Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/College of the Holy Cross/The Phoenicians - Cunning Seafarers (Spring 2024)

In this course, we will examine the complex ancient Mediterranean power, the Phoenicians, and their offshoots, the Punic peoples and the Carthaginians. The Phoenician civilization developed on the Mediterranean coast of ancient Lebanon in the Late Bronze Age (ca. 15th c. BCE). Despite the “collapse” of several other Mediterranean civilizations around 1200 BCE, the Phoenicians, perhaps due to their seafaring abilities, seem not to have been affected. Throughout the subsequent Iron Age (11th-9th c. BCE), the Phoenicians spread their culture across the Mediterranean region, founding Punic settlements predominately in Northern Africa, Southern Italy, Sardinia, and Sicily, and Spain. In the 8th c. BCE, the network developed by the Phoenicians and their Punic descendants promoted many shared cultural traits across the Mediterranean, most notably the spread and use of the phonetic alphabet. By the 5th to 4th c. BCE, one Phoenician colony, Carthage (near Tunis, Tunisia), surpassed its metropolis and in the 3rd to 2nd c. BCE sparred with Rome before it was ultimately subjugated. Though often most well-known today for these failed military interactions with Rome, the Phoenician peoples more commonly mixed, exchanged, and collaborated with the cultures they encountered. This course aims to consider the Phoenicians, Punic peoples, and Carthaginians on their own terms and in their own contexts within the ancient Mediterranean sphere.