The Phoenicians

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Phoenicians. The Greek historian Herodotus wrote about a people from the Levant who were accomplished sailors and traders, and who taught the Greeks their alphabet. He called them the Phoenicians, the Greek word for purple, although it is not known what they called themselves. By about 700 BC they were trading all over the Mediterranean, taking Egyptian and Syrian goods as far as Spain and North Africa. Although they were hugely influential in the ancient world, they left few records of their own; some contemporary scholars believe that the Phoenicians were never a unified civilisation but a loose association of neighbouring city-states.

→ Listen on BBC Sounds website

Guests

• Mark Woolmer 2 episodes
  Assistant Principal at Collingwood College, Durham University
• Josephine Quinn No other episodes
  Lecturer in Ancient History at the University of Oxford
• Cyprian Broodbank No other episodes
  Professor of Mediterranean Archaeology at University College London

Reading list

• The Phoenicians and the West: Politics, Colonies and Trade
  Maria Eugenia Aubet (trans. Mary Turton) (Cambridge University Press, 2001) Google Books →
• The Making of the Middle Sea: A History of the Mediterranean from the Beginning to the Emergence of the Classical World
  Cyprian Broodbank (Thames and Hudson, 2013) Google Books →
• Itineraria Phoenicia
  Edward Lipinski (Peeters Publishers, 2004)
• The Phoenicians
  Glenn Markoe (British Museum Press, 2000) Google Books →
• The Phoenicians
  Sabatino Moscati (I.B. Taurus, 2001) Google Books →
• Ancient Phoenicia: An Introduction
  Mark Woolmer (Duckworth, 2011) Google Books →

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Programme ID: b03szw8l

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03szw8l

Auto-category: 939.4 (Ancient Phoenicia)

Hello (First sentence from this episode)

Hello. In his masterpiece, The Histories, the Greek writer Herodotus describes how the alphabet first came to Europe.