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99-508: A Maccabi or Maccabee (Hebrew: מכבי ) is one of the Maccabees , a group of Jewish rebel warriors who controlled Judea. Maccabi or Maccabee may also refer to: Maccabees The name Maccabee is often used as a synonym for the entire Hasmonean dynasty , but the Maccabees proper comprised Judas Maccabeus and his four brothers. The name Maccabee was a personal epithet of Judah, and

198-505: A Eurasian steppe population). One 2018 study of mitochondrial lineages in Sardinia concluded that the Phoenicians were "inclusive, multicultural and featured significant female mobility", with evidence of indigenous Sardinians integrating "peacefully and permanently" with Semitic Phoenician settlers. The study also found evidence suggesting that south Europeans may have likewise settled in

297-436: A Hellenization policy, whereby Hellenic culture, religion, and sometimes language were spread or imposed across conquered peoples. However, Hellenisation was not enforced most of the time and was just a language of administration until his death. This was typically implemented through the founding of new cities, the settlement of a Macedonian or Greek urban elite, and the alteration of native place names to Greek. However, there

396-461: A Punic term for 'Phoenicians', which may be reconstructed as * Pōnnīm . Since little has survived of Phoenician records or literature , most of what is known about their origins and history comes from the accounts of other civilizations and inferences from their material culture excavated throughout the Mediterranean. The scholarly consensus is that the Phoenicians' period of greatest prominence

495-599: A gymnasium in Jerusalem , competed in international Greek games, " removed their marks of circumcision and repudiated the holy covenant ". When Antiochus IV Epiphanes became ruler of the Seleucid Empire in 175 BCE, Onias III held the office of high priest in Jerusalem. To Antiochus, the high priest was merely a local governor within his realm, a man whom he could appoint or dismiss at will, while orthodox Jews saw

594-585: A "land of fnḫw ", fnḫw being the plural form of fnḫ , the Ancient Egyptian word for 'carpenter'. This "land of carpenters" is generally identified as Phoenicia, given that Phoenicia played a central role in the lumber trade of the Levant. As an exonym , fnḫw was evidently borrowed into Greek as φοῖνιξ , phoînix , which meant variably 'Phoenician person', ' Tyrian purple , crimson ' or ' date palm '. Homer used it with each of these meanings. The word

693-488: A Greek historian from Sicily c.  300 BC, places the foundation of Carthage in 814 BC, which is the date generally accepted by modern historians. Legend, including Virgil 's Aeneid , assigns the founding of the city to Queen Dido . Carthage would grow into a multi-ethnic empire spanning North Africa, Sardinia, Sicily, Malta, the Balearic Islands, and southern Iberia, but would ultimately be destroyed by Rome in

792-514: A civil war took on the character of an invasion when the Hellenistic kingdom of Syria sided with the Hellenizing Jews against the traditionalists. As the conflict escalated, Antiochus prohibited the practices of the traditionalists, thereby, in a departure from usual Seleucid practice, banning the religion of an entire people. The motives of Antiochus remain unclear: he may have been incensed at

891-512: A claim that they came from Tylos and Arad ( Bahrain and Muharraq ). Some archaeologists working on the Persian Gulf have accepted these traditions and suggest a migration connected with the collapse of the Dilmun civilization c.  1750 BC. However, most scholars reject the idea of a migration; archaeological and historical evidence alike indicate millennia of population continuity in

990-635: A complex and influential civilization. Their best known legacy is the world's oldest verified alphabet , whose origin was connected to the Proto-Sinaitic script , and which was transmitted across the Mediterranean and used to develop the Arabic script and Greek alphabet and in turn the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets . The Phoenicians are also credited with innovations in shipbuilding, navigation, industry, agriculture, and government. Their international trade network

1089-619: A failed rebellion against Artaxerxes III , enlisting the help of the Egyptians, who were subsequently drawn into a war with the Persians. The resulting destruction of Sidon led to the resurgence of Tyre, which remained the dominant Phoenician city for two decades until the arrival of Alexander the Great. Phoenicia was one of the first areas to be conquered by Alexander the Great during his military campaigns across western Asia . Alexander's main target in

