel, being within Phoenician territory around 1000 BCE, but I don't know how reliable those are. I was leaning to removing both Israel and Palestine, but I am not comfortable in my knowledge about the topic to make that decision. — nihlus kryik  (talk) 09:09, 5 September 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I've added one source and rewritten the lead, but forgot about this. Another source is this Cambridge University Press book which says "Phoenicia. The Phoenicians were undoubtedly the most important traders in the first half of the first millennium BC. Phoenicia was a coastal area, corresponding to modern Lebanon. It extended from Mt Carmel in the south to Arvad in the north, bounded on the east by the mountains of the Lebanon. The principal cities of Phoenicia in the Iron Age were Tyre and Sidon, though Byblos and other Bronze Age Canaanite centres remained important." I only add this book, which is basically about Greece, as it says Lebanon but includes Mount Carmel in Israel. I'll add that when Markoe says Norther Palestine I'm not sure what he is including or excluding as he includes Ako, which is in modern Israel, and he's clearly talking about ancient Palestine, not today's state. Doug Weller talk 15:27, 27 February 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Territory? 

message: The article states that purple dye was made from the SHELL of the Murex snail.  That is incorrect.  The dye is made from the body of the snail, specifically a mucus gland. 2602:304:68AC:6140:60EE:2776:65:37B9 (talk) 03:28, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Done Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 04:02, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Semi-protected edit request on 20 October 2017 

message: I have listed Lebanon first so as to avoid confusion, putting aside the fact that I'm Lebanese. Phoenicia existed along the entire coast of Lebanon, and some parts of the coasts of Syria and Israel. Grammatically it makes sense to list Lebanon first, and then the "extension" of the Phoenician empire (heartland first, and then boundaries). Furthermore the most prominent cities of the Phoenician empire existed in modern Lebanon. To write it any other way is misleading, and confusing for the reader. LebaneseBebe (talk) 21:32, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Intro 

message: ORIGINALLY/CHANGED BY BATANAT: 
A study by Pierre Zalloua and others (2008) claimed that six subclades of haplogroup J2 (J-M172) J2 in particular, were "a Phoenician signature" amongst modern male populations tested in "the coastal Lebanese Phoenician Heartland and the broader area of the rest of the Levant (the "Phoenician Periphery")", followed by "Cyprus and South Turkey; then Crete; then Malta and East Sicily; then South Sardinia, Ibiza, and Southern Spain; and, finally, Coastal Tunisia and cities like Tingris in Morocco". (Samples from other areas with significant Phoenician settlements, in Libya and southern France could not be included.) This deliberately sequential sampling represented an attempt to develop a methodology that could link the documented historical expansion of a population, with a particular geographic genetic pattern or patterns. The researchers suggested that the proposed genetic signature stemmed from "a common source of related lineages rooted in Lebanon".[39]
None of the geographical communities tested, Zalloua pointed out subsequently (2013), carried significantly higher levels of the proposed "Phoenician signature" than the others. This suggested that genetic variation preceded religious variation and divisions and, by the time it became Phoenicia, "Lebanon already had well-differentiated communities with their own genetic peculiarities, but not significant differences, and religions came as layers of paint on top.[40] Another study found evidence for genetic persistence on the island of Ibiza.[41]
: EDITED TO BY user:BATANAT: 
Levantine Semites — Lebanese, Jews, Palestinians, and Syrians — are thought to be the closest surviving relatives of the ancient Phoenicians, with as much as 90% genetic similarity between modern Lebanese and Bronze Age Sidonians.
CHANGED to (BY ME): 
According to one study conducted modern Levantine Semites — Lebanese, Jews, Palestinians, and Syrians — are thought to be genetic relatives. Furthermore, of the ancient Phoenicians, with as much as 90% genetic similarity between modern Lebanese and Bronze Age Sidonians.
User:Batanat undid my edits, she has been going around the article and using biased editing. LebaneseBebe (talk) 00:07, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  PREVIOUS GENETIC STUDIES CAT 

