Phoencian trade

Kinahhu, Canaan, Sargon of Akkad, Ugarit, Akkadian, Ebla, god El, Watersnake, Serpent, Scorpio, Bull, Oxen, Astarte, Sea People, Byblos, Sidon, Tyre, Arwad, Cadmus, Greek, Herodotos, Ezekiel, hand symbol, Aratos, Cartage, caduceus, Phoenician trade, guiding stars, Aratos, Ursa Minor, Little Bear, caduceus, lure the octopus

Kinahhu = Ca-na-na-um = Canaan

There has surely been trade and "possible" script carriers since the time of Jericho, Catal Hüyük and Gobekli Tepe 7000 - 11000 years ago and with the earliest known trading ship from Kuwait 7000 years ago. Archaeology is always dependable on real evidence so to understate our ancestors is very easy. Knowledge grows all the time but it takes time to spread it.

Archaeology give us more and more evidence telling that trade and culture in Middle East flew around almost in a circle. The northern path low was from Babylon to Syria and the Levant and further to the Nile Delta. The southern path was from Sumer - Elam around Arabia and via the wadis Hammamat, Mia, Mineh and Qash. They were well-worn routes in Predynastic and Early Dynastic times, i.e. 4^th millennium to judge by the profusion of rock art there.

Our evidence is always occasional due to the places they have excavated. We do not know if future will bring more. Toby Wilkinson has identified two periods of cultural influence, one during the Naqada II/Uruk period and the other in Naqada III/Jemdet Nasr around 3300 BC. We see the flow even to Susa where we find painted pottery with flamingos Around that time Sumerians were digging copper and turquoise in Sinai. Later dynastic pharaohs tell about expedition against Bedouins and maybe they later drew out some Sumerians too from the quarries.

In Predynastic/Archaic Egypt we find "Sumerian" niched architecture as for instance in Saqqara and there are also arches and in the court stand s a statue that looks very Sumerian. Observe I use the concept Sumerian for southern Mesopotamia and then Susa in Elam/ Persia was maybe the leading society. Among the artefacts/ cultural influence is also, clay cones, pottery, cylinder seals, maceheads and artistic motifs. The Saqqara complex was build during the 3^rd dynasty from 2800 BC onward

In the oldest temple in Sumerian Eridu they have found many fish ones. That was surely the worshipping of the "Fishman" with several names brought culture to the Sumerians. Catfish bones have been found in the Wadi Abul Sufian and the so-called first Horus Narmer have the catfish in his seal.

In the Delta they have also found border/ claim stones of type Sumerian kudurru with engraved early Animal Round for the season. That means there have been Sumerian cultivators there. There are other engraved aretefacts with typical Sumerian motifs.

Trade links with northern Syria via the Delta as a channel for peaceful influences are well summarised in Samuel Mark's "From Egypt To Mesopotamia: A Study of Predynastic Trade Links". Let us remember that the earliest ship for high seas is from around 5000 BC found in Kuwait/ Sumer

Then qualified guess is that they traded cedar already before 3000 BC. There is an inscription in the Nile Delta telling about "Kafti" that brought cedar. From Egyptian sources we can pick some cuts that shows more or less continuous trade in 3^rd millennium BC.:

During Horus Den's fifty year reign around 3000 BC he conducted military campaigns in the Sinai desert in order to gain control of the mineral deposits there. He was buried at Saqqara, even though he built his mortuary complex in Abydos. The cult of Apis was introduced during his reign

Horus Djoser 2668-2649 BC led several campaigns against Asiatic peoples in Canaan and extended his influence over the Sinai desert with its copper mines where some graffiti and his serekh were found at Wadi Maghara.

Snofru, 2575-2551 BC was an active military leader. His campaigns against the Nubians and the Libyans are recorded on the Palermo Stone. He conquered the Sinai desert, important for its copper and turquoise mines, initiated a series of construction projects throughout Egypt and began trade with the other Mediterranean nations. To supply Egypt with timber, he sent a fleet of forty ships to Phoenicia. While there, he erected monuments to commemorate the event.
Sahure 2487-2475 BC established the Egyptian navy and sent a fleet to Punt and traded with Canaan. His pyramid has colonnaded courts and reliefs of his naval fleet, but his military career consisted mostly of campaigns against the Libyans in the western desert.

Niuserre ruled Ancient Egypt from 2416 till 2392 BCThe reliefs in the burial chamber of his pyramid describe his military campaigns in the Western Desert and in the Sinai.

Unas (Wenis) ruled Egypt from 2356 till 2323 BC. Successful trading expeditions were conducted to neighbouring nations. Another drawing found on a vase shows battle scenes. There was a major famine during this time.

