Phoenicia (Purple) Greek An ancient kingdom on the eastern Mediterranean, in the region of modern Syria, Lebanon, and Israel.

Phoenicia (Purple) Greek An ancient kingdom on the eastern Mediterranean, in the region of modern Syria, Lebanon, and Israel. Phoenicia was a major trade center of the ancient world. In Homer and in the Old Testament, its people were known as Canaanites. In the ninth century b.c., the Greeks gave the name Phoenician to those Canaanites who lived on the seacoast and traded with the Greeks. It is said that the name came from Phoenix, brother of Cadmus, Cilix and Europa. The Phoenicians were famous as traders, navigators, and artisans. They obtained a purple dye, "Tyre purple," from shellfish. However, their greatest contribution to Western civilization is thought to be the alphabet, an idea later adopted by the Greeks. The use of symbols for sounds in place of more cumbersome cuneiform and hieroglyphic images was a tremendous advance to learning. Tyre was the best-known seaport of Phoenicia, lying between Sidon to the north and Acre to the south.