Painting the Mediterranean Phoenician: On Canaanite-Phoenician Trade-Nets

Over the past few years, Phoenician studies have been reawakened after a long academic slumber, and many new studies on this extraordinary civilization that encompassed almost the entire Mediterranean basin have emerged (e.g., Quinn 2018; Elayi 2018; Edrey 2019; Sader 2019; López -Ruiz and Doak 2019; López-Ruiz 2021). Dalit Regev has added two new commendable studies to this growing body of works; New Light on Canaanite-Phoenician Pottery (2020) and Painting the Mediterranean Phoenician: On Canaanite-Phoenician Trade-Nets (2021), the latter of which is the focus of this review.The book commences with an introduction that delves into the ongoing debate surrounding the identity of the Phoenicians, seeking to define and examine their origins, territorial boundaries, and available sources (Ch. 1).1 Regev presents ample evidence to support the interchangeable use of the terms Canaanites and Phoenicians. She also mentions the frequently cited remarks of Augustine of Hippo from the fourth century CE on the people of North Africa, who supposedly referred to themselves as Canaanites, an assertion that has been convincingly refuted by Quinn (2018: 33–36). Later, Regev proposes a compelling theory concerning the rise of the use of the name Sidonians during the Hellenistic period (14). Regev rightfully argues for the continuity of the Canaanites in the form of the Phoenicians from the Bronze Age and to the Roman period, both culturally and genetically (compare Elayi 2018: 8), despite the lack of a common name throughout the ages. While the identification of the Phoenicians as Canaanites is quite common (e.g., Sader 2019: 4), Regev takes an unconventional approach by equating all Canaanites with Phoenicians, irrespective of their specific geographic location within this relatively large territory. This untraditional view enables her to associate virtually all economic activities of the Canaanites, extending from the eastern Jordan River to the southern Nile Delta, with the Canaanite-Phoenicians.Chapter 2 focuses on the framework by which these Canaanite-Phoenicians facilitated their trade activities. Regev puts forth the argument that all Phoenician trade was organized by the state, involving both officials and private agents operating within networks facilitated by a Phoenician diaspora. The chapter also delves into the mobility of Phoenician artisans across the Mediterranean, starting from the Bronze Age. In addition, Regev draws comparisons between the operational methods of the Phoenician diaspora trade network and other historical diaspora networks, such as the second-millennium BCE Mesopotamian trade colony at Kanesh, which may have started even earlier (Kulakoğlu and Öztürk 2015), or the medieval Jewish-diaspora trade network as exemplified by the documents of the Cairo Geniza (Goitein 1999).The all-encompassing approach to the Phoenicians as Canaanites and vice versa comes into play in Chapter 3, which deals with what Regev refers to as “Early Networks.” She first reviews the Egypto-Canaanite trade network and rightfully stresses the primacy of the role the Canaanites played in its seaborn activities. Regev also includes Ugarit in the network despite the fact that the people of Ugarit clearly distinquished between themselves and people of Canaan (Green 2003: 221). Nevertheless, Ugarit may still be included in the Canaanite sphere. However, when discussing the Hittito-Canaanite network, Regev attributes the Faynan and Timna copper trade to Canaanite-Phoenicians (47). While it is more than possible that certain coastal Canaanite (Phoenician) cities acted as nodes in this network, it was local Canaanites who were involved in the production, transportation, and organization of the copper trade in the Arava through the Jordan Valley. In addition to trade networks, Chapter 3 also delves into the development and evolution of the Phoenician artistic style, tracing its origins from the Bronze Age through to the Hellenistic period.Chapter 4 is dedicated to the various media that exhibit the Phoenician artistic style, including metal objects, glass and faience, ivory, and the exquisite purple dye. It begins by exploring the extensive utilization of Egyptian motifs in Phoenician art and the widespread distribution of Aegyptiaca items throughout the Mediterranean, serving as evidence of Phoenician presence. Examples include decorated ostrich eggs, depictions of baboons, and phallic amulets. The chapter then proceeds to present various other luxury items that are attributed to Phoenician trade.Chapter 5, which presents the main thesis of the book, explores the various trade networks and their geographic regions focusing on the Mediterranean basin, but it also extends beyond to Arabia, the