Teti, the first pharaoh of the 6th dynasty reigned from 2346 to 2313 BCE. He sent his army several times into southern Canaan under Weni, a long lived official who served also under Pepi I and Merenre

Pepi I 2289-2255 BC he married two of his vizier's sisters, and Weni, a close advisor, led Nubian troops against the Bedouins in Sinai and southern Canaan. Pepi campaigned in Nubia and established garrisons and trading posts. Trade relations with Byblos were flourishing and Punt in the Horn of Africa was frequently reached.

From the Akkad reign 2330 to 2100 BC there is a tablet mentioning the Ca -na.na-um/ Kinahhu and like the Greek and it mean "reed cloth" dyed with carmine or purple.

Surely Sargon of Akkad established an enclave in Ugarit when he expanded Akkadian Empire (later Babylonian) to the Mediterranean. Akkadian became the Lingua Franca = diplomat language and for instance in Amarna library we find a tablet in Akkadian from Phoenician City Tyre. After them followed maybe the Babylonians and Hammurabi 1792 - 1750 is the best known.

For the Akkadians/ Babylonians Ugarit was a good transit harbour to the cedar and goods of the Levant as well as copper and olive oil from Cyprus as nearest. The trade with these started in 4^th millennium BC when Sumerians also were mining in Sinai. The cities in Canaan learnt how to barter. Trade is a matter of using the balance so that seller and buyer get satisfied. We see a couple of balances in our rock-carvings so people discussed methods of bartering.

Ugarit, Ancient City near Latakia in Syria invented an alphabet using Akkadian cuneiform. From the beginning they used 30 letters and it was reduced to 22 or 25. They have found tablets in Ugarit, Sumerian, Hurrian and Akkadian and with 7 different scripts. For instance neighbouring Byblos used its own script that reminds a little about Cypriot.

To me it is obvious that in the cities at the Levant coast Ugarit was the leading culture during Akkadian/ Babylonian rule with big sister Ebla inland. The Hebrew borrowed much later from the Ugarit culture and that is from the Mesopotamian. They have analysed that in literature and language they have much in common. But Ugarit was destroyed in 1200 BC and the Hebrew culture is later than that like the Canaanite they talk about.

The Mesopotamian and Egyptian rule/ influence altered several times. The Egyptian kept good relations. In the finds from Ugarit during pharaoh Sesostris 1971 -1928 reign there are carnelian pearls and from later Sesostris II 1897 - 1878 and Amenemhet 1842 - 1797 there are a stelae and statuettes as gifts. They were "Big Brother" several hundred years except the intermedium 1720 - 1570 with Hyksos and the Hittites 1400 to 1100 BC.

Most of the writers mention Phoenicians after that 1200 BC and the "Sea people". We have to keep track of chronology and wait for more digging in deeper layers. Too often archaeology interchange cause and effect and that is bad reasoning. I have read many sites lately and I see that biblical writers try their best to make Hebrew superior against facts about urbanisation, timeline size of known population.

Ugarit was not big, maybe 8000 inhabitants but they were feed by a higher culture in Akkad/ Babylon, Ebla and with transit to Minoans at Crete and maybe the Minoans had an enclave in Ugarit. Naturally there was the trade to Egypt and the cities become maybe Egyptian vassals. They have found several temples so maybe the enclaves stood for them…. I compare with my little town of 6000. In first half of last century there were 7 different churches.

The Ugarit texts were discovered 1929. One of the analysers of texts wrote:

I am a free thinker and not tied to anything. I see biblical archaeology and interpreting as awkward. If we want to see "what caused what" we must be neutral and in the analyse start at the root and go forward in time. We can not apply our frames or the frames of Christianity on times before the Theodosian Creed was created. He wanted to create mystic so that some priests were needed to convince people that his worldview was right.

The Ugarit texts seem to tell us about the step between original "natural World Order" and the urbanised that is far from nature. Citizens do not know about the natural year and they are not interested in fertility. Instead human relations are the main issues. The Sumerians including the priesthood were farmers and fertility was naturally the main issue. Enki in Eridu and Inanna of Uruk were role model for the farmers.

The Watersnake/ Serpent symbolised the pregnancy period in human and natural life and they sing songs to the beauty of creation. History is a process and we see that in Ugarit the worldview evolved to see the serpent/snake = fertility as evil and that has been devastating for the Western World that almost hate fertility and want to be the hard Master of Nature.

