What did the phonecians contribute to a civilization?

Answer 1

The most enduring legacy of the Phoenicians is their phonetic alphabet. Instead of using pictograms like other ancient alphabets, such as the cuneiform alphabet of Mesopotamia and the hieroglyphs of the Egyptians, the Phoenician alphabet used symbols which represented sounds. A pictogram is an ideogram (a graphic symbol that represents an idea or concept) which conveys its meaning through its pictorial resemblance to a physical object. The Phoenician alphabet only had symbols for the sounds of consonants. This alphabet is believed to be the ancestor of almost all modern alphabets.

The Phoenicians (together with the Greeks) were originally the main traders in the Mediterranean. They spread the use of their alphabet through their trading travels and their establishment of colonies (settlements) in the western Mediterranean. It was successful because of its phonetic nature. It only had one symbol for one sound, which made it easier to use. It was adopted and adapted in Anatolia (the area of present day Turkey) and the earliest scripts in Spain. The Greeks adopted and adapted it and added symbols for sound of vowels. The Greeks developed two alphabets which have been called eastern and western. The former was the ancestor of the modern Greek and the Cyrillic (Russian) alphabets. The latter was adopted and adapted by the Italic peoples of ancient Italy, including the Etruscans and the Latins. The Latin alphabet then became the alphabet of western European languages.

Because of their extensive trade, the Phoenicians developed a large fleet and had very skilled sailors. They are credited with the invention of the bireme, an oared warship (galley) with two decks of oars. They exported cedar wood: cedrus libani (cedar of Lebanon) a type of cedar which grows in Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, northwest Jordan, western Syria, and south central Turkey. The Phoenicians lived in what is now Lebanon. The Lebanese flag as a cedar tree on it. This wood was important to various civilizations. The Egyptians used its resin in mummification. The Jews burned Lebanese cedar wood on the Mount of Olives to celebrate the new year. This wood was also used by the Persians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks and Romans.

The Phoenicians also had a monopoly of the production and trade of Purple dye (Tyrian purple or royal or imperial purple). This die was so expensive that purple clothes were reserved for kings and emperors and very high dignitaries or priests and were worn only for ceremonial occasions. It required the use of thousands of glands from Murex sea snails (found in the eastern Mediterranean) which produced an enzyme which created the colour when soaked in water.