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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: NEW-NUM |
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NSI . P 352). Manufactures, Inventions, Art.From an early date the towns of the Phoenician coast were occupied, not only with distributing the merchandise of other countries but with working at industries of their own; especially purple-dyeing and textile fabrics (Il, vi. 289 sqq.), metal work in silver, gold and electrum (Il. xxiii. 741 sqq.; Od. iv. 615 sqq., xv. 458 sqq.), and glass-work, which had its seat at Sidon. The iron and copper mines of Cyprus (not Sidon, as Homer implies, Od. xv. 424) furnished the ore which was manufactured into articles of commerce.' Egyptian monuments frequently mention the vessels of gold and silver, iron and copper, made by the Dahi, i.e. the Phoenicians (W. M. Muller, As. u. Eur. 306) ; and in Cyprus and at Nimrud bronze and silver paterae have been found, engraved with Egyptian designs, the work of Phoenician artists (see table-cases C and D in the Nimrud gallery of the Brit. Mus.). The invention of these various arts and industries was popularly ascribed, to the Phoenicians, no doubt merely because Phoenician traders brought the products into the market. But dyeing and embroidery probably came from Babylon in the first instance; glass-making seems to have been borrowed from Egypt; the invention of arithmetic and of weights and measures must be laid to the credit of the Babylonians. The ancients believed that the Phoenicians invented the use of the alphabet (e.g. Pliny, N.H. v. 13, cf. vii. 57; Lucan, Bell. Civ. iii. 220 seq.) ; but it is unlikely that any genuine tradition on the subject existed, and though the Phoenician theory has found favour in modern times it is open to much question. The Phoenicians cannot be said to have invented any of the arts or industries, as the ancient world imagined; but what they did was something hardly less meritorious: they developed them with singular skill, and disseminated the knowledge and use of them. The art of Phoenicia is characterized generally by its dependence upon the art of the neighbouring races. It struck out no original line of its own, and borrowed freely from foreign, especially Egyptian, models. Remains of sculpture, engraved bronzes and gems, show clearly the source to which the Phoenician artists went for inspiration; for example, the uraeus-frieze and the winged disk, the ankh or symbol of life, are Egyptian designs frequently imitated. It was in the times of the Persian monarchy that Phoenician art raached its highest development, and to this period belong the oldest sculptures and coins that have come down to us. A characteristic specimen of the former is the stele of Yehaw-milk, king of Gebal (CIS. i. 1), in which the king is' represented in Persian dress, and the goddess to whom he is offering a bowl looks exactly like an Egyptian Isis-Hathor; the inscription mentions the various objects of bronze and gold, engraved work and temple furniture, which the king dedicated. The whole artistic movement
1 Traces of ancient mining for iron have been found in the Lebanon; cf. LXX. r Kings ii. 46c (ed. Swete), which has been taken to refer to this quarrying in search of iron; Jer. xv. 12. , See Benzinger on 1 Kings ix. 19. monuments left to us. The tombs are subterranean chambers of varied and often irregular form, sometimes arranged in two storeys, sometimes in several rows one behind the other. While in early times a mere perpendicular shaft led to these excavations, at a later date stairs were constructed down to the chambers. The dead were buried either in the floor (often in a sarcophagus), or, according to later custom, in niches. The mouths of the tombs were walled up and covered with slabs, and occasionally cippi (Phoen. magleboth) were set up to mark the spot. The great sepulchral monuments, popularly called maghdzil, i.e. " spindles," above the tombs near Amrit, have peculiarities of their own; some of them are adorned with lions at the base and with roofs of pyramidal