In the Ugarit texts we find this incantatory verse:

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Scorpio was originally fix-stars of spring/ autumn equinox. See the so-called Scorpio macehead that shows the Horus/ Pharaoh beginning agriculture in signs of Scorpio and New Moon. The scribes in the temples of Ugarit did not know much about this. Still Ugarit's priesthood worshipped the Bull/ Oxen = El like most of Anatolia and even Palestine before Moses. The Bull = Oxen was contemporary/ opposite to Scorpio and was worshipped as main god/ asterism in Egypt until 1159 BC. In Ugarit they also worshipped the New Moon in the name of Astarte and she was just a cousin of Inanna from Sumer or Ishtar from Babylon.

Ugarit and the other cities in Lebanon were Canaan and they were the role model for the latecomers the Israelites. "The Israelites borrowed art, architecture, and music from their Canaanite neighbours. But they refused to extend their art to images of Yahweh (cf. Ex 20:4-5). God (= Moses) commanded the people to make no image of himself; and did not forbid every kind of artistic expression. In fact, when Solomon constructed the temple he had it engraved with a great number of artistic forms. That there was a bronze serpent in the temple as well is well known."

The Hebrew prophets and the authorities condemned the old deities for long since especially the women loved the Old Lady of Fertility the Naked Mother Astarte ready for a new season of growth. The Israelites did not leave as many artistic pieces behind as did their Canaanite neighbours. And what they did leave behind show traces of being heavily influenced by these Canaanites. But that means a merge of what Canaan adapted from Mesopotamia, Egypt and The Mediterranean.

Around 1200 BC Ugarit was destroyed by the Sea People (Philistines, Achaeans, South-West Anatolians and more) We do not know the political conditions of the time. Anyway the Phoenicians we are talking about are the remaining cities in Lebanon and they just continued and prospered. Nearest harbour city to Ugarit was Byblos and others legendary cities were Sidon, Tyre and Arwad to mention the most important. Their wealth lasted until Roman time 64 BC and after that the name Phoenician was not used. The cities of today's Lebanon are heirs.

Cadmus the Trader

We should speak about Canaanites in the time before 1200 BC and then the Israelites were not yet settled and had no city culture of their own. After that we have the Phoenicians and the Israelites that sometimes use the name Canaan. Now when we know how much they borrowed we understand why.

The Greeks gave name to many places and especially in their reign of Egypt. They also gave the name Phoinix that associate to the red cloth and to dying with purple colour stuff from Murex Brandarius, a mollusc from the Mediterranean … now almost gone. It was very expensive since 24000 of them gives dye only for 40 gram linen they tell. That is why only kings could afford it. Carmine was the other red dye they got from pregnant scale insect on the Kermes oak in Lebanon/ Mediterranean area. They had other industries like olive oil, wine and glass pearls that were much like monopoly since they knew the secrets.

Tyre was specialised in dyes. Seemingly they started a "joint venture" with Sparta in Lakonia. The hoplites = warriors loved the red colour of blood in their dress. Wound would not be too visible on a red dress ... they were though guys. We can only guess that Sidon hired hoplites from Sparta. Else the Phoenicians were not warlike since the "Flag of Commerce" have only friends. Exception is naturally late Cartage that was at war with Rome.

My interest in this area is based on the fact that we see the flow of culture to Scandinavia and just the Levant seems to be the "transit harbour". As said in Scandinavian rock-carvings we have Phoenician and Greek ships "sailing" on our rocks. We have also images or artefacts that could be traced to the Levant. Herodotos tells about two "highways" to the Hyperboreans. One of them was surely by the Russian rivers and another from the Adriatic to Austria and they could buy salt in Halstatt on the tour to river Oder and the Baltic.

The third was longer and it is little known via Gibraltar and the North Sea. Still we know that some Mediterranean sailors visited Scandinavia since we have their ships sailing on our rocks. Another thing that Cadmus, the trader was trading "all over the world". We do not know all the places yet.

Important is that we see the hand on many Northern rock-carvings and we may see that the origin was perhaps the Phoenicians. The Hand could be dated by ritual astronomy to 1159 BC. After the decline of the Myceneans the Achaeans and Phoenicians expanded in coastal areas in Greece, Anatolia and took Cyprus and later to the west Mediterranean northern coasts. There is the suite of sagas about Cadmos the Dragon killer telling about Phoenicians settling in Boeoetia and founding the city they know call Thebe…. It happens to be that we in Scandinavian rock-carvings also have the Boeoetian plough … when was Kadmos here?

We get to know something afterwards. The Phoenician traders that told to help shield their amber’s origin.

In the rock-carvings we see some Phoenician ships and other motifs telling about the visits. No wonder that ancient writers also wrote about ugly and odd beings with head in stomach, dog head, one-footed and one-eyed and so on.

