Product Information
Offering new insights based on recent archaeological discoveries in their heartland of modern-day Lebanon, Mark Woolmer presents a fresh appraisal of this fascinating, yet elusive, Semitic people. Discussing material culture, language and alphabet, religion (including sacred prostitution of women and boys to the goddess Astarte), funerary custom and trade and expansion into the Punic west, he explores Phoenicia in all its paradoxical complexity. Viewed in antiquity as sage scribes and intrepid mariners who pushed back the boundaries of the known world, and as skilled engineers who built monumental harbour cities like Tyre and Sidon, the Phoenicians were also considered (especially by their rivals, the Romans) to be profiteers cruelly trading in human lives. The author shows them above all to have been masters of the sea: this was a civilization that circumnavigated Africa two thousand years before Vasco da Gama did it in 1498. The Phoenicians present a tantalizing face to the ancient historian. Latin sources suggest they once had an extensive literature of history, law, philosophy and religion; but all now is lost. In this revised and updated edition, Woolmer takes stock of recent historiographical developments in the field, bringing the present edition up to speed with contemporary understanding.Product Identifiers
PublisherBloomsbury Publishing
ISBN-139781350153929
eBay Product ID (ePID)3049065184
Product Key Features
Number of Pages272 Pages
Publication NameA Short History of the Phoenicians: Revised Edition
LanguageEnglish
SubjectArchaeology, History
Publication Year2021
TypeTextbook
AuthorMark Woolmer
SeriesShort Histories
Dimensions
Item Height216 mm
Item Weight344 g
Additional Product Features
Country/Region of ManufactureUnited Kingdom
Title_AuthorMark Woolmer