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1188-590: A hundred sites remain to be excavated, while others that have been are yet to be fully analysed. The Middle Bronze Age was a generally peaceful time of increasing population, trade, and prosperity, though there was competition for natural resources. In the Late Bronze Age , rivalry between Egypt, the Mittani, the Hittites, and Assyria had a significant impact on Phoenician cities. The Canaanite culture that gave rise to

1287-544: A major part of Phoenician wealth. The violet-purple dye derived from the hypobranchial gland of the Murex marine snail, once profusely available in coastal waters of the eastern Mediterranean Sea but exploited to local extinction. Phoenicians may have discovered the dye as early as 1750 BC. The Phoenicians established a second production center for the dye in Mogador , in present-day Morocco . The Phoenicians' exclusive command over

1386-566: A one-and-a-half-millennium long secondary symbolic interpretation in Judaism, while the Christian tradition kept the original meaning, that of a martyrdom-for-the-faith tradition. This interpretation would help to explain the unique iconography of this particular mosaic carpet, which is the only one found so far in synagogues of its period depicting scenes not found in the Hebrew Bible . Only due to

1485-647: A population coming from the North, related to ancient Anatolians or ancient South-Eastern Europeans (12–37%). The results show that a Steppe-like ancestry , typically found in Europeans, appears in the region starting from the Iron Age. The Phoenicians served as intermediaries between the disparate civilizations that spanned the Mediterranean and Near East, facilitating the exchange of goods and knowledge, culture, and religious traditions. Their expansive and enduring trade network

1584-583: A pretender to the Seleucid throne, and was succeeded by Simon Maccabee , the last remaining son of Mattathias. Simon gave support to Demetrius II Nicator , the Seleucid king, and in return Demetrius exempted the Maccabees from tribute . Simon conquered the port of Joppa , where the Gentile population were 'forcibly removed', and the fortress of Gezer . He expelled the garrison from the Acra in Jerusalem. In 140 BCE, he

1683-457: A series of campaigns against neighboring states. The Phoenician city-states fell under his rule, forced to pay heavy tribute in money, goods, and natural resources. Initially, they were not annexed outright—they remained in a state of vassalage, subordinate to the Assyrians but allowed a certain degree of freedom. This changed in 744 BC with the ascension of Tiglath-Pileser III . By 738 BC, most of

1782-510: A small jug of oil that had remained uncontaminated by virtue of a seal, and although it only contained enough oil to sustain the Temple menorah for one day, it miraculously lasted for eight days, by which time further oil could be procured. Following the re-dedication of the Temple, the supporters of the Maccabees were divided over the question of whether to continue fighting. When the revolt began under

1881-726: Is 1 August in both the Eastern Orthodox Church (for which 1 August is also the first day of the Dormition Fast ) and the Catholic Church . While studying a floor mosaic discovered during the 2012-2016 campaigns at the Huqoq synagogue near the Sea of Galilee and dating to the 4th–5th centuries, Russian researcher Nina V. Braginskaya comes to a different conclusion from that of the dig director, Jodi Magness . Braginskaya puts forward that

1980-529: Is already attested in Mycenaean Greek Linear B from the 2nd millennium BC, as po-ni-ki-jo . In those records, it means 'crimson' or 'palm tree' and does not denote a group of people. The name Phoenicians , like Latin Poenī (adj. poenicus , later pūnicus ), comes from Greek Φοινίκη , Phoiníkē . Poenulus , a Latin comedic play written in the early 2nd century BC, appears to preserve

2079-405: Is believed to have fostered the economic, political, and cultural foundations of Classical Western civilization . Being a society of independent city states, the Phoenicians apparently did not have a term to denote the land of Phoenicia as a whole; instead, demonyms were often derived from the name of the city an individual hailed from (e.g., Sidonian for Sidon , Tyrian for Tyre , etc.) If