message: The predominant or exclusive use of such names as Phoenicia, Phoenician and Punic in articles on this and related topics to refer to the people, language and alphabet of the region is misleading. These were only ever used by foreign (Greek and Roman) writers, never by the natives. The names used by them are well attested in inscriptions and on coins: for the region, kn'n (Canaan), kn'ni, (Canaanite) and kn'nim (Canaanites), and they were the names used by their neighbours to refer to them from as far back and the Sixteenth Century BCE. They were also used by the Carthaginians with reference to themselves. This was the case for the whole of the Levant between Asia Minor and Egypt, including the southern part called Palestine by the Greeks and Romans. The whole of the Levant was Canaan and its native people Canaanites to themselves. I have seen many maps that separate Canaan (Palestine) from Phoenicia, which is nonsense.
This also applies to those inhabitants who called themselves Israelites or Jadaites (Jews). Whatever their reasons for radically differentiating themselves from the Canaanites, that is what they predominantly were (as the genetic section in these same articles clearly demonstrate). There may have been some admixture between them and nomadic immigrants or invaders from elsewhere in the wider region ("Hebrews") or refugees or invaders from Egypt ("Exodes"), but not enough to submerge the predominance of native Canaanites in their ancestry. There is no evidence of an Israelite conquest of the southern Levant or any part of it or the expulsion or extermination of those they called Canaanites.
As for language and writing, the languages called Phoenician (or Punic) and Hebrew are essentially one and the same, the common language of Canaan, and the alphabet, again whether called Phoenician or Hebrew, is the same alphabet, the common alphabet used throughout Canaan and by Canaanite colonists, including Carthaginians.
It is surely of some importance that this be fully recognised in articles on this and related topics, rather than obscured or even misrepresented by the use of foreign designations unknown to those they designate.
 
    Beebledum (talk) 16:20, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Per WP:COMMONNAME and WP:DUE, we just use the term most commonly used in professionally-published academic sources. Ian.thomson (talk) 16:44, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
replies: text:  That is the problem. The sources are thoroughly Eurocentric, following the usage of the Greeks and Romans who successively conquered Canaan and imposed their own nomenclature on the region and its inhabitants, rather than even acknowledging that of the natives to whom that usage was alien. That is how it comes about that Phoenicia is treated in text and maps as quite distinct from Canaan when to the inhabitants themselves there was no such distinction. That is a serious misrepresentation of reality. Likewise as regards the Phoenician and Hebrew languages and alphabets which are treated a quite distinct when in fact they are one and the same, allowing for slight local variations. All manner of erroneous assumptions arise from that. One interesting consequence of getting these things right is to bring to the fore the question why the Israelites and Judaites, who (as shown by their genetic makeup) were of predominantly Canaanite ancestry, gave themselves a foundation myth involving Hebrew immigrants, Egyptian refugees and bloody conquests that, at most, were of marginal significance. Can anyone shed some light on that fascinating conundrum? 82.13.54.200 (talk) 16:39, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

text: Honestly, any critical reader will notice that this article is sort of ridiculous. There is zero unique geographic or cultural content to the label "Phoenician," and the article admits as much several times. I don't understand why the article should not be rewritten to be about the term "Phoenician" as a term, i.e. as a lens through which some historians have seen aspects of the ancient Mediterranean world system. When we have articles about biased constructions, they are honest in this way. -2601:241:8401:DAED:F9D4:50BC:27B3:A669 (talk) 01:39, 31 August 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Appropriateness of predominance of names Phoenicia, Phoenician, Punic, etc  

message: This section's a bit of a mess. Barely anything is sourced, there's massive inconsistencies between whether a modern location is given, there are towns that appear twice on the list (Tipasa), and in general it's wildly inconsistent with what's included as 'important' - there are nearly as many Maltese sites mentioned as Tunisian ones. The biggest question mark for me is the section titled "Other": for a start, why do cities like Thenae appear here instead of in the list for Tunisia? And more to the point, I'm unable to find any details on the last four - well, Surya I believe is just another name for Tyre, but the other three only appear here and in sources citing this page. 2A00:23C4:D128:E200:3521:997C:8DC9:A201 (talk) 23:02, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Important Cities and Colonies 