shape. Besides busts and figurines, which belong as a rule to the Greek period, the smaller objects usually found are earthen pitchers and lamps, glass-wares, tesserae and gems. Of buildings which can be called architectural few specimens now exist on Phoenician soil, for the reason that for ages the inhabitants have used the ruins as convenient quarries. Not a vestige remains of the great sanctuary of Melqarth at Tyre; a few traces of the temple of Adonis near Byblus were discovered by Renan, and a peculiar mausoleum, Burj al-Bezzaq, is still to be seen near Amrit; recent excavations at Bostan esh-Shekh near Sidon have unearthed parts of the enclosure or foundations of the temple of Eshmun (NSI. p. 401); the conduits of Ras el-'Ain, south of- Tyre, are considered to be of ancient date. With regard to the plan and design of a Phoenician temple, it is probable that they were in many respects similar to those of the temple at Jerusalem, and the probability is confirmed by the re-mains of a sanctuary near Amrit, in which there is a cella standing in the midst of a large court hewn out of the rock, together with other buildings in an Egyptian style. The two pillars before the porch of Solomon's temple (1 Kings vii. 21) remind us of the two pillars which Herodotus saw in the temple of Melqarth at Tyre (Herod. ii. 44), and of those which stood before the temples of Paphos and Hierapolis (see W. R. Smith, Rel. of Sem. p. 468 seq.). Religion.Like the Canaanites of whom they formed a branch, the Phoenicians connected their religion with the great powers and The processes of nature.' The gods whom they worshipped Phoenician belonged essentially to the earth; the fertile field, trees Clods. and mountains, headlands and rivers and springs, were believed to be inhabited by different divinities, who were therefore primarily local, many in number, with no one in particular supreme over the rest. It seems, however, that as time went on some of them acquired a more extended character; thus Baal and Astarte assumed celestial
celestial
inscriptions (NSI. pp. 24, 41, 51); El by itself has been found only once;' the fem. 'Elath is also rare (ibid. pp. 135, 158). The god or. goddess was generally called the Ba'al or Ba'alath of such and such a place, a title which was used not only by the Canaanites, but by the Aramaeans (Be'el) and Babylonians (Bel) as well. There was no one particular god called Baal; the word is not a proper name but an appellative, a description of the deity as owner or mistress; and the same is the case with Milk or Melek, 'Adon, 'Amma, which mean king, lord, mother. The god himself was unnamed or had no name. Occasionally we know what the name was; the Baal of Tyre was Melqarth (Melkarth), which again means merely " king of the city "; similarly among the Aramaeans the Ba'al of Harran was the moon-god Sin. As each city or district had its own Ba'al, the author of its fertility, the " husband " (a common meaning of ba'al) of the land which he fertilized, so there were many Ba'als, and the Old Testament writers could allude to the Ba'alim of the neighbouring Canaanites. Some-times the god received a distinguishing attribute which indicates an association not with any particular place, but with some special characteristic; the most common forms are Baal-1 amman, the chief deity of Punic north Africa, perhaps " the glowing Ba'al," the god of fertilizing warmth, and Baal-shamem, " Ba'al of the heavens."' The latter deity was widely venerated throughout the North-Semitic world; his name, which does not appear in the Phoenician inscriptions before the 3rd century B.C., implies perhaps a more universal conception of deity than existed in the earlier days.'Cf. Hannibal's oath to Philip of Macedon; beside the named deities he invokes the gods of " sun and moon and earth, of rivers and meadows and waters " (Polyb. vii. 9). ' This is well brought out by G. F. Hill, Church Quarterly Rev. (April 1908), pp. 118-141, who specially emphasizes the evidence of the Phoenician coins. " To the lord 'El, which Ba'al-shillem . . . vowed," &c.; Clermont-Ganneau, Recueil, v. 376. Probably " the detested thing that causes horror " (ax' piper) of Dan. xii. I I, xi. 31, &c., is an intentional disfigurement of anr~ Sys, 'The name has been found on an important Aramaic inscr. from North Syria, dating c. 800 B.C., in which Zakir, king of Hamath and La'ash frequently speaks of his god Be'el-shamin (Pognon, Inscr. sem. de la Syrie, 1908). The worship of the female along with the male principle was a strongly marked feature of Phoenician religion. To judge from the earliest evidence on the subject, the Ba'alath of Gebal or Byblus, referred to again and again in the Amarna letters (Bilit a Gubla, Nos. 55-11o), must have been the most popular of the Phoenician deities, as her sanctuary was the oldest and most renowned. The mistress of Gebal was no doubt 'Ashtart (Astarte in Greek, 'Ashtoreth in the Old Testament, pronounced with the vowels of boshelh, " shame "), a name which is obviously connected with the Babylonian Ishtar, and, as used in Phoenician, is practically the equivalent of " goddess." She represented the principle of fertility and generation; references to her cult at Gebal, Sidon, Ashkelon, in Cyprus at Kition and Paphos, in Sicily at Eryx, in Gaulus, at Carthage, are frequent in the inscriptions and elsewhere. The common epithetsKGapir and KuBipiia(of Kuthera in Cyprus) ,Cypria and Paphia, show that she was identified with Aphrodite and Venus. Though not primarily a moon-goddess, she sometimes appears in this character (Lucian, Dea syr. 4; Herodian v. 6, lo), and Herodotus describes her temple at Ashkelon as that of the heavenly Aphrodite (i. 105). We find her associated with Ba'al and called " the name of Ba`al," i.e. his manifestation, though this rendering is disputed, and some scholars prefer " ' Ashtart of the heaven of Ba'al " (NSI. p. 37). Another goddess, specially honoured at Carthage, is Tanith (pronunciation uncertain) ; nothing is known of her characteristics; she is regularly connected with Ba'al on the Carthaginian votive tablets, and called " the face of Ba'al," i.e. his representative or revelation, though again some question this rendering as too meta-physical, and take " face of Ba'al " to be the name of a place, like eni'el (" face of 'El "). Two or three other deities may be mentioned here: Eshmun, the god of vital force and healing, worshipped at Sidon especially, but also at Carthage and in the colonies, identified by the Greeks with Asclepius; Melqarth, the patron deity of Tyre, identified with Heracles; Reshef or Reshuf, the " flame " or " lightning " god, especially popular in Cyprus and derived originally from Syria, whom the Greeks called Apollo. A tendency to form a distinct deity by combining the attributes of two produced such curious fusions as Milk-'ashtart, Milk-ba'al, Milk-'osir, Eshmunmelqarth, Melqarth-reef, &c. As in the case of art and industries, so in religion the Phoenicians readily assimilated foreign ideas. The influence of Egypt was specially strong (NSI. pp. 62, 69, 148, 154) thus the Astarte represented on the stele of Yebaw-milk, mentioned above, has all the appearance of Isis, who, according to the legend preserved by Plutarch (de Is. et Os. 15), journeyed to Byblus, where she was called Astarte. The Phoenician settlers at the Peiraeus worshipped the Assyrian Nergal, and their proper names are compounded with the names of Babylonian and Arabian deities (NSI. p. ioi). Closer intimacy with the Greek world naturally brought about modifications in the character of the native gods, which became apparent when Ba'al of Sidon or Ba'al-shamem was identified with Zeus, Tanith with Demeter or Artemis, 'Anath with Athena, &c.; the notion of a supreme Ba'al, which finds expression in the Greek Nos and 9aaarLs or 1 itABrts (the goddess of Byblus), was no doubt encouraged by foreign influences. On the other hand, the Phoenicians produced a considerable effect upon Greek and Roman religion, especially from the religious centres in Cyprus and Sicily. A great number of divinities are known only as elements in proper names, e.g. Sakun-yathon (Sanchuniathon), 'Abd-sasom, Sed-yathon, and fresh ones are continually being discovered. It was the custom among the Phoenicians, as among other Semitic nations, to use the names of the gods in forming proper names and thus to express devotion or invoke favour; thus Ijanni-ba'al, 'Abd-melqarth, Hanni-'ashtart, Eshmun-'azar. The proper names further illustrate the way in which the relation of man to God was regarded ; the commonest forms are servant (`abd, e.g. 