Definitions for Phoenicia
fɪˈnɪʃ ə, -ˈni ʃəphoeni·ci·a

Princeton's WordNetRate this definition:5.0 / 2 votes

1. Phoenicia, Phenicianoun

   an ancient maritime country (a collection of city states) at eastern end of the Mediterranean

WiktionaryRate this definition:5.0 / 6 votes

1. Phoenicianoun

   the land of city states of the Phoenicians which around 1000 BC was situated on the coast of present day Syria and Lebanon, and included the cities of Tyre and Sidon.

2. Phoenicianoun

   the trading empire of the Phoenicians which spread across most of the eastern Mediterranean Sea as far west as Sicily.

3. Etymology: from Phoenice ‘Phoenicia’, learned borrowing from Φοινίκη, from φοίνικι ‘Phoenicians’, from po-ni-ki-jo, from fnḫw ‘Canaanites, Syrians’.

WikipediaRate this definition:0.0 / 0 votes

1. Phoenicia

   Phoenicia () was an ancient thalassocratic civilization originating in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily located in modern Lebanon and coastal Syria. The territory of the Phoenicians extended and shrank throughout history, with the core of their culture stretching from Tripoli in northern Lebanon to Mount Carmel in modern Israel. Beyond their homeland, the Phoenicians extended throughout the Mediterranean, from Cyprus to the Iberian Peninsula. The Phoenicians were a Semitic-speaking people of somewhat unknown origin who emerged in the Levant around 3000 BC. The term Phoenicia is an ancient Greek exonym that most likely described one of their most famous exports, a dye also known as Tyrian purple; it did not correspond precisely to a cohesive culture or society as it would have been understood natively. It is debated whether Phoenicians were actually distinct from the broader group of Semitic-speaking peoples known as Canaanites. Historian Robert Drews believes the term "Canaanites" corresponds to the ethnic group referred to as "Phoenicians" by the ancient Greeks; archaeologist Jonathan N. Tubb argues that "Ammonites, Moabites, Israelites, and Phoenicians undoubtedly achieved their own cultural identities, and yet ethnically they were all Canaanites", "the same people who settled in farming villages in the region in the 8th millennium BC.": 13–14 The Phoenicians came to prominence in the mid-12th century BC, following the decline of most major cultures in the Late Bronze Age collapse. They were renowned among contemporaries as skilled traders and mariners, becoming the dominant commercial power for much of classical antiquity. The Phoenicians developed an expansive maritime trade network that lasted over a millennium, helping facilitate the exchange of cultures, ideas, and knowledge between major cradles of civilization such as Greece, Egypt, and Mesopotamia. After its zenith in the ninth century BC, the Phoenician civilization in the eastern Mediterranean slowly declined in the face of foreign influence and conquest; its presence endured in the central and western Mediterranean until the mid-second century BC. The Phoenicians were organized in city-states, similar to those of ancient Greece, of which the most notable were Tyre, Sidon, and Byblos. Each city-state was politically independent, and there is no evidence the Phoenicians viewed themselves as a single nationality. The Phoenicians established colonies and trading posts across the Mediterranean; Carthage, a settlement in northwest Africa, became a major civilization in its own right in the seventh century BC. Phoenician society and cultural life centered on commerce and seafaring; while most city-states were governed by some form of kingship, merchant families likely exercised influence through oligarchies. The Phoenicians were long considered a lost civilization due to the lack of indigenous written records, and only since the mid-20th century have historians and archaeologists been able to reveal a complex and influential civilization. Their best known legacy is the world's oldest verified alphabet, whose origin was connected to that of the Hebrew script via the Proto-Sinaitic script, and which was transmitted across the Mediterranean and used to develop the Arabic script and Greek alphabet and in turn the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets. The Phoenicians are also credited with innovations in shipbuilding, navigation, industry, agriculture, and government. Their international trade network is believed to have fostered the economic, political, and cultural foundations of Classical Western civilization.

