Phoenician Maritime Expansion

From their city-states along the eastern Mediterranean coast, including Tyre, Sidon, and Byblos, the Phoenicians built a maritime trading network spanning the entire Mediterranean between approximately 1500 and 300 BCE. Skilled shipbuilders who pioneered the curved hull design, they established colonies and trading posts from Cyprus and North Africa to the Iberian Peninsula. Their founding of Carthage, traditionally dated to 814 BCE, created what became a major independent power. Phoenician merchants traded purple dye, cedar wood, glass, and metalwork, while their alphabetic writing system spread to Greece and influenced most Western scripts.