Agnosticism / Atheism: What's Hot Now: Continuity of Modern Lebanon & Ancient Phoenicia

Agnosticism / Atheism: What's Hot Now These articles that had the largest increase in popularity over the last week // via fulltextrssfeed.com

Continuity of Modern Lebanon & Ancient Phoenicia Sep 28th 2011, 10:01 This map of modern Lebanon reveals some of the continuity between ancient Phoenicia and the modern Lebanese state. The northern-most Phoenician city-state was Arvad, just a bit beyond the northern borders of Lebanon; the southern-most Phoenician city-state was Akko, known today as Acre, and it lies just inside the Israeli border. The boundaries of ancient Phoenicia thus looked like a slightly extended version of modern Lebanon. Tyre, Sidon, Jubayl (Byblos), and Beirut, all major costal cities in Lebanon today, were also among the most important Phoenician city-states. Deep in the interior of Lebanon we see Ba'labakk, known in the ancient records as Baalbek and an important religious site not just for the Phoenicians, but also later the Romans. The origins of the Phoenicians is unknown and they themselves never used the label 'Phoenicians.' It appears that their primarily loyalty was to their home city and that they never developed a sense of identity with the larger cultural or religious unit which existed in the region. Whereas other empires were defined by political and military control of a defined territory, the Phoenician 'empire' was defined by maritime trade and trade networks. Homer, writing probably in the 9th or 8th century BCE, is the first to definitely apply the label 'Phoenician' to the people living around Sidon, though some think that the name may appear Mycenean texts of the 13th century BCE. Because some ancient sources describe the region of the Phoenicians as extending from Sinai to Alexandretta, it's thought that 'Phoenician' was sometimes used to refer to any sea trading people in the eastern Mediterranean. Even the flag which the Lebanese chose for their nation expresses their sense of continuity with the past. Rather than use a Muslim symbol or Arabic text as is common elsewhere in the Middle East, the Lebanese flag is dominated in the center by an image of a tree: the Lebanese cedar. This tree was popular throughout the ancient world and exported over great distances. Egyptians used it to build their temples and the Bible reports that Hiram, king of Tyre, sent cedars to Solomon to help him build the first Temple in Jerusalem. The cedar was so popular that it exists today only in small numbers and few areas of Lebanon.

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions