Table of Contents
History Time rebuilds the Phoenician past from archaeology and from later Greek, Assyrian, Egyptian, and biblical authors, because the sailors’ own voyage books are gone. The film starts on the Atlantic edge, where Levantine travelers are tied to Cornish tin for bronze and to an old name for Britain as a tin land. It then follows cedar ports, a dye said to be worth its weight, and Canaanite towns that slipped free of Egyptian control and mostly survived the late Bronze Age upheaval. A short letter script, the narrator says, shows up on royal stone at Byblos and suits merchants better than the older court systems, then travels with the ships into Africa and Europe. Harbors appear about every short stretch of coast, Carthage among them, with no single capital and Tyre the proudest city. Assyrian demands, Babylon, and Alexander’s mole and siege of the island city end that run, while North Africa is left holding the culture until Rome.
Key points
- The documentary treats Phoenician books as lost and leans on foreign writers plus excavated traces.
- Tin for bronze is the motive given for sailing past Gibraltar toward Britain.
- Cedar, purple cloth, and brokerage are presented as the wealth of a thin coastal strip.
- A compact alphabetic script is described as a trader’s tool that moved west with the ports.
- Tyre’s island siege and the later fate of Carthage close the political story.
Short quotes
the very name of britain itself may have derived from the one that these wanderers gave the island [Barat-Anac] meaning land of tin
History Time, Phoenician history from tin routes to Tyre
He links the Atlantic tin run to a name he says those sailors left on Britain. Watch at 7:48
the use of this alphabet was then spread by phoenician merchants throughout the maritime trade
History Time, Phoenician history from tin routes to Tyre
The script is presented as a practical tool that traveled with the ports. Watch at 32:39
phoenicia never had a single capital but tyre jewel of the coast came closest
History Time, Phoenician history from tin routes to Tyre
Tyre is singled out as the nearest thing those cities had to a capital. Watch at 52:18
Video by History Time. Watch on YouTube.