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2178-596: Is credited with laying the foundations of an economically and culturally cohesive Mediterranean, which would be continued by the Greeks and especially the Romans. Phoenician ties with the Greeks ran deep. The earliest verified relationship appears to have begun with the Minoan civilization on Crete (1950–1450 BC), which together with the Mycenaean civilization (1600–1100 BC) is considered

2277-612: Is explained throughout Chabad Chassidic thought. It says that Antiochus didn't mind that the Jews kept the culture of Judaism, rather all he wanted was to eradicate the laws of the Torah ( mitzvos ) that weren't logical but rather kept solely because it is God's command. But when he saw that even the logical/rational and cultural commandments of the Torah were being practiced by the Jews in a way higher than logic, he then opposed Judaism in its entirety. In

2376-526: Is like You among the heavenly powers, oh God!", as well as an acronym for " M atityahu ha K ohen b en Y ochanan " (Matthias the priest, son of John). The correlating Torah verse Exodus 15:11, The song of Moses and the Children of Israel by the Sea , makes a reference to elim , with a mundane notion of natural forces, heavenly might, war and governmental powers. The scholar and poet Aaron Kaminka argues that

2475-520: Is no record of Persian administrators governing the Phoenician city-states. Local Phoenician kings were allowed to remain in power and given the same rights as Persian satraps (governors), such as hereditary offices and minting their coins. The Phoenicians remained a core asset to the Achaemenid Empire, particularly for their prowess in maritime technology and navigation; they furnished the bulk of

2574-437: Is regarded as a modern and artificial division. The Phoenicians, known for their prowess in trade, seafaring and navigation, dominated commerce across classical antiquity and developed an expansive maritime trade network lasting over a millennium. This network facilitated cultural exchanges among major cradles of civilization , such as Greece, Egypt, and Mesopotamia. The Phoenicians established colonies and trading posts across

2673-500: Is sometimes described as a "Phoenician renaissance". The Phoenician city-states filled the power vacuum caused by the Late Bronze Age collapse and created a vast mercantile network. The city-states during this time were Tyre, Sidon, Byblos, Aradus, Beirut, and Tripoli. The recovery of the Mediterranean economy can be credited to Phoenician mariners and merchants, who re-established long-distance trade between Egypt and Mesopotamia in

2772-648: The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church , also refer to the Maccabee martyrs. The first of these books states that their father was a Benjamite named Maccabeus and that three of the brothers, who are called Abya, Seela, and Fentos, were captured and martyred for leading a guerrilla war against Antiochus Epiphanes. From before the time of the Tridentine calendar , the Holy Maccabees had a commemoration in

2871-481: The Iron Age without interruption. It is believed that they self-identified as Canaanites and referred to their land as Canaan, indicating a continuous cultural and geographical association. The name Phoenicia is an ancient Greek exonym that did not correspond precisely to a cohesive culture or society as it would have been understood natively. Therefore, the division between Canaanites and Phoenicians around 1200 BC

2970-688: The Neolithic Revolution in the Levant . The Late Bronze Age state of Ugarit is considered quintessentially Canaanite archaeologically, even though the Ugaritic language does not belong to the Canaanite languages proper. The fourth-century BC Greek historian Herodotus claimed that the Phoenicians had migrated from the Erythraean Sea around 2750 BC and the first-century AD geographer Strabo reports

3069-551: The Punic Wars (264–146 BC) before being rebuilt as a Roman city. As mercantile city-states concentrated along a narrow coastal strip of land, the Phoenicians lacked the size and population to support a large military. Thus, as neighboring empires began to rise, the Phoenicians increasingly fell under the sway of foreign rulers, who to varying degrees circumscribed their autonomy. The Assyrian conquest of Phoenicia began with King Shalmaneser III . He rose to power in 858 BC and began