Persian Gulf, and India. Regev begins the discussion with Cyprus, identifying it as part of Magna Phoenicia. While the eastern coast of Cyprus did maintain continuous contact with the southern Levantine coast, particularly with Phoenicia, throughout the ages, this identification seems too far-reaching. The only clear and certain Phoenician presence and hegemony on the island is in Kition, which also dominated Idalion during parts of the Iron Age and Persian period. However, other Archaic kingdoms on the island display a mixture of Phoenician, Cypriot, and Greek cultural traits, including names, writing systems like the Cypro-Syllabic script, and various aspects of material culture. There was certainly heavy Phoenician influence on the eastern and southern parts of Cyprus; however, the argument for Phoenician hegemony over an extensive area is still subject to debate. The complexity of the rivaling Phoenician, Cypriot, and Greek forces continued into the Persian and Hellenistic periods. Therefore, the identification of the Black-on-Red pottery industry as dominated exclusively by the Phoenicians, and the definition of Cyprus as a large industrial zone seems to downplay Cypriot agency significantly and without real reason.Moving on to Cilicia and Asia Minor, Regev suggests that the island of Samothrace “appears to have been a port-of-call for both Cretans and the Phoenicians” (92) during the early second millennium BCE, although archaeological evidence to support this claim is lacking, and the references to Phoenician influence seem to stem mainly from later written sources on the myth of Cadmus. The evidence for Phoenician influence and perhaps also presence during the Iron Age and Persian period is far more compelling.The discussion then shifts to Greece and the Aegean world. Regev explores the potential Phoenician presence or involvement in each of the central Aegean islands. For Crete she suggests that it may have been the Phoenicians who transported commodities on behalf of the Myceneans during the Bronze Age (96). The evidence for Phoenician presence during the Iron Age is more intriguing and is treated with more caution. While the so-called Phoenician temple at Kommos, which has no parallels in the southern Levant or at any other Phoenician site, and the occurrence of Phoenician pottery and amphoras at sites on Crete are weak evidence of a permanent Phoenician presence, the occurrence of cremation burials at Knossos alongside inhumations could suggest an influx of a small group of Phoenicians (or Cypro-Phoenicians) who resided with the local population. The few cippi (funerary stelae), found in the cemeteries of Eleftherna and Knossos, which are rather similar to Cypriot examples (e.g., Karageorghis 1997), may also support such an assumption. Regev’s treatment of Corinth and Athens is far less cautious and echoes her assumptions about Cyprus, mainly regarding supposed Phoenician involvement in the production and distribution of Corinthian and Athenian pottery (100–105). The treatment of the next two regions, the central Mediterranean and North Africa, and the western Mediterranean and the Atlantic is based on more solid grounds, as there is ample archaeological and historical evidence for Phoenician involvement, presence, and even hegemony.However, when turning to Arabia, the Persian Gulf, and especially India where no early Phoenician presence is well documented, the evidence presented relies on cautious assumptions and late epigraphic and textual sources from the Hellenistic period onward. Regev catalogs various luxurious finds, such as a faience pendant of Ishtar/Astarte or ivories from northwestern Iran (126) and argues for their possible Phoenician origin. She also cites eighth to seventh century BCE inscriptions from Yemen that are somewhat similar to Phoenician as evidence for Phoenician-Arabian connections at the time (127). Regev addresses certain Arabian pottery similar in form and slip to Phoenician wares and argues extensively that they were influenced by Phoenician pottery, although she admits that the similarities could be the result of secondary influences by way of Edomite pottery. As for India, Regev cites recent discoveries of the remains of exotic plants found in the southern Levant and considers their possible import from southeast Asia. In all of these instances, although evidence for local traders—Arabian tribes or the Nabateans—exists, Regev still argues for a possible Phoenician core involvement in these land-based trade networks.The final chapter deals with “Phoenician Industrial Networks,” focusing on certain Phoenician commodities such as pottery, wine, and scented oils, some of which Regev already mentioned in previous chapters with regard to their provenance and the, sometimes hypothetical, networks that