APPENDIX III - THE PHŒNICIANS

Summary

While the struggle for supremacy between Accadian and Semite was going on in the east, another branch of the Semitic race was establishing itself on the western coast of Asia. A narrow but fertile strip of land, from 10 to 15 miles in breadth and 150 in length, shut in between the snow-clad peaks of Lebanon and the sea, and stretching from the Bay of Antioch to the promontory of Carmel, was the home of the Phœnicians. They called it Canaan, “the lowlands,” a name which was afterwards extended to denote the whole district of Palestine inhabited by kindred tribes. The Egyptians named it the land of Keft, or the “palm,” of which the Greek Phœnikê is but a translation. The early date at which it was occupied is shown by the emigrations from it to the Delta in the time of the Middle Egyptian Empire; by the time the Hyksos were ruling at Memphis the mouths of the Nile had become so thickly populated by Phœnicians as to cause the whole coastland to be termed Keft-ur (Caphtor), or “Greater Phœnicia.”

According to Genesis, Sidon, “the fishing city,” was the firstborn of Canaan. Native legends, however, claimed an older foundation for the sacred city of Gebal or Byblos, northward of Beyrût. Beyrût itself, the Bêrytos of classical writers, was dependent on Gebal, and along with it formed a distinct territory in the midst of the Phœnician states.