The Phoenician Presence in the Aegean during the Early Iron Age: Trade, Settlement and Cultural Interaction

Abstract

Phoenician activity forms an integral part of every discussion about trade, contacts and cultural interaction in the Early Iron Age Aegean. This is largely the outcome of Phoenician involvement in major aspects of the cultural transformation of Greece in the early first millennium BCE: the restoration of maritime contacts with the eastern Mediterranean, the expression of an orientalising artistic style and the introduction of the alphabetic script. Although extensively examined, all these issues have gained new momentum in recent years, also thanks to new archaeological discoveries that reinvigorated our interest in cultural and economic interaction between Greece and the rest of the Mediterranean. Based on archaeological and textual evidence, the article explores the nature of Phoenician presence and
activity in the Aegean between the late 11th and the early 7th century BCE, with due consideration also of questions about terminology, the historical setting in Phoenicia and its possible reflection on Near Eastern evidence from the Aegean, and the role played by other agents of maritime contacts, primarily the Cypriots.