7.2 The near east: 1000 to 700 b.c.  (Page 3/4)

Lebanon: phoenicia

(Please see map in connection with GREECE, this chapter)

This was a period of great wealth and territorial expansion for the Phoenicians. King Hiram, of the city of Tyre, had friendly relations with the Hebrew kings and, as we have noted, entered into many trade agreements with them. The Phoenicians developed an overseas empire, including colonies on Cyprus, the Aegean islands, in Spain and at Carthage in north Africa, carrying and teaching their alphabet to the nations of antiquity and disseminating the use of papyrus. Their settlement at Gades (later Cadiz, Spain) gave them access to the gold, silver and copper from Tartessus. They exported ivory carvings, silver-work, colored glass and fine fabrics. They are said to be the first people who were able to navigate by the stars, sail beyond the sight of land and at night and to voyage on the seas in winter-time. It is to be recalled that these people were probably basically Canaanites and their chief object of worship was the goddess Ishtar, who subsequently became the Greek goddess Astarte. The British Museum has some excellent Phoenician ivory carvings of this period. (Ref. 18 , 19 , 75 )

Iraq and syria

Just over the mountains from Phoenicia the Semitic Syrians had been developing an advanced civilization with a capital at Damascus. Although dominated during the three hundred years of this time period by the Assyrians, the true Syrians were a separate people, with their own culture perhaps more closely related to the Phoenicians and Israelites than to their neighbors to the north and east. They worshipped Astarte and also Adonis, who regularly arose from the dead. The Assyrian conquests so gutted northern Syria, however, that the area subsequently remained unimportant for the next 400 years. The Assyrians attacked in waves. Under Ashurnasirpal II and his son, Shalmaneser III (883-824 B.C.) they pushed through to take the entire eastern Mediterranean down to Palestine and northward to the Taurus, which was important as a trade route to Europe and as a source of metals, and then south toward Damascus where they came into conflict with the Arameans and their allies in Israel. (Ref. 8 ) Soon Damascus itself was conquered by Shalmanesar IV, who was followed after an interval by Tiglath-Pileser III. He then reconquered Armenia, northern Syria, Babylonia and overall extended the Assyrian rule from the Caucasus to Egypt. Their military roads actually facilitated trade by the native Aramean-Syrians who spread their language and fostered a cosmopolitan culture in the middle east. The last of the wild elephants of Syria were killed off in this period, although tusks were still imported from Africa and perhaps India, for carving. (Ref. 45 )

As implied above, ancient Babylonia passed from Kassite to Assyrian control early in this period, but by about 900 B.C., the Chaldeans, who were simply one group of Arameans, began to infiltrate the region and eventually, with help, the Chaldean aristocracry threw out the Assyrians. *** (Page 1185) Additional Notes