Phoenician Accomplishments
The Phoenicians has acheived many things that has influenced our lives.
Phoencian Trade
The Phoenicians traded all around the world. The Mediterranean Sea was their main place where they traded with the Greeks. From one of their trading port called Carthage, they traded over land all the way to Ethiopia and Nigeria. The Phoenicians traded their famous purple dye .This trading resulted in riches and gold so only the rich could buy the purple dye. Figs, nuts, wine, pottery, blown glass were also some popular items that the Phoenicians traded.
The Phoencian Purple Dye
The murex shell
The Phoenicians manufactured the purple dye from a sea snail from the Mediterranean Sea called the murex snail. The dye was so rare that it takes 10,000 snails to make 1 gram of this purple dye. Because this purple dye was so rare, it was one of the most expensive item that only the High-Priests and higher ranking people could afford paying for the dye.
The Phoencian Alphabet
The Pheoncian alphabet did not have any vowels.
The Phoenicians were first ones to invent an alphabet that each letter made its own sound. There was no vowels in this alphabet as well there was 22 letters. This alphabet was adapted by the Greeks after centuries after trade and peace. Later the Romans altered to this alphabet and eventually became our writing system that we use today.
The Phoenician Glass Blowing
The Phoenicians were preparing a meal on the eastern Mediterranean near the mouth of the Belus river. They could not find the right rocks to set their pots and they used some cakes and saltpeter from their ships cargo and put tjheir cooking vessels on them before they lit the fire. The heat from the flames caused the saltpeter and the quartz sand on the shore to melt and combine into an unknown liquid. This hardened into a see through substance that we call glass.
Glass makers produced monochome and mosaic-glass inlays which were used to make furniture (mainly banquet beds).
Later, the Phoenicians glass making skill advanced in the 2nd half of the 1st century when they discovored glass blowing.
Glass makers produced monochome and mosaic-glass inlays which were used to make furniture (mainly banquet beds).
Later, the Phoenicians glass making skill advanced in the 2nd half of the 1st century when they discovored glass blowing.
The Phoenician Ship
The Phoencians used these ships to sail all over the world.
The Phoencian ships were built using cedar wood from the forest near the city-state. These ships were fast and strong with a single sail and about twenty oars.
Pheonician Navigation in the Sea
The Phoencians used the stars and the sun to navigate in the sea.
Sailing all across the world, the Phoencians were expert sailors. However, when the Phoenicians first started sailing, they were "scardey-cats". They would only sail inside the Mediterranean Sea where they could still see land. But later on, they invented a way of sailing where they used the sun and the north star, Polaris, as wll as other stars,to navigate the seas. by 600 B.C.E. the Pheoncians had already sailed around Africa and they might've sailed to the Americas 2,000 years before bc
The Pheoncian Oar
The oars are made from cedar wood to steer boats across the sea.
Of course everybody knows that the Sumerians invented the sails, but what if there is no wind? Or what if the wind is blowing the wrong direction? Then they'll be on a drift in a large body of water, stranded. But the Phoenicians came up with a solution to that, they were the first ones to make the oar and they were on all of the trading ships. This way, the Phoenicians will never get lost or stranded in the sea.