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Results for Tyre:

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Tyre

SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: modern Sur
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Site on the coast of Lebanon of a chief city of the Phoenicians from c 2000 BC. It occupied a small island off the coast with two harbors. It was the parent city of Carthage and flourished until its destruction by Nebuchadnezzar in 574/572 BC after a long siege. Between 538-332 it was ruled by the Achaemenian kings of Persia. Most famous was its siege by Alexander the Great in 332 BC which came about only after a causeway was built to the mainland. After its capture, 10,000 of the inhabitants were put to death, and 30,000 were sold into slavery. Alexander's causeway, which was never removed, converted the island into a peninsula. Excavation has found only the Roman and Byzantine levels; most of the remains of the Phoenician period still lie beneath the present town. It is the site of one of the factories for purple dye Tyrian Purple" obtained from murex shell and much prized. Hiram King of Tyre (970-936 BC) was contemporary of Solomon's."

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Adlun

SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Abri Zumoffen
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Palaeolithic site between Sidon and Tyre on the Lebanese coast with evidence of Amudian industry and Jabrudian occupation.

Carthage

SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: (adj Carthaginian, Punic) Carthago; Kart-Hadasht
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A great city of antiquity founded, according to tradition, on the north coast of Africa by the Phoenicians of Tyre in 814 BC and now a suburb of Tunis. However, Phoenician occupation on the site is archaeologically attested from about a century later. The Aeneid tells of the city's founding by the Tyrian princess Dido, who fled from her brother Pygmalion (a king of Tyre). Until around 500 BC Carthage was one of three great mercantile powers in the central Mediterranean, together with the Etruscans and Western Greeks. Much of Carthage's revenue came from its exploitation of the silver mines of North Africa and southern Spain, begun as early as 800 BC, and from its role as a middleman in trade. Carthage was for many years in conflict with the Greeks, especially in Sicily. Carthage lost both Sicily and Sardinia to Rome in 241 BC at the close of the First Punic War. From an enlarged domain in southern Spain, the Carthaginian general Hannibal in 218 BC led his army across the Alps to victories in Italy. When Hannibal returned to Africa, he was defeated at Zama in 202 BC. Though humiliated, Carthage survived until it was destroyed by Rome in 146 BC, after having fought the three Punic Wars of the 3rd and 2nd centuries. Carthage was then reconstructed as a Roman city by Julius Caesar and Octavian. The Roman city prospered by shipping grain and olive oil to Italy. Carthage replaced Utica as the capital of the African province and it became the second largest city in the western part of the empire, after Rome itself. The Phoenician/Punic remains include the citadel, Byrsa, the Sanctuary of Tanit, and two manmade harbors (all pre-146 BC); the Roman remains are the Antonine Baths, odeum, theater, circus, amphitheater, aqueduct, and areas of streets and houses. Also on the Byrsa site stood an open-air portico, from which the finest Roman sculptures at Carthage have survived. The standard of living in Carthage was probably far below that of the larger cities of the classical world. In Roman times, beds, cushions, and mattresses were luxuries. The Punic language and its distinctive alphabet remained in use long after the city's destruction. After the breakup of the Roman empire, the Vandals took Carthage in 439 and stayed in control until the Byzantine invasion in 533. Carthage was the capital of the Byzantine empire in Africa until the Arab takeover of 698.

Gades

SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Phoenician Gadir, modern Cádiz
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A city of southwestern Spain that was prosperous in antiquity for more than a millennium as a commercial port. It was founded by Phoenicians from Tyre around 1100 BC, but a date in the 7th or 8th century BC is perhaps more plausible. Prosperity declined with the rise of nearby Hispalis (Seville) in the 2nd century AD. Trade and fishing are reported on early coins; trade was strongly associated with the area's metallurgy. By the 1st century BC, Gades seems to have had a significant market in tin-mining and the tin trade. It defected from the Carthaginian side to Rome in 206 BC. It was known to the Romans for its gaiety and exotic pleasures.

Kition

SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Citium
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: An important Late Cypriot settlement in southern Cyprus, first occupied in the 13th century BC. The copper trade supported it until it was destroyed c 1200 BC, possibly by the Sea Peoples. In the 11th century BC, possibly because of an earthquake, it was abandoned but then recolonized by the Phoenicians about 800 BC. The colony was a dependency of the mother city, Tyre. The Phoenicians rebuilt two temples and stayed until 312 BC.

Levant

CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Historically, the countries bordering the eastern Mediterranean shores. The term is also associated with Venetian and other trading ventures as at Tyre and Sidon as a result of the Crusades. It was applied to the coastlands of Asia Minor and Syria, sometimes extending from Greece to Egypt. It was also used for Anatolia and as a synonym for the Middle or Near East. The term is from the French lever, to rise" a reference to where the sun rises."

Melkarth

SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Melqart, Melkart, Tyrian Baal
CATEGORY: deity
DEFINITION: One of the gods of the Phoenicians, whose name means 'ruler of the city'. He was the chief deity of Tyre and two of its colonies, Carthage and Gadir (Cádiz, Spain). Greek historian Herodotus equated Melkarth's temple to Heracles, which was the scene of annual winter and spring festivals and is believed to have been the model for Solomon's temple in Jerusalem.

Phoenician

SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Phoenicia
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A Semitic people who lived in the coastal area of Lebanon and Syria from about 1000 BC, the cultural heirs of the Canaanites. They flourished as traders from their ports of Tyre, Sidon, and Byblos. They are crediting with founding Carthage and inventing the alphabet; the Greek, Roman, Arabic and Hebrew alphabets are all derived from the Phoenician. Even after their incorporation into the Babylonian empire in 574 BC, they continued to influence world politics, in the Near East through their fleets, in the west through their powerful colony of Carthage. They also established colonies in Utica, north Africa; Gades in Spain, Motya in Sicily, Nora and Tharros in Sardinia, and other settlements in Malta and Ibiza. Culturally their role as merchants and middlemen was uninterrupted until they were absorbed into the Hellenistic and Roman world. They are reputed to have circumnavigated Africa. They developed the alphabet to assist their commercial activities. They are not well-known archaeologically in their homeland, though there has been some exploration of their major sites; they have left few lasting memorials in the form of great works of art or monumental architecture. The Phoenicians engaged in a series of three Punic Wars with the Romans, which led to their ultimate defeat and incorporation into the Roman world in the 2nd century BC.

port of trade

CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: Any town or city whose specific function is to act as a meeting place for foreign traders. It serves as a center for transshipment and storage of goods; the site is characterized by facilities for storage. Ports of trade, such as Tyre and Sidon, may have been important models of early long-distance trade.

Sidon

SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Saida; modern Sarda?
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Ancient city of the Phoenicians on the coast of Lebanon south of Beirut. It shared supremacy with Tyre but was greater importance under the Achaemenid (Persian) empire, 6th-4th centuries BC. It was destroyed by the Assyrians in 677 BC but rebuilt. Sidon was an important Mediterranean trading center from the Early or Middle Bronze Age. Because the site underlies the modern town, little excavation has taken place. However, a number of burials of various dates have been found both in and around the city, including Ahiram bearing a 10th-century BC inscription and Greco-Roman coffins of 5th and 4th centuries BC.