Tyre and Sidon
Tyre and Sidon become the chief cities of the Phoenicians and trade across the whole Mediterranean.
After the decline of Ugarit, primacy on the Lebanese coast passes to Sidon, and then to Tyre, set on a rocky island just off the shore. Tyrian craftsmen dye cloth with purple taken from sea snails, work glass, bronze and cedar, and their ships carry the goods from Cyprus to Spain. The kings of Tyre do business with Jerusalem: Hiram supplies David and Shlomo with craftsmen and timber, while Achav's marriage to the Tyrian princess Izevel brings the cult of Baal into Israel and provokes the confrontation with the prophet Eliyahu. Later the city will withstand sieges by the Assyrians and by Nebuchadnezzar — but fall to Alexander.
§Sources
Documents of the period
- Phoenician inscriptions and Assyrian annals
Scholarship
- archaeology of Phoenicia
Basis: documents and evidence.