message: BCE has become the more popular terminology amongst scholars and I see no reason for the continued use of BC, it would be good if this was changed. (talk) 16:54, 18 January 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't disagree but see WP:ERA. Doug Weller talk 17:00, 18 January 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  BCE vs BC 

message: It reads:
"Phoenicians were known for being very religious.[[this used to read "Like their Hebrew cousins...] While there remain favourable aspects regarding Canaanite religion,Dmitri Baramki, Phoenicia and the Phoenicians (Beirut: Khayats 1961) at 55–58. several of its reported practices have been widely criticized, in particular, temple prostitution, and child sacrifice. "Tophets" built "to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire" are condemned by God in Jeremiah 7:30–32, and in 2nd Kings 23:10 (also 17:17). Notwithstanding these and other important differences, cultural religious similarities between the ancient Hebrews and the Phoenicians persisted.E.g., like the early Hebrews, in Carthage little importance was attached to the idea of life after death. .
The first sentence seems to me silly. "Very religous" compared to what contemporary cultures? Source? The second sentence starts with a weaseley comment (favourable aspects? what does that even mean) with vague sourcing and then tells us that temple prostitution is bad. That's a modern day subjective judgement.
Doug Weller talk 16:00, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: I've boldly edited the section to remove the non-NPOV phrasing. The practices can be described without adopting Judeo-Christian value judgements. Carlstak (talk) 16:25, 28 June 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks.Doug Weller talk 18:03, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

text: The source is wrong about there being distinctions between ancient Israelite and Phoenician religious practices. Both cultures were Canaanites and worshipped Canaanite Gods. The Ancient Israelites were Canaanites who also practiced child sacrifice. These practices were purged in the second temple reforms in the 6th-5th century, and after the exile, when the religion was monotheized by merging together various Canaanite deities, prohibiting child sacrifice, and producing works of literature justifying the religious reforms. The practice of child sacrifice was known as Moloch, and Moloch was in fact sometimes done to Yahweh, who was essentially the same God as Baal. Confused modern translators often misinterpret Moloch as an independent diety, rather than a religious practice. However the extensive condemnation of child sacrifice that is present in the Bible, is in fact evidence that it was once practiced, and that the work was commissioned to justify the change in practices, and that Yahweh now hated it and would not accept child sacrifice. The work also invented a strange narrative where the Israelites came out of Egypt and murdered the previous Canaanite inhabitants, however this is clearly impossible and is obvious the Israelites were simply Canaanites themselves. The narrative may have emerged after the Babylonian exile to justify the returning nobles right to rule, although it would not have been accompanied by an extermination. Anyway confusingly the biblical narrative gives the city of Tyre to the Israelite tribe of Asher, which would've occurred before 1000 BC. So by this narrative the Phoenicians would've been driven out as Canaanites by the invading Israelites long ago. But it's clear that the Canaanites in Phoenicia existed long after that, and founded numerous colonies including Carriage in the 0's BC. However they never had the religious reforms that existed in the southern Canaanites (Israelites), so child sacrifice and polytheism existed much longer.2601:140:8900:61D0:9E7:497E:512F:A6BB (talk) 00:07, 6 March 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: If you have reliable sources for all of that, then a condensed version might make an appropriate addition to this article; the full-length paragraph would be better, I think, at a more specialized page about Middle Eastern religion.  If you have reliable sources. —VeryRarelyStable 01:14, 6 March 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Problem with 2nd para of religion section 

message: some of your material looks good, a lot is unsourced, and some is sourced and in at least one case copied directly from a website - a website which wouldn't meet WP:RS in any case, but the page is copied from the New World Encyclopedia which we should never use as a source -  we describe it as "an Internet encyclopedia that, in part, selects and rewrites certain Wikipedia articles through a focus on Unification values." I think it needs to be rolled back and then you add bits at a time, sourcing as you go to academic sources. Doug Weller talk 10:14, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. Doug Weller talk 17:50, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recent edits 

