Re: Questions about Phoenician economy

From http://www.panix.com/~vjp2/byzhst.txt :

Egypt, Greece, Rome, Freeman Oxford 1996 ISBN0-19-872194-3

p305 Etruscan [Tyrrhenian, non Indo-Eur] supremacy along the coast came
under threat from about 550 BC as new waves of Greeks fled from Persian
expansion. The Phocaean colony at Alalia in eastern Corsica was particularly
threatening. In 540 BC the Etruscans, with some Phoenician support, defeayed
the Phocaeans at sea and forced the abandonment of the settlement, but the
Phocaeans had also settled in southern France and they now blocked Etruscan
trade there. Meanwhile the Carthaginians (Phoenicians who had established the
city of Carthage and made it a springboard for further colonization) had
consolidated their position in Sardinia and on the western coas of Sicily and
gradually forced the Etruscans off the sea

p320 As the Phoenician coastal cities were overrun in the seventh century,
in turn by Assyrians, Egyptians, and Persians, Carthage emerged as an
independent city ideally suited to act as the focus for the commerce of the
other former Phoenician colonies of western Mediterranean. Her dominance over
them was gradually established. She expanded into north Africa, Spain,
Sardinia, Siciily


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Phoenicians & West Aubet trTurton Cambridge ISBN 0 521 41141 6

p120 kings of Tyre and Byblos were advised, as has already been indicated,
by a Council of Elders, or representatives of the most renowned and powerful
families in the city, whose power probably lay in their merchantile
interest. As far as we an tell from the correspondence of the kings of Tyre
and Bublos with the pharaohs of El Amarna, this institution goes back at
least to the middle of the second millenium BC

p121 Those who belonged to the Council of Elders or Council of State in
each of the Phoenician cities were called spt in Phoenician, equivalent ot the
Akkadian sapitum and the the Hebrew sophet. In Israel, for example, these
suffettes or 'judges' governed the territory in exceptional circumstances in
the years 1200-1030 BC. There, they were leaders of clans and tribes,
magistrates by divine right, who would be the forerunners of the
monarchy. The best-known of the judges of Israel was Saul

p126 With respect to the ancient Canaanite religion, the Phoenician
religion of the Iron AGe presupposes an ideological break, which implies
profound religious, ideological and socio-political changes at the end of the
second millennium.. Nevertheless, the most important novelty os the
appearance of human sacrifice, unknown, apparently, in the second millenium,
and the birth of 'national' gods with no known predecents, like Melqart,
Eshmun, and Reshef.. [human sacrifice] also known by the biblical name of
'Moloch sacrifice', would develop in a special way in the Phoenician enclaves
in the west, where it appears linked with fertility rites and the
monarchy. In Phoenicia, human sacrifice was very sporadic and disappeared in
the middle of the first millenium

p127 In the city of Tyre, by contrast, the chief divinity was masculine:
Melqart, the protector of the city, symbol of the monarchic institution and
founder of colonies. Asarte, Baal Shamem and Baal Hammon play a supporting
part.. testimony of Herodotus [2:43-44].. saw the temple in Tyre with his own
eyes and describes it flanked by the two famous columns of gold and emerald
and, inside it, the tomb of the god. Some authors have hinted at a direct
link between the two pillars and the Pillars of Hercules [Gibraltar] at the
other end of the Phoenician world, in the city of Gadir [Cadiz] (Arrianus
2:17,2-4)

p128 immolation of the god through ritual cremation. The intention was,
logically, to revive him and make him immortal by virtue of fire. The belief
in resurrection by faire, already known in Ugaritic myths, explains the fact
that Melqart is also called 'fire of heaven'.. agricultural nature of
Melqart, a god who dies and is reborn each year in accordance with natural
cycles, was ecliped by his great maritime prowess

p129 of Melqart is the history and fate of Tyre and her daughters, the
western colonies. In Hannibal's famous oath of 215 BC, the Tyrian pantheon is
still mentioned, consisting of Heracles (Melqart) and Asarte, as well as
Iolaos or Eshmun, all of them symbols of the monarchy. In the history of
Cyprus, Melqart-Eshmun, that is, the royal family of Tyre, appear as founders
of the kingdom of Kition. In the fifth century BC, Kition is still minting
coins with the efficgy of Melqart. When Alexander the Great beseiged Tyre,
the Macedonian, who claime dto be descended from Heracles, expressed a wish
to offer a sacrifice in the temple of Melqart for ends that were clearly
political (Arrianus 2:15,7-16,7). The Tyrians were categorically opposed to
this, cosidering the place to be sacred. Melqart was the symbol of their
autonomy and independence, but above all he was the symbol of their national

p130 The most ancient Tyrian foundations in the Mediterranean appear to be
linked to a temple which, in most cases, was dedicated to Melqart. In fact,
Tyrian expansion tot he west coincided with the gradual introduction of the
worship of Melqart in Cyprus, Thasos, Malta.. In Gadir and Carthage, the
figure of Melqart finds its way even into the story of the foundation

p168 famous refernce by the Roman historian Velleius Paterculus (Hist_Rome
1:2,1-3), which placed the founding of Gadir [Utica] eighty years after the
Trojan War, that is around the year 1104 or 1103 BC

p273 The year 550 BC is usually considered to be the moment of transition
from the Phoenician to the Punic phase in the west.. In the Iberian
peninsula, the Punic period was accompanied by the very first appearance of
traces of a cult and sanctuaries dedicated to Tanit, the principal deity of
the Carthaginian pantheon, and by the presence of sober, functional pottery
replacing the classic Phoenician red-burnished tableware. From the sixth
century onwards, the first great urban centres like Ibiza appear; in them,
the official religion of Carthage wasimposed and the relatively peaceful
trade of the eighth to seventh centuries gave way to a militarist policy that
was to accompany the history of the west until Romanization. The old
Phoenician settelements along the Mediterranean coast of Andalusia were
abandoned, or were reorganized but always after a gap or generalized break

pp274-5 crisis of the Phoenician diaspora in the far west..fall of Typre
to Nebuchadnezzar after thirteen years of siege (586-573 BC).. fall of
Assyrian empire in 612 BC into the hands of the Medes and Babylonians. THe
siege of Tyre came later and merely delivered the coup de grace to an
economic situation that made the presence of her commercial agents on the
Straits of Gibraltar untenable.. There is no doubt that the Phoenicians
generated wealth and prompted profound transformations within the indigenous
societies of Andalusia and the Mediterranean seabord

p282 Gadir was a merchantine metropolis, founded in response to the
resources of Lower Andalusia - Tartessos - with which it established direct
trade.. In effect, Gadir did not control the Tartessian hinterland since that
was already occupied by a developed population. For that reason, the only
traces we know of Phoenician defensive systems or fortifications are limited
to the city of Gadir itself

p283 In Carthage, rather than of a merchantile emporium, we must speak of
an aristocratic colony, which very soon attained urban status and which,
through its particularly puritanical and conservative civico-religious
institutions, was to monopolize the economic and idological activity of vast
territories in the west

- = -
Vasos-Peter John Panagiotopoulos II, Columbia'81+, Bio$trategist
BachMozart ReaganQuayle EvrytanoKastorian
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/vjp2/vasos.htm
---{Nothing herein constitutes advice. Everything fully disclaimed.}---
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