Industry
Phoenicia lacked considerable natural resources other than its cedar wood. Timber was probably the earliest and most lucrative source of wealth; neither Egypt nor Mesopotamia had adequate wood sources. Unable to rely solely on this limited resource, the Phoenicians developed an industrial base manufacturing a variety of goods for both everyday and luxury use. The Phoenicians developed or mastered techniques such as glass-making, engraved and chased metalwork (including bronze, iron, and gold), ivory carving, and woodwork.
The Phoenicians were early pioneers in mass production, and sold a variety of items in bulk. They set up trade networks to market their glassware and became its leading source in antiquity, shipping flasks, beads, and other glass objects across the Mediterranean in their vessels. Excavations of colonies in Spain suggest they also used the potter's wheel. Their exposure to a wide variety of cultures allowed them to manufacture goods for specific markets. The Iliad suggests Phoenician clothing and metal goods were highly prized by the Greeks. Specialized goods were designed specifically for wealthier clientele, including ivory reliefs and plaques, carved clam shells, sculpted amber, and finely detailed and painted ostrich eggs.
The most prized Phoenician goods were fabrics dyed with Tyrian purple, which formed a major part of Phoenician wealth. The violet-purple dye derived from the hypobranchial gland of the Murex marine snail, once profusely available in coastal waters of the eastern Mediterranean Sea but now exploited to local extinction. Phoenicians may have discovered the dye as early as 1750 BC. The Phoenicians established a second production center for the dye in Mogador, in present-day Morocco.
The Phoenicians' exclusive command over the production and trade of the dye, combined with the labor-intensive extraction process, made it very expensive. Tyrian purple subsequently became associated with the upper classes. It soon became a status symbol in several civilizations, most notably among the Romans. Assyrian tribute records from the Phoenicians include "garments of brightly colored stuff" that most likely included Tyrian purple. While the designs, ornamentation, and embroidery used in Phoenician textiles were well-regarded, the techniques and specific descriptions are unknown.
Mining operations in the Phoenician homeland were limited; iron was the only metal of any worth. The first large-scale mining operations by Phoenicians probably occurred in Cyprus, principally for copper. Sardinia may have been colonized almost exclusively for its mineral resources; Phoenician settlements were concentrated in the southern parts of the island, close to sources of copper and lead. Piles of scoria and copper ingots, which appear to predate Roman occupation, suggest the Phoenicians mined and processed metals on the island. The Iberian Peninsula was the richest source of numerous metals in antiquity, including gold, silver, copper, iron, tin, and lead. The output of silver during the Phoenician and Carthaginian occupation there was enormous. The Carthaginians relied on slave labor almost exclusively in their mining operations, and according to Rawlinson, because they likely continued the established practices of their predecessors in Iberia, the Phoenicians themselves probably also used slave labor.
Per Aubet, the streams necessary to provide irrigation in Phoenicia for agriculture during the spring rainy season were found only on the coastal plain. The drastic political and climatic changes that occurred around 1200 BC resulted in a concentration of people in the region. During the 10th century BC, the Phoenician cities engineered irrigation systems to grow crops on the fertile coastal strip and built cisterns to supply the urban centers with drinking water. Nevertheless, the cereal crops grown on the mountain slopes could not meet the food requirements of the ever-growing population concentrated on the coastal plain and Phoenicia consequently suffered grain shortages.
The most notable agricultural product was wine, which the Phoenicians helped propagate across the Mediterranean. The common grape vine may have been domesticated by the Phoenicians or Canaanites, although it most likely arrived from Transcaucasia via trade routes across Mesopotamia or the Black Sea. Vines grew readily in the coastal Levant, and wine was exported to Egypt as early as the Old Kingdom period (2686–2134 BC). Wine played an important part in Phoenician religion, serving as the principal beverage for offerings and sacrifice. An excavation of a small Phoenician town south of Sidon uncovered a wine factory used from at least the seventh century BC, which is believed to have been aimed for an overseas market. To prevent oxidation of their contents, amphorae were sealed with a disk plug made of pinewood and a mixture of resin and clay.
The Phoenicians established vineyards and wineries in their colonies in Morocco, Tunisia, Sicily, France, and Spain, and may have taught winemaking to some of their trading partners. The ancient Iberians began producing wine from local grape varieties following their encounter with the Phoenicians. Iberian cultivars subsequently formed the basis of most western European wine.
As early as 1200 BC, texts from Ugarit suggest that Canaanite merchant ships were capable of carrying cargoes weighing up to 450 tons. During the first millennium BC, the cargo capacity of Phoenician merchant ships ranged between 100 and 500 tons. The Phoenicians pioneered the use of locked mortise and tenon joints, known as Phoenician joints, to secure the planking of ship hulls underwater. This method involved cutting mortises into adjoining planks and inserting wooden tenons to join them, which were then secured with dowels. Examples of this technique include the Uluburun shipwreck (c. 1320 BC) and the Cape Gelidonya shipwreck (c. 1200 BC). The innovation spread across the Mediterranean and influenced Greek and Roman shipbuilding, with the Romans referring to it as coagmenta punicana.
The Phoenicians were possibly the first to introduce the bireme. Fernand Braudel cites the bas-relief carvings on the walls of the palace of Nineveh which depict the Tyrian fleet fleeing the port of Tyre before the city was attacked by Sennacherib c. 700 BC. The Phoenicians sailed their biremes close to shore and only in fair weather. They have also been credited with developing the trireme by scholars such as Lucien Basch. Referring to archaeological evidence of ships depicted in the Nineveh relief, cylinder seals, and Phoenician coins, he argues that the trireme was invented in Sidon around 700 BC and later adopted by the Greeks. The classicist J. S. Morrison, a student of the trireme, quotes Thucydides' statement that triereis, or triremes, were said to have been built first at Corinth in Greece. Although he allows that Phoenicians of 701 BC were credited by the sculptor of the Nineveh relief with one type of the vessel, interpreted by Morrison as having three banks of oarsmen on each side in three tiers with the uppermost tier unmanned, he argues that there is no good reason why Thucydides' account should not be believed. The trieme was regarded as the most advanced vessel in the ancient Mediterranean world.The Phoenicians developed several other maritime inventions. The amphora, a type of container used for both dry and liquid goods, was an ancient Phoenician invention that became a standardized measurement of volume for close to two thousand years. The remnants of self-cleaning artificial harbors (cothons) have been discovered in Sidon, Tyre, Atlit, and Acre. The first example of admiralty law also appears in the Levant. The Phoenicians continued to contribute to cartography into the Iron Age.
In 2014, a 12 metres (39 ft) long Phoenician trading ship was found near Gozo island in Malta. Dated 700 BC, it is one of the oldest wrecks found in the Mediterranean. Fifty amphorae, used to contain wine and oil, were scattered nearby.
