2947 AM · 814 BCE · world history
Phoenician colonization
The Phoenicians found Carthage and a chain of colonies across the western Mediterranean.
The Tyrians plant colonies westward: first trading stations on Cyprus, Sicily and Sardinia, then Utica and Carthage on the African shore, and Gadir beyond Gibraltar, at the very ocean. They are driven by metals—Spanish silver, and tin from the far northern isles—and by the need for safe harbours a day's sail apart. Carthage outgrows its mother city and builds a power of its own, which six centuries later will meet Rome in the Punic Wars. Along with the goods, the Phoenician script spreads by sea—and from it the Greek and Latin alphabets will grow.
Sources
Documents of the period
- Phoenician inscriptions and Assyrian annals — the Phoenician inscriptions of the colonies from Cyprus to Spain
Scholarship
- archaeology of the western Mediterranean — the trading posts of Gades, Utica and Motya on the sea routes
Basis: documents and evidence.