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We offer here an answer to one of the most intriguing questions in ancient Mediterranean history: the timing/contexts and incentives of early Phoenician expansion to Mediterranean and Atlantic regions in Africa and Europe ~3,000 years ago. This was enabled by a rare opportunity to analyze a very large sample set of ancient silver items from Phoenicia. An interdisciplinary collaboration combining scientific methods with precise archaeological data revealed the Phoenicians' silver sources. We propose that Phoenicians brought silver to the Levant from southwest Sardinia ~200 years before they de facto settled there, and later, gradually, also from Iberia. We show that...

ANCIENT PHONICIAN-HEBREW VOWELSThe following ancient witnesses show that the Jewish writing didn't used the actual system of points for indicating the vowels, but specific characters: the character sounded as ah, the character sounded as eh, the letter had two sounds Y/J and ee, as in yearly/January; the character sounded as oh, the character sound as Uh and as V   THE (click to enlarge image) STELE OF KILAMU THE SILOE INSCRIPTION Certainly, the use of points in the Stele of Kilamu and in the Siloe inscription is to separate the words. The Vowels were there all the time In all these writings, from...

This is the first ancient DNA to be obtained from Phoenician remains. Known as “Ariche,” the young man came from Byrsa, a walled citadel above the harbor of ancient Carthage. Byrsa was attacked by the Roman general Scipio Aemilianus “Africanus” in the Third Punic War. It was destroyed by Rome in 146 B.C. Analysis of the skeleton revealed the man died between the age of 19 and 24, had a rather robust physique and was 1.7 meters (5’6″) tall. He may have belonged to the Carthaginian elite, as he was buried with gems, scarabs, amulets and other artifacts. Now genetic...

The project, called Contexts of and Relations between Early Writing Systems (CREWS)... is led by Dr Philippa Steele of the University's Faculty of Classics... For instance, today the notion of "alphabetical order" is used to arrange everything from dictionaries to telephone books, but why is the alphabet organised the way it is? Alphabetical order as we would recognise it first appeared over three thousand years ago in Ugaritic, written in a cuneiform script made of wedge-shaped signs impressed on clay tablets. The Ugaritic alphabet was in use in the ancient city of Ugarit, uncovered at Ras Shamra in modern Syria....

Posted on Sun, Nov. 13, 2005 Research on ancient writing linked with modern Mideast conflict BY RON GROSSMAN CHICAGO - Professorial colleagues think Ron Tappy has made a landmark breakthrough in our understanding of the world of the Bible. He himself is waiting for the other shoe to drop. This week, Tappy will formally unveil his discovery at the meetings of the American Schools of Oriental Research. Normally a presentation titled "The 2005 Excavation Season at Tel Zayit, with Special Attention to the Tenth Century BCE" would hardly be noticed beyond the scholars who will gather at the Hyatt Penn's...

The Phoenicians, enigmatic people from the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, stamped their mark on maritime history, and now research has revealed that they also left a lasting genetic imprint. Scientists reported Thursday that as many as 1 in 17 men living today on the coasts of North Africa and southern Europe may have a Phoenician direct male-line ancestor. These men were found to retain identifiable genetic signatures from the nearly 1,000 years the Phoenicians were a dominant seafaring commercial power in the Mediterranean basin, until their conquest by Rome in the 2nd century B.C... The scientists who conducted the...

A team of biologists at Lebanese American University estimates that 1 in 17 persons around the Mediterranean carries genetic markers distinctive to the ancient Phoenician people who resided in what is now Lebanon. The Phoenicians spread out in a trade diaspora two millennia ago, establishing colonies from Spain to Cyprus. The team also found that one third of Lebanese have the markers for Phoenician descent, and that these are spread evenly through the population, among both Christians and Muslims. In fact, all Lebanese have broadly similar sets of genetic markers. The lead researcher commented, "Whether you take a Christian village...

Scientists from the French National Research Agency and Texas A&M University are part of a team that has recovered 20 Phoenician grinding stones and 50 amphorae about one mile off the coast of Malta’s Gozo Island. Timothy Gambin of the University of Malta told the Associated Press that the ship was probably traveling between Sicily and Malta when it sank ca. 700 B.C. The team will continue to look for other artifacts and parts of the vessel, which sits at a depth of almost 400 feet and is one of the oldest shipwrecks to be discovered in the central Mediterranean....

Phoenician city not destroyedLife after supposed death for Motya near Trapani (ANSA) - Palermo, March 14 - An ancient Phoenician city unearthed in Sicily was inhabited after its supposed destruction, the head of an Italian dig team claims . "Our finds, including cooking pans, Phoenecian-style vases, small altars and pieces of looms, show Motya had a thriving population long after it is commonly believed to have been destroyed by the Ancient Greeks," said Maria Pamela Toti . The continued life of Motya had been put forward by various archaeologists over the years but until now no proof had been found...

