A few corrections of ancient history narratives on the Middle-East region
Posted on: January 14, 2026
The Phoenicians of the Iron Age (first millennium B.C.) descended from the original Canaanites who dwelt in the region during the earlier Bronze Age (3000-1200 H.C.), despite classical tradition to the contrary.
There is archaeological evidence for a continuous cultural tradition from the Bronze to the Iron Age (1200 -333 BC.) at the cities of Tyr (Sour) and Zarephath.
In the Amarna age (14th century B.C.) many letters to Egypt emanated from King Rib-Addi of Byblos, King Abi-Milki of Tyr, and King Zimrida of Sidon, and in other New Kingdom Egyptian texts there are references to the cities of Beirut Sidon, Zaraphath, Ushu, Tyr, and Byblos.
Additionally, there is a 13th-century B.C. letter from the king of Tyr to Ugarit, and a Ugaritic inscription has turned up at Zaraphath.
Despite these facts showing that the coastal cities were occupied without interruption or change in population, the term “Phoenician” is now normally applied to them in the Iron Age (beginning about the 12th century B.C.) onward when the traits that characterize Phoenician culture evolved: long-distance seafaring, trade and colonization, and distinctive elements of their material culture, language, and script.
The Phoenicians, whose lands corresponds to present-day Lebanon and coastal parts of Palestine and Syria, probably arrived in the region in about 3000 B.C.
They established commercial and religious connections were established with Egypt after about 2613 BC and continued until the end of the Egyptian Old Kingdom and the invasion of Phoenicia by the Amorites (c. 2200 BC).
Other invading groups and periodically controlling Phoenicia included the Hyksos (18th century BC), the Egyptians of the New Kingdom (16th century BC), and the Hittites (14th century BC).
Seti I (1290-1279 BC) of the New Kingdom reconquered most of Phoenicia, but Ramses III (1187-1156 BC) lost it to invaders from Asia Minor and Europe.
The roster of Phoenician cities changed during the near millennium-long period beginning in 1200 B.C., reflecting the waxing and waning of their individual fortunes and the impinging historical events of the Near East.
At the beginning of the Iron Age, as part of the invasion of the Sea Peoples (groups from the Greek islands, especially Crete, and probably from the Adriatic Sea), the Philistines occupied the coastal area south of Mt. Carmel (Haifa), including Dor, Ashdod, Ashkelon, and Gaza.
By the eighth century B.C., the material culture of the Phoenicians extended southward, and Sidon controlled Dor and Joppa during the Persian period to be replaced by Tyr as the main port for the Persia empire (539-333 B.C) and the wrath of Alexander on Tyr.
Before the Roman occupied Syria, the Syrian people had the highest civilization, cultured society and industrial and trading standards in all of the Middle-East and surrounding Mediterranean Sea agglomerations for over 3,000 years.
This does not mean that the Roman empire came close to the Syria standards in any field except in organized and centralized military might.
The first dynastic Arabic empire of Umayyad that lasted 150 years was Syrian in civilization with Capital Damascus.
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