How The Phoenicians Changed The World

Linear B writing emerged in Knossos after Linear A writing but before the fall of the Palace of Knossos. We can then deduce that people writing in Linear B (Mycenaeans) conquered those writing in Linear A (Minoans), or at the very least, Minoans allowed the Linear B writers into its political center as a peaceful accommodation. Nonetheless, finding the Linear B tablets at the Palace of Knossos is important because it lets us know that at some point Mycenaeans had lived on the Island of Crete. Finally, discovering Linear B tablets allows us to see how the Greek language evolved because the tablets show Greek language its very earliest form.

This script dates back to the Middle Bronze Age which would be approximately 2500 BC. They have not ascertained if this was an example of proto-writing (symbols) or if it is actual writing of the syllabic type. It has been suggested this might be a mature style of writing. Historians learned about the early Chinese Shang Dynasty from 1200 BC from the written documents on bones, bronze or turtle shells. A stone slab, with 3,000 BC year old writing, was discovered in the Mexican State of Veracruz. This would be the oldest script in the Western Hemisphere. The Phoenician alphabet is basically the proto-Canaanite alphabet from the Iron Age (1050 BC). The Greeks borrowed the Phoenician alphabet and adapted it to their own language. The tribe known as Latin (Romans) adopted writing from the Etruscans (tribe from Tiras, son of Japheth) and the Western Greeks in the fifth century. The first pure alphabet with single symbols emerged around 1800 BC in ancient Egypt. Semitic workers in Egypt developed this alphabet as a representation of language. Historians make a distinction between prehistory and the history of early writing, but have disagreed if proto-writing is considered true writing. Papyrus (reed) was the principle writing

The Carthaginians believed in gods, and the biggest one was Baal Hammon, who was the male god of storms. He was a powerful god, along with Tanit, the female fertility goddess. The Carthaginians would sacrifice their own male children and put them in tophets for the gods (97-98).

Next on the history of writing is the phoenetic writing systems of the Greeks that came from Phoenicia. In the intervening time, the writing of the Near East or Europe was developed by the Maya in Mesoamerica 250 CE.

The Phoenicians, the original ancient mariners, are responsible for transforming cuneiform into a more efficient writing system by paring down the somewhat ungainly number of 5,000 cuneiform characters into 29 characters. Adopted around 1000 B.C.E., the Phoenician alphabet was not a collection of pictographs like many early forms of writing, but instead a close relative of many modern writing systems.11 The sophisticated navy and extensive trade network of Phoenicia ensured that this new version of cuneiform would quickly spread to its ancient neighbors. Phoenicia’s alphabet would soon be adopted by the Greeks, who also refined and perfected this writing system to meet their own needs; likewise the Romans, eager inheritors of all things Greek, adopted the alphabet for their own use. It could be said that the highly adaptive descendants of cuneiform formed the basis for the literature of the Classical world. The Phoenician cuneiform alphabet was also adopted by Jewish culture, providing a medium for Hebrew narrative and progressive sense of history, another innovation

In this chapter, Diamond discusses writing and the causes behind its development. Diamond explains that there were three basic strategies used to create a writing system in which signs would be used to represent sounds, words, or syllables. Few of these writing system were independently created while other were influenced by existing systems due to the difficulty of creating writing and the existence of nearby writing systems. One independently created writing the Sumerian cuneiform started with pictures depicting objects then words and was further developed when phonetic signs were used to write letters, syllables, abstract words, and determinatives. These writing systems developed as long as a society

Phoenicia reached the height of its power and influence during 200-800BC, establishing mercantile trading colonies across the northern coast of Africa and the Iberian peninsula (including Carthage in 814), developing the world's first written alphabet and, around 1000 B.C. Unlike the Assyrians, the Phoenicians waged no great wars of conquest. Assyria conquering most of the Fertile Crescent, including Phoenicia. The Carthaginians merged with North African Berbers and Iberians to create the Punic civilization that vied with Rome until 146 B.C. when the city was burned to the ground.

