The Phoenicians, based on the narrow coastal strip of the Levant, took full advantage of their excellent seafaring skills and established a network of colonies and trade centers in the ancient Mediterranean.
Their main trade route reached the Greek Islands by sea, through southern Europe, along the Atlantic coast of Africa, all the way to ancient Britain.
In addition, Arabia and India arrived via the Red Sea, and vast areas of Western Asia were connected to the Motherland by land routes for the transportation of goods by caravans. By the 9th century BC, the Phoenicians had become one of the largest trading powers in the ancient world.
Geographic extent
Trade and the search for valuable goods required the establishment of permanent trading posts, and since Phoenician ships often sailed close to the coast and only during the day, regular road stops were also required.
These outposts became more entrenched to control trade in specific commodities available at that particular location. Over time, these further developed into full-fledged colonies, so much so that the permanent influence of the Phoenicians eventually extended to the entire coastline of the ancient Mediterranean and Red Seas.
Their wide-bottomed single-sail cargo ships carried cargo from Lebanon to the Atlantic coast of Africa, Britain, and even the Canary Islands, and then shipped the cargo back in the opposite direction, docking at trading centers anywhere in between. Mesopotamia and India.
Thus, Phoenician maritime trade can be divided into trade with its colonies and trade with other trading civilizations.
Therefore, the Phoenicians not only imported what they needed and exported what they grew and manufactured themselves, but they also acted as middlemen.
Transporting goods such as papyrus, textiles, metals, and spices between the many civilizations they came into contact with. As a result, they can make huge gains by selling low-value goods such as oil or pottery in exchange for another commodity such as tin or silver, which are not themselves valued by their producers but can be sold elsewhere at high prices.
The trade Phoenicians appear in a variety of ancient sources, from Mesopotamian reliefs to Homer and Herodotus, from Egyptian burial art to the biblical book of Ezekiel. The Phoenicians were the equivalent of today's international transport trucks, and everywhere.
Exchange method
Like many other ancient civilizations, the Phoenicians traded goods using a variety of methods.
Prestigious goods can be exchanged as reciprocal gifts, but they are not just a sign of goodwill to each other, as they are a way to forge a trade partnership by giving the recipient an obligation.
Luxury goods given as gifts may also have been an attempt by the Phoenicians to deliberately create demand for such items and to help the Phoenicians obtain the local resources they could only dream of.
Goods can be collected as tribute in exchange for military protection or coercion. These are then stored in large quantities and then redistributed locally or traded elsewhere. Goods can be bartered and exchanged in kind on the spot.
Or, perhaps the most common method used by the Phoenicians, goods could be bought and sold in a relatively controlled manner by making state-controlled trade agreements and treaties, in which quantities and prices were predetermined.
Therefore, the exchange value of commodities is fixed, so minting is unnecessary, which is not to say that there is no system of written arbitrary values and credit arrangements.
The Phoenicians probably did not produce coinage precisely because their trade was truly international, and they were of no use to coins that could not be used far from the mint.
Some historians believe that before the 4th century BC, complete free trade in which prices fluctuated by supply and demand was a mechanism, but this view is debated among scholars.
At that time, trade among the Phoenicians was most likely conducted by state officials who received commissions, but it could also have been carried out by a consortium of merchants with close ties to the royal family. The latter will be a high nobleman, as stated in Isaiah 23:8, "Tyre, the crowned city, whose merchants are princes, and whose merchants are nobles of the earth".
Perhaps from around the 8th century BC, the volume of trade carried out by private traders increased and the direct intervention of the state decreased, again, this remains the subject to academic debate.
Trade in goods most often takes place in state-approved trading centers, which are generally recognized as neutral by countries in different regions. The Phoenician city of Tyre is a typical example.
Beginning in the 7th century BC, the Phoenician trade network was eclipsed by the efforts of one of its most successful colonies, the Carthage, the Greeks, and the Romans.
But the Phoenicians were the first Mediterranean trading superpowers, and their early dominance led empires that subsequently adopted similar trade practices, even adopting Phoenician names for certain exotic goods from distant lands.
The Phoenicians dared to sail beyond the horizon to transport goods to their most precious places. As the prophet Isaiah says, "O merchants of Sidon, their goods cross the sea, and across the sea."
