The Phoenicians: The Purple Empire of the Ancient World
- ISBN-10
- 0575019034
- ISBN-13
- 9780575019034
- Pages
- 288
- Language
- English
- Published
- 1975
- Publisher
- Gollancz
- Author
- Gerhard Herm
Description
Two thousand years ago the Phoenicians exerted an immense influence over the Western world. They invented the alphabet; they sailed round Africa and may well have crossed the Atlantic; they engineered a shipping route from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean; they built temples, fortresses and docks; and above all they constructed ship, the basis of their remarkable trade network. But where did they come from, these people whom the Greeks called Phinikos, the people from the purple land? Why did they never have a proper country of their own but only narrow coastal strips and a handful of isolated city states? And why did they leave no literature behind them?