the Phoenicians devised in order to procure them. Regev once again credits the Phoenicians not only with the organization and operation of these trade networks but also with supervising the production, packaging, and distribution via the diaspora of Phoenician agents situated at every link in the chain. Regev also suggests that all of these industrial networks were organized by an authority, either political or religious, in one or more of the central Phoenician city-states. When dealing with the example for wine production and distribution, she argues that “the trade in wine required an elaborate network far beyond the means of private agents” (146).Throughout the book, Regev endeavors to rectify the historical bias that marginalized the Phoenician civilization’s significance in antiquity and its contribution to the construction of the Mediterranean world while elevating the ancient Greeks and Romans. Although the situation has improved compared to the late nineteenth century (e.g., Rawlinson 1889), the academic sphere still predominantly focuses on the Greeks and Romans as the dominant Mediterranean societies of the past. It is worth contemplating how different our world would be if Hannibal had triumphed over and conquered Rome in the third century BCE, reminding us that history is often written by the victors. Regev also reacts to postprocessual and postmodernistic studies that argued against the view that the Phoenicians can be defined as a people but rather chose to view each city-state as an independent political, economic, and religious entity. Quinn’s In Search of the Phoenicians (2018) is the latest notable representative of such scholarship. However, in her zeal to redeem the image of the Phoenicians, the pendulum occasionally swings too far in the other direction in Regev’s presentation, and the author treats various other ancient cultures and civilizations with the same prejudice the Phoenicians have endured. For example, Regev almost completely disparages the agency of the ancient Cypriots and Greeks in the formation, organization, and transportation of local commodities around the Mediterranean basin. Continuous connection of the southern Levant with Cyprus, as Regev notes, became intensive as early as the beginning of the second millennium BCE, during the Middle Bronze Age. Cypriot pottery is one of the most common imports into the Levant throughout the second and first millennium BCE and has been found in various archaeological contexts constituting luxury items. Likewise, Cypriot amphorae, probably carrying wine, began to appear regularly along the coast of the Levant from the later part of the seventh century BCE, a process that intensified during the Persian period, between the sixth to fourth centuries BCE (Lehmann et al. 2022: fig. 11). These Cypriot people residing on an island only 50 km west of the southern Levant must have had maritime abilities and were more than capable of transporting commodities without relying on Phoenician traders, be it in the second or first millennium BCE.Greek colonization began during the eighth century BCE; around the same time the Phoenician westward expansion was at its height (Malkin 2011; Donnellan 2016). The Greeks and Phoenicians competed for land and resources for the same economic reasons. Eventually they divided the Mediterranean world into the northern Greek part and the southern Phoenician part. From as early as the eighth century BCE we know of Greek settlers in various western and central Mediterranean sites such as Euboeans in Pithekoussai, trading with and influencing the local Etruscan population (Ambrosini 2013). There is no reason to assume, as Regev does on multiple occasions, that the Phoenicians had anything to do with trade in Greek pottery: the Greeks had all the ability, means, and incentive to carry it out on their own.Despite these methodological flaws, Regev’s book serves as an exceptional resource for Phoenician presence in commercial activities across the Mediterranean basin and beyond. It is a commendable compilation of archaeological, epigraphic, and historical evidence on the Phoenicians covering a vast scope that has rarely been explored to such an extent. Her longue durée approach, spanning the Bronze Age through the Roman and Byzantine periods, aligns well with the Phoenician civilization, which is characterized by remarkable continuity throughout the ages. Although Regev’s Mediterranean is painted Phoenician with what may be considered too broad strokes, both of her recent studies significantly contribute to our knowledge of this remarkable Levantine culture that extensively influenced and shaped the early Mediterranean world. Her research sheds light on the Phoenicians’ far-reaching impact and enriches our understanding of their historical significance.