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3168-666: The Rhone valley and coastal Massalia ". Strabo states that there was a highly lucrative Phoenician trade with Britain for tin via the Cassiterides , whose location is unknown but may have been off the northwest coast of the Iberian Peninsula. Phoenicia lacked considerable natural resources other than its cedar wood. Timber was probably the earliest and most lucrative source of wealth; neither Egypt nor Mesopotamia had adequate wood sources. Unable to rely solely on this limited resource,

3267-638: The Roman Rite liturgy within the feast of Saint Peter in Chains . This commemoration remained within the weekday liturgy when in 1960 Pope John XXIII suppressed this particular feast of Saint Peter. Nine years later, 1 August became the feast of Saint Alphonsus Maria de' Liguori , and the mention of the Maccabee martyrs was omitted from the General Roman Calendar , since in its 1969 revision it no longer admitted commemorations. The feast day of these saints

3366-422: The Temple ; the resulting riots led to the death of Lysimachus. Menelaus was arrested for Onias' murder and was arraigned before Antiochus, but he bribed his way out of trouble. Jason subsequently drove out Menelaus and became high priest again. In 168 Antiochus pillaged the Temple, attacked Jerusalem and "led captive the women and children." From this point onwards, Antiochus pursued a zealous Hellenizing policy in

3465-525: The 10th century BC. Early into the Iron Age , the Phoenicians established ports, warehouses, markets, and settlement all across the Mediterranean and up to the southern Black Sea. Colonies were established on Cyprus , Sardinia , the Balearic Islands , Sicily , and Malta , as well as the coasts of North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula. Phoenician hacksilver dated to this period bears lead isotope ratios matching ores in Sardinia and Spain, indicating

3564-883: The Alexandrian canon which is also called the Septuagint . Both books are included in the Old Testament used by the Catholic and Orthodox churches, since those churches consider the books deuterocanonical . They are not included in the Old Testament books in most Protestant Bibles since most Protestants consider the books apocryphal . Multiple references to Hanukkah are made in the Mishnah (Bikkurim 1:6, Rosh HaShanah 1:3, Taanit 2:10, Megillah 3:4 and 3:6, Moed Katan 3:9, and Bava Kama 6:6), though specific laws are not described. The miracle of

3663-619: The Fifth Syrian War. Judea at that time had been affected by the Hellenization initiated by Alexander the Great. Some Jews, mainly those of the urban upper class, notably the Tobiad family, wished to dispense with Jewish law and to adopt a Greek lifestyle. According to historian Victor Tcherikover , the main motive for the Tobiads' Hellenism was economic and political. The Hellenizing Jews built

3762-742: The Jews" by the Roman Senate, effectively transforming the Hasmonean kingdom into the Herodian kingdom —a client kingdom of Rome. The Maccabean story is preserved in the books of the First and Second Maccabees , which describe in detail the re-dedication of the Temple in Jerusalem and the lighting of the menorah. These books are not part of the Tanakh ( Hebrew Bible ) which came from the Jewish canon; however, they were part of

3861-665: The Levant since at least the Bronze Age . More specifically, the research of geneticist Chris Tyler-Smith and his team at the Sanger Institute in Britain, who compared "sampled ancient DNA from five Canaanite people who lived 3,750 and 3,650 years ago" to modern people, revealed that 93 percent of the genetic ancestry of people in Lebanon came from the Canaanites (the other 7 percent was of

3960-424: The Levant, including northern Phoenicia, were annexed; only Tyre and Byblos, the most powerful city-states, remained tributary states outside of direct Assyrian control. Tyre, Byblos, and Sidon all rebelled against Assyrian rule. In 721 BC, Sargon II besieged Tyre and crushed the rebellion. His successor Sennacherib suppressed further rebellions across the region. During the seventh century BC, Sidon rebelled and

4059-480: The Maccabean revolt less as an uprising against foreign oppression than as a civil war between the orthodox and reformist parties in the Jewish camp", but John J. Collins writes that while the civil war between Jewish leaders led to the king's new policies, it is wrong to see the revolt as simply a conflict between Hellenism and Judaism, since "[t]he revolt was not provoked by the introduction of Greek customs (typified by

