Phoenician pottery, again mainly transport-jars, are frequent among the ceramics in the southern Levant. They were found in significant numbers at Tell Ruqeish, which may have been an Assyrian karum, and other sites in Philistia and the northern Negev. Phoenicians continued to participate in the Arabian trade and were instrumental in shipping goods from the caravan routes into the Mediterranean. Phoenician commercial containers are also a distinct part of the pottery found in Assyrian administrative centers like Megiddo and the recently discovered (and still unpublished) building at Ashdod Ad Halom. Tyre was able to hold on to its territories in the Akko plain as is documented in the treaty between Esarhaddon and Baal.
In the northern Levant, Phoenician writing and language was no longer used in official inscriptions, but the use of the commercial containers in coastal sites of northern Syria and Cilicia continued throughout the seventh century bce. In addition to this evidence for bulk trade, luxury items such as decorated tridacna shells reached the centers of the new imperial elites (Brandl 2001; Stucky 1974).
The Assyrian empire created a complex and problematic situation for Phoenicia. On one side, Phoenicians profited from new markets, open borders, and increased demand. The Assyrians granted at least some Phoenician cities an autonomous status, albeit in tandem with high tributes that had to be delivered to the empire. On the other side, conflicts with the Assyrian empire repeatedly disrupted the commercial activities. Assyrian records show in particular the increasing importance of Sidon. The establishment of an Assyrian trading station in Phoenicia, called Kar-Esarhaddon, was a response to continuously emerging problems and demonstrates a structural problem of the Assyrian empire. The Assyrians were a continental power, unable to control the Mediterranean with whatever emerged from the “midst of the sea” (qabli tâmti) (Lang and Rollinger 2010; Rollinger 2001). Assyrian control of Mediterranean trade was restricted to the coast of the Levant and Cilicia. Repeated conflicts with the Phoenician cities and the establishment of governmental kāru-trading posts reflect Assyrian land-based attempts to gain control over the activities in the Mediterranean (Yamada 2005).
With the collapse of the Assyrian empire around 640 bce, the Egyptian 26th Dynasty took control over the Levant until the neo-Babylonian conquest in 605/604 bce. This short interlude is difficult to evaluate as there is only little historical and archaeological evidence concerning Phoenicia during this period (Schipper 2010).
As for the relationships with Egypt, the dominance of the 26th Dynasty is best identified with substantial amounts of Greek pottery that reached the Levant with Greek mercenaries employed by the Egyptians. Evidence of Phoenician involvement in the Levant is again provided mainly by transport-jars that appear in significant numbers, especially at Levantine coastal sites. The Phoenician pottery assemblage in the southern Levant is well recorded in Ashkelon in precisely dated contexts of the Babylonian destruction in the month of Kislev of the year 604 bce (Stager et al. 2011). The Phoenician pottery comprises only a few bowl types, cooking pots, and, as already pointed out, mainly transport-jars. This situation is similar in the northern Levant (Lehmann 1996).
The masterpieces of Phoenician manufacture of the late eighth and seventh centuries bce appear mainly outside the Levant. Glass and metal products are extremely rare in the Levant (Markoe 1985), and so far only one fragment of a metal bowl was found in Tell Qattina, Syria (Barnett 1957).
With the Babylonian conquest of the Levant in 605/604 bce, a period of devastation began. The Babylonians besieged Tyre apparently for thirteen years (Katzenstein 1997: 325–32; Lipiński 2006: 197–99). Warfare and neglect during the Babylonian period caused numerous settlements along the Levantine coast to be abandoned. Settlement gaps characterize the stratigraphy at many sites, and occupation at centers such as Tarsus, Al Mina, Dor, Ashdod, and Ashkelon only resumed at the end of the sixth and in the early fifth centuries bce.
The “oracle against Tyre” (Ezekiel 27) provides an important inside into Phoenicia’s world during this period. Although there were attempts to date this text and its description of the Phoenician trade as early as the tenth and ninth centuries bce, the text may in fact describe a situation during the lifetime of Ezekiel in the early sixth century (Lipiński 2006: 198). Ezekiel gives an overview of Tyre’s trade with various regions in the Mediterranean and the ancient Near East. While maritime trade is often our first (modern) association with Phoenician trade, Ezekiel takes intensive Tyrian exchange with its continental neighbors for granted. Ezekiel emphasizes trade with the southern Levant and Syria, northern Mesopotamia, and southeast Anatolia: the prophet mentions horses and mules, slaves and bronze, textiles and precious stones, wine and timber, grain, honey, balm, and oil as trade goods. Even if the exact date of Ezekiel 27 is disputed, this description seems to fit the situation during the seventh and sixth centuries bce.
The Achaemenid Period—An Outlook
The Persian rulers granted the Phoenician city-states territorial acquisitions, especially in the southern Levant around Dor and Ashkelon, where Sidon and Tyre established their rule, respectively.
More than any other ancient Near Eastern continental empire, the Achaemenids managed to penetrate into the Mediterranean and to pursue their political ambitions beyond the coastline of the Levant. Phoenician and Cilician maritime support was instrumental in the control of Cyprus and the Persian campaigns against Greece.
Phoenician manufacture is ubiquitous in excavated sites in the Levant during the Achaemenid period. Phoenician glass and metal objects, coins, and ceramics were found in every layer excavated along the coast (Lehmann 1998; on Phoenician coins, see also chapter 25, this volume). The Phoenician economy flourished remarkably during this time. At the same time, continuing conflicts between Egypt and Cyprus with the Persian Empire dragged the Phoenician cities repeatedly into difficult situations, and the total destruction of Sidon in 343 bce represents one of the dark moments of Phoenician history under the Achaemenids.
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Chapter 31
Cyprus
Sabine Fourrier
Relations between the island of Cyprus and the Levantine coast largely antedate the Phoenician period. As of the Late Bronze Age, Cypriot handmade pottery (white slip and base ring wares) was widely distributed in the Levant, as far south as the Egyptian Delta, and the king of Alashiya (Cyprus’s probable Bronze Age name), great provider of bronze, communicated on equal terms with his “brothers,” the king of Hatti and the pharaoh of Egypt, as documented by the Amarna diplomatic archives (Moran 1992). The relationship was especially close with the Levantine kingdom of Ugarit, whose archives have yielded the only name of a king of Alashiya known so far: Kushmeshusha (Malbran-Labat 1999).
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