The only meta/ found in Phenicia itself was iron, but the abundance of minerals in some of their colonies soon made the Phenicians expert miners. Cyprus contained large quantities of copper, and the island gave its name to this metal. The Sar- dinian settlements were apparently due to the search after copper and lead. The mines of Thasos were known to Herodotus (vi. 47), and the Spanish colonies were perfect storehouses of gold, silver, copper, tin, iron, and lead.
e attention given to navigation naturally gave rise to a large industry in the art of shipbuilding, and it is possible to trace on the Assyrian sculptures and Pheenician vases and coins the development from the rude and small boats first used to the large and well-fitted vessels used in later times, and so warmly eulogized by Xenophon in the Giconomica (§ 8). The art of navigation, too, as distinct from the usual hugging of the shore and sailing in the daytime only, seems to have been developed if not invented by these people, to whom the Polar star was known. ‘The ships of the sea, with their mariners,’ occupy the first place in Ezekiel’s description of the pride of Tyre (ch. 27).
From this description by Ezekiel we can easily understand that the private life of the Phenician traders was one of great lux Many of the articles of commerce, in which they traded, found their way into the homes of the people. Little is known of their ppaate life, but there are indica- tions that behind the outward show of wealth and civilization lay a selfish and even cruel spirit. The traffic in slaves was no unimportant part of their commerce, and for the sake of it they would forget ‘the covenant of brethren’ (Am 1°), Commerce was the life and soul of the people, and the faults as well as the virtues of a purely commercial people marked the Pheenician race (cf. Is 23, etc.).
=. best be studied in Renan, Mission de Phénicie; Perrot et Pp
Cypre’; Mevsiless A. P. di Cesnola, δι
vii. RELIGION.—The religion of the Phcenicians was polytheistic, nor so far as we can go back do we find any traces of its ever having been mono- theistic. In the Tel el-Amarna tablets the Phoe nician names contain the names of several of the gods; in the OT, too, the ba‘alim (plur.) are men- tioned. The origins of the gods are unknown. The statements of Philo Byblios in this matter are useless, for everything is made to serve his own euhemerism. The view that Baal was the name of an originally one and only god—and that the sun-god—has been shown to be more than doubtful (see art. BAAL). Even the later identification by the Greeks of certain Pheenician gods with their own tells us nothing of their origin and previous his- tory. As Ed. Meyersays (Gesch. αἰ. Alt. §192, note), ‘It should never be forgotten that of the Phe- nician religion we know very little (recht wenig), of the Phenician mythology proper, nothing at all.’ It is a striking fact that one goddess ‘Tanith,’ is mentioned about 2000 times in Cartha- ginian inscriptions, and we know nothing either as to the meaning of the name or the nature of her being. Without attempting to explain the nature of each individual god, it seems clear, however, that some at least took their origin in the worship of the powers of nature (cf. the ‘ Ba‘al of heavens,’ the worship of Eshmun and Adonis, the feasts of the seasons of the year, the veneration of objects of nature, etc. [see below]). In this respect they fall in line with other Semitic peoples. Another determining feature in their worship seems to have been their social organization. The existence of various tribes among the Pheenicians has often been asserted, and is in itself very probable, but there is no evidence for it. On the ther hand, the city has played a part, larger than in the histery of any country, except perhaps the history of Italy in the Middle Ages. That each city had a god of its own is evident. Sometimes he was simply called the Baal of that city (see BAAL), some- times he had a name of his own (as Melkarth, the Ba'al of Tyre). Beyond the actuating power of these two factors—reverence for the powers of nature, and the bond of city life—it is difficult, if not impossible, to go in the present state of our knowledge of the early gods of Phenicia. <A strik- ing feature in the names of the gods is the presence of so many appellatives in the names of the best- known (thus Baal, ‘possessor’; "Adon, ‘lord’; Milk, ‘king,’ ete.). Another characteristic is the recognition of female as well as male deities. By the side of Ba‘al is Ba‘alat (as early as the Tel el- Amarna tablets ‘ Ba‘alat 8a Gubla’), with Milk is Milkat, with Elis Elat (see CIS 243, 244); but it does not follow that because the masculine and feminine forms of the same words are used, that there is necessarily any special relation between the god and goddess represented by them. A closer relation between two gods seems to be indicated by the compounding of two divine names, as in Milk- ‘ashtart, Ba‘almelkart, Zadmelkarth, Zadtanith, etc.; but whether this has any political or doctrinal significance is uncertain.