'Abd-'ashtart), member or limb bod, e.g. Bod-melgarth), client or guest (ger, e.g. Ger-eshmun) ; the religious idea of the guest of a deity had its origin in the social custom of extending hospitality to a stranger and in the old Semitic right of sanctuary. The interpretation of such names as 'Abi-ba'al (father of Ba'al), Himilkath (brother of Milkath), Hiram (brother of the exalted one) is not altogether certain, and can hardly be discussed here.'Probably like other Canaanites the Phoenicians offered worship " on every high hill and under every green tree "; but to judge from the allusions to sanctuaries in the inscriptions and else- Sacre where, the Baal or 'Ashtart of a place was usually Objectds and worshipped at a temple, which consisted of a court or Worship. enclosure and a roofed shrine with a portico or pillared hall
probably the symbol of Astarte, as on the Roman coins of Byblus (illustrated in Rawlinson, Phoenicia, 146, Perrot et Chipiez, Hist. de l'art, iii. 6o; see also Ohnefalsch-Richter, Cyprus, pl. lvi., the temenos at Idalion). Stone or bronze images of the gods were set up in the sanctuaries (NSI. Nos. 1 seq., 23-27, 30, &c.) ; and besides these the baetylia (meteoric stones) which were regarded as symbols of the gods. Pillars, again, had a prominent place in the court or be-fore the shrine (nasab, ibid. pp. 102 seq.) ; but it is not known whether the sacred pole ('asherah), an invariable feature of a Canaanite sanctuary, was usual in a Phoenician temple (ibid. pp. 5o seq.). The ' See Frazer, Adonis, Allis, Osiris, 44 seq. inscriptions mention altars of stone and bronze, and from the sacrificial tariffs which have survived we learn that the chief types of sacrifice among the Phoenicians were analogous to those which we find in the Old Testament (ibid. p. 117). The ghastly practice of sacrificing human victims was resorted to in times of great distress (e.g. at Carthage, Diod. xx. 14), or to avert national disaster ( Porphyry , de Abstin, ii. 56); Philo
No doubt the Phoenicians had their legends and myths to account for the origin of man and the universe; to some extent these would have resembled the ideas embodied in the book of Mythando ologgy Genesis. Two cosmogonies have come down to us ous Ideas. which, though they differ in details, are fundamentally in agreement. The one, of Sidonian origin, is pre-served by Damascius (de prim. principiis, 125) and received at his hands a Neoplatonic interpretation; this cosmogony was probably the writing which Strabo ascribes to a Sidonian philosopher, Mochus, who lived before the Trojan times (xvi. 2, 24). The other and more elaborate work was composed by Philo
interest
message , generally a curse, which it was desired to convey to them.' An excellent and critical account of Philo's work is given by Lagrange, Etudes sur les rel. sem (2nd ed., 1905), ch. xi.following may be added: Movers, Die Phonizier (18421856), to be used with caution; Renan, Mission de Phenicie (1864); Schroder, Die phonizische Sprache (1869); Stade in Morgenlandische Forschungen (1875); W. Baudissin, Studien zur semitischen Religionsgeschichte (1876, 1878) ; Baethgen, Beitrage zur semitischen Religionsgeschichte (1888); Levy, Siegel and Gemmen (1869); J. L. Myres and Richter, Catalogue of the Cyprus Museum (1899) ; G. F. Hill, Catalogue of the Greek Coins of Cyprus (1904) ; V. Berard, Les Pheniciens et l'Odyssee (19021903); Lidzbarski, Ephemeris fur semitische Epigraphik (19021906); H. Winckler, Altorientalische Forschungen (18931906); Freiherr von Landau, " Die Bedeutung der Phonizier im Volkerleben " in Ex oriente lux ( Leipzig
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