message: I removed this section, as it largely consists of fables. Thales' purported Phoenician descent is largely a myth. As mreliable sources make clear, his parents' names were Examyas, a Carian name, while his mother was named Cleobulina, a Greek name . Similarly, Pythagoras is surrounded by fables, supposedly having "learned arithmetic" from the Egyptians, Phoenicians, and even India. The truth is, very little is known about the actual lives of these philosophers, who are surrounded by myth due to their prestige. When one looks at the sources critically, there is actually very little substance there. Khirurg (talk) 14:37, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Philosopohy" 

message: This article has approximately doubled in size in the last month. It is now vastly larger than articles on comparable topics such as Ancient Egypt, Babylonia, Assyria, or Classical Greece. I apologize to the enthusiastic contributors who have brought about this state of affairs, but I really do think some condensing is in order.
—VeryRarelyStable 07:27, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article getting too long 

message: This section has a number of serious issues with it. Specifically:
*Almost all of it is sourced to a single obscure paper by Stephen Stockwell, a journalism and and communications professor at an Australian University []. The paper has been cited at most 12 times since 2010. While such a source is probably acceptable for some claims, sweeping claims such as Greek democracy was influenced by the Phoenicians falls under WP:EXTRAORDINARY, which this source does not meet.
*There are multiple instances of sources being misquoted and outright falsified. For instance I found the claim  to be highly suspicious, since the Spartan constitution (latter half of the 9th century BC) predates the founding of Carthage (814 BC). Sure enough, when I looked into Stockwell, he actually contradicts this claim with . Furthermore, this is only sourced to Stockwell, so where does "several historians" comes from? 
*Another instance of source falsification is . This is sourced to , but ipon reading that entire chapter, I cannot see anything in there that backs this claim.
*As Stockwell himself states, this whole notion started with the now widely discredited Black Athena thesis, which has been comprehensively debunked.
*The remainder of the section is sourced to Aristotle, who falls under WP:PRIMARY and should be avoided. 
I am becoming increasingly concerned that a POV is being pushed by misusing sources. I will be trimming the section accordingly. Khirurg (talk) 23:11, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Semi-democratic government" 

message: April/2021 - Hiya, the two lines of information (below) contradict themselves. I believe the author of the Demographics part has cherrypicked or misquoted the information because their sources state that there are 4 theories of origin/identity of Phoenicians (none are conclusive). Should there be a "self-contradictory" header at the top of the article or align the text?
Intro 2nd Paragraph:
"The term did not correspond precisely to Phoenician culture or society as it would have been understood natively,[10] and it is debated whether the Phoenicians were actually a civilization distinct from the Canaanites and other residents of the Levant."
Demographics:
"The Phoenicians were an offshoot of the Canaanites, a group of ancient Semitic-speaking peoples that emerged at least in the second millennium BC.[11] Though they were often known to outsiders as Canaanites, and continued to self-identify as such, the Phoenicians became a distinct people some time in the Late Bronze Age, between the 14th and 13th centuries."  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wnabti (talk • contribs) 16:37, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Contradictions in Article - Needs Contractions header? 

message: Holst, Sanford (2011). Phoenician Secrets: Exploring the Ancient Mediterranean. Santorini Books. 
Unreliable. The author is fringe (see published works, which include freemasonry and the Templars, in one volume), and the publisher is not academic. There may be others of this ilk. Haploidavey (talk) 09:18, 28 March 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Good point. I've done a prune of the sources section, which did contain a lot of detritus. Furius (talk) 19:17, 28 March 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Source not up to par 

message: The opening paragraph mentions the core Phoenecian territory stretching from "Tripoli and Byblos in northern Lebanon" but links to Tripoli in Libya. Is this intentional or should it link to Tripoli, Lebanon instead 84.65.150.221 (talk) 02:33, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Fixed.  Thanks. —VeryRarelyStable 03:41, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tripoli vs Tripoli