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4158-474: The Maccabee family, they are referred to in Christianity as the "Holy Maccabean Martyrs" or the "Holy Maccabees." According to one tradition, their individual names are Habim, Antonin, Guriah, Eleazar, Eusebon, Hadim (Halim), Marcellus, their mother Solomonia, and their teacher Eleazar . The three Ethiopian books of Meqabyan (quite distinct works from the other four books of Maccabees), which are canonical in

4257-619: The Mediterranean. Excavations of colonies in Spain suggest they also used the potter's wheel . Their exposure to a wide variety of cultures allowed them to manufacture goods for specific markets. The Iliad suggests Phoenician clothing and metal goods were highly prized by the Greeks. Specialized goods were designed specifically for wealthier clientele, including ivory reliefs and plaques, carved clam shells, sculpted amber, and finely detailed and painted ostrich eggs. The most prized Phoenician goods were fabrics dyed with Tyrian purple , which formed

4356-584: The Mediterranean; Carthage , a settlement in northwest Africa, became a major civilization in its own right in the seventh century BC. The Phoenicians were organized in city-states , similar to those of ancient Greece , of which the most notable were Tyre , Sidon , and Byblos . Each city-state was politically independent, and there is no evidence the Phoenicians viewed themselves as a single nationality. While most city-states were governed by some form of kingship , merchant families probably exercised influence through oligarchies . After reaching its zenith in

4455-551: The Near East, the Phoenicians apparently made the pragmatic calculation of "[yielding] themselves to the Persians". Most of the Levant was consolidated by Cyrus into a single satrapy (province) and forced to pay a yearly tribute of 350 talents , which was roughly half the tribute that was required of Egypt and Libya. The Phoenician area was later divided into four vassal kingdoms—Sidon, Tyre, Arwad, and Byblos—which were allowed considerable autonomy. Unlike in other empire areas, there

4554-516: The Persian Levant was Tyre, now the region's largest and most important city. It capitulated after a roughly seven month siege , during which many of its citizens fled to Carthage. Tyre's refusal to allow Alexander to visit its temple to Melqart , culminating in the killing of his envoys, led to a brutal reprisal: 2,000 of its leading citizens were crucified and a puppet ruler was installed. The rest of Phoenicia easily came under his control, with Sidon surrendering peacefully. Alexander's empire had

4653-442: The Persian fleet during the Greco-Persian Wars of the late fifth century BC. Phoenicians under Xerxes I built the Xerxes Canal and the pontoon bridges that allowed his forces to cross into mainland Greece. Nevertheless, they were harshly punished by the Persian King following his defeat at the Battle of Salamis , which he blamed on Phoenician cowardice and incompetence. In the mid-fourth century BC, King Tennes of Sidon led

4752-411: The Phoenician cities were mainly self-governed. Many of them were fought for or over by the warring factions of the Seleucid royal family. Some Phoenician regions were under Jewish influence, after the Jews revolted and succeeded in defeating the Seleucids in 164 BC. A significant portion of the Phoenician diaspora in North Africa thus converted to Judaism in the late millennium BC. The Seleucid Kingdom

4851-416: The Phoenicians apparently developed in situ from the earlier Ghassulian chalcolithic culture. Ghassulian itself developed from the Circum-Arabian Nomadic Pastoral Complex , which in turn developed from a fusion of their ancestral Natufian and Harifian cultures with Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) farming cultures, practicing the domestication of animals during the 8.2 kiloyear event , which led to

4950-504: The Phoenicians developed an industrial base manufacturing a variety of goods for both everyday and luxury use. The Phoenicians developed or mastered techniques such as glass-making , engraved and chased metalwork (including bronze, iron, and gold), ivory carving, and woodwork. The Phoenicians were early pioneers in mass production, and sold a variety of items in bulk. They became the leading source of glassware in antiquity, shipping thousands of flasks, beads, and other glass objects across