The Phoenicians were the first civilization to use a syllabic alphabet (Peckman 2014:3). Their alphabet originated from the Egyptian hieroglyphic writing system of the Canaanite writing system (Peckman 2014:3). The Phoenicians created their alphabet by borrowing consonants, vowels, syllables, and other characters/symbols from other Mediterranean civilizations (Peckman 2014:3). This alphabet was invented to be easily learned to anyone living in the Mediterranean (Peckman 2014:3). Unlike Egyptian hieroglyphics, the Phoenicians created their own writing system because they wanted to communicate with other traders in their city-states as simple as possible. By assembling the letters in a specific order, the reader did not need to interpret a concept represented by a hieroglyphic (Peckman 2014:3). This alphabet allowed the Phoenicians to create a message with a specific code that always stayed the same and had the same meaning to other people who read the message (Peckman 2014:3). An example of the use of the Phoenician alphabet is found in Phillip C. Schmitz’s article Reconsidering a Phoenician Inscribed Amulet from the Vicinity of Tyre. This article features an archaeological analysis of a bronze pendant discovered in the capital of the Phoenician civilization Tyre (Schmitz 2002:816). The bronze pendant features Egyptian hieroglyphics on the front

Chanani- In the bible, they were referred to as “Canaanites.” However the Greek people called them the “purple people” or Phoenicians because of the purple dye they used to trade. The Phoenicians established many new markets and new ports for trade throughout the entire area. They also established The Phoenician Alphabet which the Greeks later borrowed for their own alphabet. They built extraordinary ships that were able to sail as far west as present-day Morocco and Spain out of cedars which they exported to Egypt, where they had no trees. The Phoenicians also had many religious and cultural elements such as gods, math, and science. They later developed a new method of writing that allowed men to communicate directly with one another and allowed

writing is the physical manifestation of a spoken language. It is thought that human beings developed language c. 35,000 BCE as evidenced by cave paintings from the period of the Cro-Magnon Man (c. 50,000-30,000 BCE) which appear to express concepts concerning daily life. These images suggest a language because, in some instances, they seem to tell a story (say, of a hunting expedition in which specific events occurred) rather than being simply pictures of animals and people. Written language, however, does not emerge until its invention in Sumer, southern Mesopotamia, c. 3500 -3000 BCE. This early writing was called cuneiform and consisted of making specific marks in wet clay with a reed implement. The writing system of the Egyptians was already in use before the rise of the Early Dynastic Period (c. 3150 BCE) and is thought to have developed from Mesopotamian cuneiform (though this theory is disputed) and came to be known as heiroglyphics.

1) Cuneiform writing is known to be an ancient writing system and was created when early civilizations needed a way to keep record of events that has happened year to year such as; grains produced last year, the livestock that they had and the total cost of livestock. The system was discovered in 500 BCE by the Sumerians and Mesopotamians. The use of Cuneiform writing led to more advanced forms of writing as the years went on, it broadened their minds and later lead to the use of papyrus as a means for portable media. 2) The printing press was such an important and revolutionary development because it allowed books to be mass produced, before the printing press all books had to be hand written.

An important technological advancement in the history of mankind was the invention of writing language. Known as cuneiform at the time, its origination hailed from a place in southern Mesopotamia called Sumer in 3500-3000 BCE. The process during its invention involved making markings in wet clay with a reed-like instrument. The reason for its invention was for the flourishment of commerce. The Sumerians needed a way to communicate with merchants and customers from between large expanses of land and sea. They used pictographs in order to scale the quantity of resources required in the trade and represent different objects. To communicate ideas more complex than financial transactions or lists and quantities, a more elaborate writing system was

Writing has constituted an important practice in human culture since the earliest forms of writing were discovered from cave paintings made 40,000 years ago. Writing enables writers to express themselves in a writing system that conveys unique features of its associated culture. In this context, 'writing' means a standardized system for recording, in a specific language, content ranging from values to ideas to poems, etc. Humans have communicated in thousands of languages throughout history and consequently devised numerous different writing systems for expressing those languages. To facilitate easier communication, it has sometimes been suggested that the world adopt a single writing system capable of representing all languages. This essay

Discovery of clay tablets inscribed with cuneiform proved that the Mesopotamian civilization were able to communicate through written pictures and stylized signs, this was used for purpose of record keeping and schools to teach cuneiform.

Is the development of the writing system the most important factor that led to the rise of a civilization? How does our ancestor learned to write when school is not even available? Understand that writing system that I am referring is not the average of using tools such as ink and paper, but more of creative tool that has developed over time. In this essay, I will cover seven points on the importantance of a writing system in the ancient civilization.