The Phoenician civilization or Canaanite, if we refer to the archaic phase of this population, it has Semitic origins, and has a common root to the neighboring Jewish, Babylonian and Assyrian peoples.
These peoples settle in the region between Lebanon, Israel and part of Syria and Jordan around 3500 BC and would have survived until 333 BC, the year in which the Hellenistic kingdom of the Seleucids arose in that region.
The Phoenician civilization, like many ancient peoples, goes through an archaic age, characterized by nomadism and according to the Jewish tradition this phase coincides with the "Canaanite" history, in fact Canaan and Phenicia are two names that indicate the same region in different eras, Canaanite generally refers to the Bronze Age while Phoenician is used to indicate the region in the Iron Age .
The Phoenician or Canaanite civilization has many elements in common with the Jewish civilization, and this common root is presented within the Old Testament, in which the Canaanites are referred to as descendants of Noah, more precisely the Canaanites were the descendants of Caanan, figio of Cam the youngest of the three sons of Noah.
Biblical origins aside, around 2000 BC the nomadic tribes that lived in the region begin to settle in a sedentary way, building the first cities which, most likely, were organized on the model of city-states, separate and independent from each other, but probably with a cultural tradition and a common language.
The information we have received on this archaic phase comes mainly from neighboring peoples, Jews, Sumerians, Babylonians and Egyptians, who speak of very rich cities with which they were often at war.
From the thirteenth century the Phoenician civilization begins its expansion in the Mediterranean, coming into contact with numerous other peoples, including the Mycenaeans and according to some hypotheses the meeting between Mycenaeans and Phoenicians would have brought the alphabet in cuneiform in Greece, laying the foundations of modern Greek writing.
During the expansion in the Mediterranean the Phoenicians would have founded numerous colonies reaching at least as far as the columns of Hercules, these colonies were originally commercial outposts that very often developed into autonomous urban centers, and in some cases, these colonies became richer and powerful of the same motherland, this is the case of Carthage, Phoenician colony founded between the eighth and seventh centuries, which a few centuries later became the largest power in the western Mediterranean.
In the first century, the Phoenician cities, populated by fishermen and merchants and certainly not by warriors, fell into decline after meeting with the peoples of the sea, and were subsequently incorporated by the Assyrians , attracted to the region by the wealth of Phoenician cities, under the monarchy of Ashurnasirpal II , and conquered, according to tradition by Shalmanassar III with the battle of Qarqar presumably occurred in 853 BC. but of which there is no concrete evidence.
At the end of the Assyrian Empire in 604 BC, a brief reign of Nebuchadnezzar II followed which seems to have brought the region under Babylonian control until 562, the year in which the Persians would have succeeded the Babylonians who, promising freedom and autonomy, would have conquered the Phoenician aristocracy, and with the rise of Cyrus II the Great , the Phoenicians would have voluntarily joined the Persian Empire.
The Persian age between the various internal revolts lasts until 334, the year in which Alexander the Macedonian, would arrive and upon his death the region would become part of the Hellenistic kingdom of the Seleucids.