5049-420: The Phoenicians had an endonym to denote the land overall, some scholars believe that they would have used " Canaan " and therefore referred to themselves as "Canaanites". Krahmalkov reconstructs the Honeyman inscription (dated to c.  900 BC by William F. Albright ) as containing a reference to the Phoenician homeland, calling it Pūt ( Phoenician : 𐤐𐤕). Obelisks at Karnak contain references to

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5148-423: The Seleucid Empire, and Simon was required to provide troops to Antiochus VII Sidetes , the brother of Demetrius II. When Simon refused to give up the territory he had conquered, Antiochus took them by force. Simon was murdered in 134 BCE by his son-in-law Ptolemy and was succeeded as high priest and king by his son John Hyrcanus I . Antiochus conquered the entire district of Judea but refrained from attacking

5247-457: The Seleucid satrapies of Coele Syria and Phoenicia . Now Antiochus was not satisfied either with his unexpected taking the city ( Jerusalem ), or with its pillage, or with the great slaughter he had made there; but being overcome with his violent passions, and remembering what he had suffered during the siege, he compelled the Jews to dissolve the laws of their country, and to keep their infants uncircumcised, and to sacrifice swine's flesh upon

5346-419: The Temple or interfering with Jewish observances. Judea was freed from Seleucid rule on the death of Antiochus in 129 BCE. Independent Hasmonean rule lasted until 63 BCE, when the Roman general Pompeius intervened in the Hasmonean civil war, making it a client kingdom of Rome. The Hasmonean dynasty ended in 37 BCE when the Idumean Herod the Great became king of Israel, designated "King of

5445-473: The Torah a capital offense and burned the copies he could find; sabbaths and feasts were banned; circumcision was outlawed, and mothers who circumcised their babies were killed along with their families; and traditional Jewish ritual sacrifice was forbidden. It was said that an idol of Olympian Zeus was placed on the altar of the Temple and that Israelites set up altars to Greek gods and sacrificed "unclean" animals on them. The main objective of Antiochus

5544-427: The altar; against which they all opposed themselves, and the most approved among them were put to death. — Flavius Josephus , The War of the Jews , Book 1.1 §2 The author of the First Book of Maccabees regards the Maccabean revolt as a rising of pious Jews against the Seleucid king (who had tried to eradicate their religion) and against the Jews who supported him. The author of the Second Book of Maccabees presents

5643-420: The area of modern Lebanon. In a 2020 study published in the American Journal of Human Genetics , researchers have shown that there is substantial genetic continuity in Lebanon since the Bronze Age interrupted by three significant admixture events during the Iron Age , Hellenistic , and Ottoman period. In particular, the Phoenicians can be modeled as a mixture of the local Bronze Age population (63–88%) and

5742-406: The building of a gymnasium) but by the persecution of people who observed the Torah by having their children circumcised and refusing to eat pork." In the conflict over the office of high priest, traditionalists with Hebrew/Aramaic names like Onias contested with Hellenizers with Greek names like Jason and Menelaus. Some scholars point to social and economic factors in the conflict. What began as

5841-549: The city they hailed from (e.g., Sidonian for Sidon , Tyrian for Tyre , etc.) A 2008 study led by Pierre Zalloua found that six subclades of Haplogroup J-M172 (J2)—thought to have originated between the Caucasus Mountains , Mesopotamia and the Levant —were of a "Phoenician signature" and present amongst the male populations of coastal Lebanon as well as the wider Levant (the "Phoenician Periphery"), followed by other areas of historic Phoenician settlement, spanning Cyprus through to Morocco. This deliberate sequential sampling

5940-459: The conflict as a struggle between "Judaism" and "Hellenism", concepts which he coined. Most modern scholars argue that King Antiochus reacted to a civil war between traditionalist Jews in the Judean countryside and Hellenized Jews in Jerusalem, though the king's response of persecuting the religious traditionalists was unusual in antiquity, and was the immediate provocation for the revolt. According to Joseph P. Schultz, modern scholarship "considers

