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How did the Egyptians influence the culture and art of the Phoenicians?
The evolution of the Phoenician cities was influenced by the evolution of the political and commercial relations with Egypt.
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Ivory, fitting, spade-shaped horse blinker ornament.
I M A G E C O U R T E S Y O F T H E B R I T I S H M U S E U M
Phoenicians
Traders of the
Mediterranean Sea
B Y G O N Z A L O V A R G A S P.
P U B L I S H E D F E B R U A R Y 9 , 2 0 2 3 • 1 5 M I N R E A D
The east coast of the Mediterranean has always been a highly valued strategic region due to its proximity and outreach to farming and herding communities. With the rise of the great theocratic states in Egypt and Mesopotamia, the area strengthened its strategic potential and served as a buffer wall for their expansionist served as a medium of interaction and exchange and, at times, a rather diffuse boundary for the containment of the territorial expansion of these states.
Its origins as such date back to the waves of migrations from Arabia and the Sinai Peninsula around 3500 BC. For the subsequent millennia, certain migrations would be key to the assimilation of cultural traits and patterns that for the Phoenician civilization meant the consolidation of its culture and greater apogee around 1500 BC. This was for example the city of Ugarit where the civilization of Canaan lived, these like the Phoenicians share in common, part of their worldview and deities such as the solar god Baal. Another important aspect was their similarity in the composition of a first approach to the 30-character alphabet.
Entering the first millennium BC, after territorial expansions, displacements and political occupations, finally the part of the whole of the Canaan civilization was forced to settle on the edge of the Iberian Peninsula, thus adopting a new identity, culture and vision, here Phoenicia, the new region of the western Mediterranean, would begin to develop.
Phoenicia
A city-state structure
The eastern Phoenician cities were politically independent of each other. The territory over which each one of them exercised its dominion was surprisingly small, with an extension of land sufficient to feed all its inhabitants with its harvest.
Within this expansion that took place along the western coast of the Mediterranean, it is necessary to highlight two of its most important cities, Tyre and Sidon.
One of the most characteristic activities of Tyre was the extraction and the purple industry. This production was so typical of the Phoenicians that it could be at the origin of their name (Phoinix in Greek means purple). The Greeks used this name as a gentile to refer to the people from the Phoenicia region during the first millennium BC.
From all the Phoenician cities, Tyre was the most famous in the production of this coloring substance. This was obtained from a seashell, the murex. These shellfish were recovered from the sea in the early spring, during the reproduction period and before spawning, and transported to the shore where they were placed in large vats. There, the mollusks were crushed in order to release the colored pigment contained therein.
This substance, with refined colors was used for textile dyeing (wool pieces, linen or fine cotton) and leather. These products enjoyed an international economic prestige, also related to the excellence of the Phoenicians weavers.
P H O E N I C I A
Location map [500 m]
Traders
Mediterranean Sea
The Phoenicians became one of the largest traders of their time, commercializing their raw materials obtained mainly from the quarries on the western coast of the Mediterranean. In the beginning they were projected trading with the Greeks, raw material in wood, balsams, glass and Tyrian purple powder. The latter was a distinctive and main characteristic of this civilization, Tyrian purple was a violet-purple dye used by the Greek elite to dye clothing. In fact, the word Phoenician derives from the ancient Greek phoinios, which means "purple", hence the Greeks adopted this concept as a gentile to refer to the Phoenicians.
In the centuries after 1200 BC, the Phoenicians were the leading naval and trading power in the Mediterranean region. Phoenician trade was based on Tyrian purple dye, a violet-purple dye derived from the shell of the Murex sea snail, now extinct in their area. Bright fabrics were part of Phoenician wealth, and Phoenician glass was another export item.
Phoenicians seem to have first discovered the technique of producing transparent glass. Phoenicians also shipped tall Lebanon cedars to Egypt, a civilization that consumed more wood than it could produce.
M U R E X S H E L L
M U R I C I D A E
The purple color used by the Phoenicians to dye textiles and ceramic pottery was obtained from this species of marine snails called "shell of the murex", the color titled under the name "Tyrian purple" was one of the most precious raw materials that the Phoenicians produced and exported.
Egypt, Greece and Assyria.
Direct influences in Phoenician art.
The art of the Phoenician Culture is a markedly handmade art which reached its splendor, which gave them products of high value for exchange with other objects, being a very valuable product for other cultures or peoples.
The influence of Egypt on Phoenician art can be considered prominent without ruling out other peoples that had contact with the Phoenician Culture through trade such as Syria, the Cypriots, the Assyrians and the Aegean peoples influenced as well, after all these peoples were also their clients and their tastes, religion and traditions were taken into account by the Phoenicians when creating these works.
The art of the Phoenician Culture is a markedly handmade art which reached its splendor, which gave them products of high value for exchange with other objects, being a very valuable product for other cultures or peoples.
The Nimrud Ivories
Male figure advances right, carved coarsely in high relief, left hand holding a staff crowned with plumes, right arm held across body with hand raised.
Plain frame at top and bottom, half floral column at left, and half of flower from a similar column at top right.
R: Herrmann 1986a / Ivories from Room SW 37: Fort Shalmaneser (cat.no.26)
© The Trustees of the British Museum
Ivory lion's head
In Egypt lions' heads sometimes appear at the front of thrones, as on the throne from the tomb of Tutan-khamun (Baker 1966: col. pl. VI) and this tradition might have passed into Phoenician art.
R: Curtis & Reade 1995a / Art and empire: treasures from Assyria in the British Museum (96).
© The Trustees of the British Museum
Panel
Carved ivory panel; woman's head and shoulders, in frontal view, at balcony; of four tongues only two remain; small columns are represented as eight-sided; right edge missing.
R E F E R E N C E S
Aubet, Maria Eugenia, translated by Mary Turton. The Phoenicians and the West: Politics, Colonies and Trade. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
University of Pennsylvania Museum offers simplified but unbiased information on Canaan and Phoenicians, emphasizing common aspects of culture among Israel and the other kingdoms in Canaan.
L. Alfredo, Serrano. LAS CULTURAS DEL MEDITERRÁNEO. Universidad Carlos III de Madrid.
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