Phoenicia Trivia

1. In what present-day country was Phoenicia located in?

From Quiz Phoenicia: Merchants of the Mediterranean

Answer: Lebanon

Lebanon was (and still is) very mountainous, making it hard to farm. So the Phoenicians, instead, turned to the sea to make a living. They fished and traded with other nations.

From Quiz Those Awesome Phoenicians!

Answer: Syria-Palestine

Phoenician city-states were established in areas that were suitable for trade. Each city-state was an independent political unit. The modern countries of Syria, Jordan, Israel, and Lebanon make up the area that was called Phoenicia.

From Quiz Phoenicia: Merchants of the Mediterranean

Answer: Purple merchants

The Phoenicians didn't call themselves Phoenicians; the Greeks did. It meant "purple merchants" because they often traded their unique purple dye.

From Quiz Those Awesome Phoenicians!

Answer: papyrus

The Phoenicians called the city Gebal. Byblos was the Greek name for the city, through which papyrus was imported. It was located in the modern Lebanon. A legend exists that says that Gebal was the oldest city (although there is no evidence of this) and the place where Thoth invented writing.

From Quiz Phoenicia: Merchants of the Mediterranean

Answer: Purple dye

Tyre was famous for its extremely expensive reddish-purple dye. The dye was made from a snail called the murex snail. It was expensive because each snail only gave about two drops of dye, and it had to be made in accordance with a very precise process. Gradually, the dye's prices rose until finally only royalty could afford it. That's why purple is often called a 'royal' color.

From Quiz Those Awesome Phoenicians!

Answer: cedar

The Lebanon Cedar was important to many ancient civilizations. Phoenicians used it to build military and trading ships. (The tree is is represented on the Lebanese flag).

From Quiz Phoenicia: Merchants of the Mediterranean

Answer: East

Phoenicia was located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It was so mountainous there that is was very hard for each city-state to communicate, which meant that the Phoenician city-states never united into a country.

From Quiz Those Awesome Phoenicians!

Answer: the southern tip of Africa

There is a belief that the Phoenicians traveled to Britain to acquire tin for the smelting of bronze, but there is no archaeological evidence to back it up. They did travel along the southern coast of the Iberian peninsula. Herodotus says that an Egyptian pharaoh sent the Phoenicians down the Red Sea, and they circumnavigated Africa, returning through the Pillars of Hercules in three years.

From Quiz Those Awesome Phoenicians!

Answer: Greek

The word "Phoenician" is derived from the ancient Greek word "phinikeia", meaning purple. Elite Greeks would color their clothes and other garments with the powder, which was not available anywhere else.

From Quiz Those Awesome Phoenicians!

Answer: The script contains no vowels

An "abjad" script contains no vowels. The earliest known inscriptions in Phoenician come from Byblos, and date back to approximatley 1,000 B.C.

From Quiz Phoenicia: Merchants of the Mediterranean

Answer: Britain

The Phoenicians were excellent sailors. They sailed from the eastern Mediterranean, through the Straits of Gibraltar, all the way into the Atlantic Ocean, and then finally to Britain to get tin.

From Quiz Those Awesome Phoenicians!

Answer: 22

Can you imagine how much easier it was to write with this alphabet? Even with revisions, the cuneiform alphabet had over 600 symbols. The Greeks came into contact with the Phoenician alphabet, revised it, and passed it on to the Romans.

From Quiz Phoenicia: Merchants of the Mediterranean

Answer: Philistines and Canaanites

Both groups contributed something to the Phoenician culture. The Philistines gave the skills of shipbuilding and sailing, and the Canaanites gave their religion.

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