Phoenicians expanded on the southern coast of the Mediterranean from Libya to Cartage in the first step. Further to half Sicilia and Sardinia and the Spanish south coasts and to both sides of the port to the Atlantic at Gibraltar. They surely traded with the Etrurians and some of our finds may be of that origin. However their trade extended to the entire Mediterranean and the Black Sea and Red Sea and to Bahrain. They encircled Africa and we could maybe find indications that they have been in Indian. King Salomon hired them to start from the Aqabah Gulf and maybe go for Africa and India.

The hand symbol is a symbol for their trade. Then we may assume that they also come to Scandinavia and are behind some carvings with a touch of their culture. They brought the culture from the Levant in the period after approximately 1000 BC.

It is maybe partly true but may be much older as we see it in paintings from Santorini before 1500 BC. It looks like they mounted the battering ram afterwards. We see the ram as late as on Gallic tonneaus ca 200 AD.

Most of the written evidence we have from the Greeks is from relatively late age. In my youth we had to believe that the Greeks invented all things and were the founders of civilisation.

Ezekiel tells about the merchandise

To complete it there are accounts by other prophets, such as Isaiah, who speaks of Sidon's overseas commerce in Egyptian grain. The historical facts about the fleet of Hiram which imported gold, precious stones, and wood from the region of Ophir (probably southern Arabia [others guess India]), while from Tarshish it brought back wood, silver, ivory, monkeys, and peacocks.

Guiding stars for sailors

The Macedonian poet at court Aratos wrote the poem Phaenomena about 200 BC. From that we may read something about praxis then.

All professionals are eager to keep their secrets and so the sailors. We have only some fragments but we know they used Ursa Minor or Little Bear. The star Koschab could be used as pole from about 2000 BC and onwards. We find the star on a carving in Haugsbyn Dal.

Handman

She is of course The Naked however much older than Cadmus, but maybe they meant in the form we see her around 2000 BC in the Levant. We know for sure that Crete and the Aegean world learned a lot from Anatolia and the Sumerians via the Levant.

The poem is longer than the cut and show that they knew exactly the position of stars day and night. This points out that the zodiac and sky could be used of other than farming twins. However the sailors would perhaps make people believe that they invented all this.

Phoenician temple

Season symbols in Cartage

Two entwined serpents were perhaps originally Capricorn and this caduceus become symbol of Hermes/ Mercurius and traders as in the symbol of my economic school. The Whale as symbol of Kaitos/the wild Bull is probably seen early on a slab in the Kivik grave, which perhaps they made for a trader.

The caduceus was symbol of the herald on earth and beneath, as burials become business already in those days. In Northern mythology it was Loke, the trickster. He had a free imagination to sell what he could to folk who often want to use the old shoes until one goes barefoot. Serpents in an embrace were also the symbols of a treaty as that between the seller and buyer.

Hand symbols in Scandinavia

Especially Northwest Zealand seems to have been almost a trade centre and the finds from Sandagergaard tells about a factory in bronze crafts. It was in a house 7,5 x 18 metres with a ritual place at the gable. The ritual place consisted of four special hand symbols on stones. There were also two stones apart and perhaps used as reference points when searching the leading star. In Denmark are twelve more finds of the arm with a hand. In Norway and Bohuslaen are eight more and many of them are much alike and tell that they made them in the same period.

We know the method of using the same symbol from several places and also with other symbols. Simultaneously in the Khnum temples of Egypt they used four of them and earlier are seen four bulls in same use.

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It is a common development that trades lead to fellowship between traders, monopoly and secret manners ... and if it is extended to political, religious and military powers it becomes an aristocracy that in worst cases can be a tyranny.

Caduceus with a hand and snakes

Occasionally I saw a program on TV at the same time as this picture. They showed how they catch the octopus in a pot with a whole and of course many pots on a line. When they want it out they pour a little extra salt water in the hole and that does not the octopus like.

Surely some from the isle have been at the Mediterranean and have seen the trick there. On Bornholm we find carvings with ships of the Greek type in several places. Much of the technique in fine metalwork they had to learn from Greece. Bornholm seems to have been one of the centres for making fine metalwork in Scandinavia.

 As a boy I did not know much about the Phoenician and it was not anything honourable. To some extend it was coloured by the Romans. We were told that the Roman Beast was the role model. I think we owe the Phoenicians credit for the culture spread during 3^rd to 1^st millennium. They made the world smaller and increased the knowledge of humankind. They have been accused for some odd customs. However I think all cultures have their odd sides. We do not love nature and consume it all the time!!!