A short history of the Phoenicians / Mark Woolmer.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Woolmer, Mark, author.

Series:

I.B. Tauris short histories.

I.B. Tauris short histories

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Phoenicians--History.

Phoenicians.

Phoenicia--Civilization.

Phoenicia.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (234 pages) : illustrations, maps, photographs

Edition:

First edition.

Distribution:

London : Bloomsbury Publishing, 2019.

Other Title:

Phoenicians

Place of Publication:

London, England : I. B. Tauris, 2019.

Summary:

The Phoenicians present a tantalizing face to the ancient historian. Latin sources suggest they once had an extensive literature of history, law, philosophy and religion; but all now is lost. Offering new insights based on recent archaeological discoveries in their heartland of modern-day Lebanon, Mark Woolmer presents a fresh appraisal of this fascinating, yet elusive, Semitic people. Discussing material culture, language and alphabet, religion (including sacred prostitution of women and boys to the goddess Astarte), funerary custom and trade and expansion into the Punic west, he explores Phoenicia in all its paradoxical complexity. Viewed in antiquity as sage scribes and intrepid mariners who pushed back the boundaries of the known world, and as skilled engineers who built monumental harbour cities like Tyre and Sidon, the Phoenicians were also considered (especially by their rivals, the Romans) to be profiteers cruelly trading in human lives. The author shows them above all to have been masters of the sea: this was a civilization that circumnavigated Africa two thousand years before Vasco da Gama did it in 1498.

Contents:

Introduction

Historical overview

Government and society

Religion

Art and material culture

Overseas expansion

Epilogue.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 211-226) and index.

ISBN:

9781350985186

135098518X

9781786732170

1786732173

9781786722171

1786722178

OCLC:

1128170706