An ancient maritime country of southwest Asia consisting of city-states along the eastern Mediterranean Sea in present-day Syria and Lebanon. Its people became the foremost navigators and traders of the Mediterranean by 1250 B.C. and established numerous colonies, including Carthage in northern Africa. The Phoenicians traveled to the edges of the known world at the time and introduced their alphabet, based on symbols for sounds rather than cuneiform or hieroglyphic representations, to the Greeks and other early peoples. Phoenicia's culture was gradually absorbed by Persian and later Hellenistic civilizations.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