Phoenician tombs found in Sicily 40 sarcophagi unearthed at necropolis near ancient colony (ANSA) - Marsala (Trapani), August 23 - Archaeologists have unearthed 40 sarcophagi in what was once the sacred Phoenician burial grounds of Birgi, near the ancient colony of Motya . The tombs were discovered by chance by a group of construction workers excavating the foundations of a house close to the westernmost tip of Sicily near Marsala, culture officials said . Archaeologists said the sarcophagi were made of simple stone slabs and resembled those found on display outside the museum on the neighbouring island of Motya (present-day...

Phoenician temple found in SicilySite believed to be 'unique', archaeologists say (ANSA) - Palermo, February 28 - An ancient Phoenician temple unearthed in Sicily is "unique" in the West, the head of the Italian dig team claims. "You have to go all the way to Amrit in Syria to find a similar one," said Lorenzo Nigro of the Rome University team. The temple came to light last year after a portion of a lagoon surrounding the Phoenician city of Motya (present-day Mozia) was drained. The pool began to fill up again and a fresh-water spring was found - a fact...

Although they're mentioned frequently in ancient texts as vigorous traders and sailors, we know relatively little about these puzzling people. Historians refer to them as Canaanites when talking about the culture before 1200 B.C. The Greeks called them the phoinikes, which means the "red people"—a name that became Phoenicians—after their word for a prized reddish purple cloth the Phoenicians exported. But they would never have called themselves Phoenicians. Rather, they were citizens of the ports from which they set sail, walled cities such as Byblos, Sidon, and Tyre.

Archaeologists from the Portuguese Association of Archeological Research (APIA) believe to have found in the Azores a significant number of Carthaginian temples, from the fourth century BC, dedicated to the goddess Tanit. The new archaeological sites were found in Monte Brasil, Angra Heroismo, Terceira island. According to APIA archaeologists Nuno Ribeiro and Anabela Joaquinito, "More than five hypogea type monuments (tombs excavated in rocks) and at least three 'sanctuaries' proto-historic, carved into the rock, were found." A monument located at "Monte do Facho" shows inbuilt sink shaped carvings linked to water conduits for libations. "There are 'chairs' carved into the...

...This wall, built between 900 and 850BCE contains eastern Mediterranean compartmented rooms within the main excavated structure, following a typical Phoenician pattern of internal architecture. The organisation and the size of the colony itself is one that is replicated in other such pioneer settlements, and the type of defence found here has close parallels in the Near East with sites such as Hazor or Qeiyafa in Israel, as can be clearly seen in the aerial images... The peaceful abandonment of the settlement occurred around 700 BCE and, pending further research, may be due partially to the gradual silting up of...

Herodotus begins his history by telling us that some Phoenician traders came to Argos, Greece and, on a whim, abducted the king’s daughter Io and took her to Egypt. Later, to show that two could play at that game, the Greeks slid over to Phoenicia and stole their king’s daughter, Europa. (Bad pun: and how these ladies ended up with Jupiter, nobody knows.) “So far,” Herodotus, checking his sums, said, “the scores were even.” But then the Greeks, into the game, decided to do a one-up. The went back to another Phoenician stronghold and kidnapped that king’s daughter, Medea. The...

A flake of limestone (ostracon) inscribed with an ancient Egyptian word list of the fifteenth century BC turns out to be the world's oldest known abecedary. The words have been arranged according to their initial sounds, and the order followed here is one that is still known today. This discovery by Ben Haring (Leiden University) with funding from Free Competition Humanities has been published in the October issue of the 'Journal of Near Eastern Studies'. The order is not the ABC of modern western alphabets, but Halaham (HLHM), the order known from the Ancient Egyptian, Ancient Arabian and Classical Ethiopian...

More than 30 ancient anchors have been discovered near the small Sicilian island of Pantelleria. Leonardo Abelli of the University of Sassari says that the anchors were abandoned by the Carthaginians during the First Punic War more than 2,000 years ago. The Romans had captured the strategically located island with a fleet of more than 300 ships. “The Carthaginian ships that were stationing near Patelleria had no other choice than hiding near the northern coast and trying to escape. To do so, they cut the anchors free and left them in the sea. They also abandoned part of their cargo...

The replica of a Phoenician ship from 600BC has arrived home in western Syria after a two-year voyage circumnavigating the coast of Africa.

SIDON: The British Museum's excavation team in Sidon have recently unearthed a new grave containing human skeletal remains belonging to a Canaanite warrior, archeology expert and field supervisor Claude Doumet Serhal told The Daily Star on Monday. According to Serhal, the delegation made the discovery at the "Freres" excavation site near Sidon's crusader castle. "This is the 77th grave that we have discovered at this site since our digging activities has started ten years ago with Lebanese-British financing," she said. According to Serhal, the remains go back to 2000 B.C., with a British archeologist saying the warrior had been buried...

Mahogany Ship searcher Mark Rawson and his team confidently asserted Ms Crowe's coin was Phoenician but Ms Murphy said she doubted it, although she was unsure of the coin's exact origins... "I believe it came from Holland maybe. It was with a lot of Dutch coins I have." ...Ms Murphy said she was under the impression it was some kind of token perhaps from the First or Second World War.