ChatGPTRate this definition:0.0 / 0 votes

1. phoenicia

   Phoenicia was an ancient civilization located in the eastern Mediterranean region, corresponding to modern-day Lebanon, Syria, and northern Israel. Existing from around 2500 BC to 539 BC, the Phoenicians were notable for their maritime trade and their development of the alphabet. Their city-states, most famously Tyre, Sidon, and Byblos, were significant players in the political and cultural life of the ancient Middle East.

WikidataRate this definition:1.0 / 1 vote

1. Phoenicia

   Phoenicia was an ancient Semitic civilization situated on the western, coastal part of the Fertile Crescent and centered on the coastline of modern Lebanon. All major Phoenician cities were on the coastline of the Mediterranean, some colonies reaching the Western Mediterranean. It was an enterprising maritime trading culture that spread across the Mediterranean from 1550 BC to 300 BC. The Phoenicians used the galley, a man-powered sailing vessel, and are credited with the invention of the bireme. They were famed in Classical Greece and Rome as 'traders in purple', referring to their monopoly on the precious purple dye of the Murex snail, used, among other things, for royal clothing, and for their spread of the alphabet, from which all major modern phonetic alphabets are derived. Phoenicians are widely thought to have originated from the earlier Canaanite inhabitants of the region. In the Amarna tablets of the 14th century BC, people from the region called themselves Kenaani or Kinaani, although these letters predate the invasion of the Sea Peoples by over a century. Much later, in the 6th century BC, Hecataeus of Miletus writes that Phoenicia was formerly called χνα, a name Philo of Byblos later adopted into his mythology as his eponym for the Phoenicians: "Khna who was afterwards called Phoinix". Egyptian seafaring expeditions had already been made to Byblos to bring back "cedars of Lebanon" as early as the 3rd millennium BC.

The Nuttall EncyclopediaRate this definition:0.0 / 0 votes

1. Phoenicia

   a country on the E. shore of the Levant, stretching inland to Mount Lebanon, at first extending only 20 m. N. of Palestine, but later embracing 200 m. of coast, with the towns of Tyre, Zarephath, Sidon, Gebal, and Arvad. The country comprised well-wooded hills and fertile plains, was rich in natural resources, richer still in a people of remarkable industry and enterprise. Of Semitic stock, they emerge from history with Sidon as ruling city about 1500 B.C., and reach their zenith under Tyre 1200-750, thereafter declining, and ultimately merging in the Roman Empire. During their prosperity their manufactures, purple dye, glass ware, and metal implements were in demand everywhere; they were the traders of the world, their nautical skill and geographical position making their markets the centres of exchange between East and West; their ships sailed every sea, and carried the merchandise of every country, and their colonists settled all over the Mediterranean, Ægean, and Euxine, and even beyond the Pillars of Hercules, in Africa, in Britain, and the countries on the Baltic. Her greatest colony was Carthage, the founding of which (823 B.C.) sapped the strength of the mother-country, and which afterwards usurped her place, and contended with Rome for the mastery of the world. But Phoenicia's greatest gift to civilisation was the alphabet, which she herself may have developed from Egyptian hieroglyphics, and which, with its great merit of simplicity, has, slightly altered, at length superseded among civilised nations every other system.

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How to pronounce Phoenicia?

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Numerology

1. Chaldean Numerology

   The numerical value of Phoenicia in Chaldean Numerology is: 9

2. Pythagorean Numerology

   The numerical value of Phoenicia in Pythagorean Numerology is: 8

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References

1. ^ Princeton's WordNet
   http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=Phoenicia
2. ^ Wiktionary
   https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Phoenicia
3. ^ Wikipedia
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenicia
4. ^ ChatGPT
   https://chat.openai.com
5. ^ Wikidata
   https://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?search=Phoenicia
6. ^ The Nuttall Encyclopedia
   https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/12342/pg12342-images.html#Phoenicia