6039-430: The continuation of the war were led by Judah Maccabee. On his death in battle in 160 BCE, Judah was succeeded as army commander by his younger brother, Jonathan, who was already high priest. Jonathan made treaties with various foreign states, causing further dissent between those who merely desired religious freedom and those who sought greater power. In 142 BCE, Jonathan was assassinated by Diodotus Tryphon ,

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6138-433: The core of their culture stretching from Arwad in modern Syria to Mount Carmel . The Phoenicians extended their cultural influence through trade and colonization throughout the Mediterranean, from Cyprus to the Iberian Peninsula . The Phoenicians directly succeeded the Bronze Age Canaanites , continuing their cultural traditions following the decline of most major cultures in the Late Bronze Age collapse and into

6237-460: The designs, ornamentation, and embroidery used in Phoenician textiles were well-regarded, the techniques and specific descriptions are unknown. Mining operations in the Phoenician homeland were limited; iron was the only metal of any worth. The first large-scale mining operations probably occurred in Cyprus, principally for copper. Sardinia may have been colonized almost exclusively for its mineral resources; Phoenician settlements were concentrated in

6336-478: The discovery of the Huqoq mosaic could the connection between the Jewish and Christian traditions be noticed and proposed for discussion, to Braginskaya. Phoenicia The Phoenicians were an ancient Semitic group of people who lived in the Phoenician city-states along a coastal strip in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean , primarily modern Lebanon . They developed a maritime civilization which expanded and contracted throughout history, with

6435-401: The extent of Phoenician trade networks. By the tenth century BC, Tyre rose to become the richest and most powerful Phoenician city-state, particularly during the reign of Hiram I ( c.  969–936 BC). The expertise of Phoenician artisans sent by Hiram I of Tyre in significant construction projects during the reign of Solomon , the King of Israel, is documented in the Bible. During

6534-434: The height of Phoenician shipping, mercantile, and cultural activity, particularly between 750 and 650 BC. The Phoenician influence was visible in the "orientalization" of Greek cultural and artistic conventions. Among their most popular goods were fine textiles, typically dyed with Tyrian purple . Homer's Iliad , which was composed during this period, references the quality of Phoenician clothing and metal goods. Carthage

6633-469: The holder of the high priesthood as divinely appointed. Jason , the brother of Onias, bribed Antiochus to make him high priest instead of Onias. Jason abolished the traditional theocracy and "received from Antiochus permission to convert Jerusalem into a Greek polis called Antioch". In turn, Menelaus then bribed Antiochus and was appointed high priest in place of Jason. Menelaus had Onias assassinated. Menelaus' brother Lysimachus stole holy vessels from

6732-522: The interior (via the Nahr al-Kabir and the Orontes rivers ). The cities provided Egypt with access to Mesopotamian trade and abundant stocks of the region's native cedarwood . There was no equivalent in the Egyptian homeland. By the mid-14th century BC, the Phoenician city-states were considered "favored cities" to the Egyptians. Tyre, Sidon, Beirut, and Byblos were regarded as the most important. The Phoenicians had considerable autonomy, and their cities were reasonably well developed and prosperous. Byblos

6831-440: The large terracotta jars used for transporting wine. From Egypt, the Phoenicians bought Nubian gold. From elsewhere, they obtained other materials, perhaps the most crucial being silver , mostly from Sardinia and the Iberian Peninsula . Tin for making bronze "may have been acquired from Galicia by way of the Atlantic coast of southern Spain; alternatively, it may have come from northern Europe ( Cornwall or Brittany ) via

6930-413: The later generations were not his direct descendants. One explanation of the name's origins is that it derives from the Aramaic maqqəḇa , "the hammer", in recognition of Judah's ferocity in battle. The traditional Jewish explanation is that Maccabee ( Hebrew : מכבים Makkabi ) is an acronym for the Torah verse that was the battle-cry of the Maccabees, " M i k amocha ba' elim Y HWH " , "Who

7029-443: The leadership of Mattathias, it was seen as a war for religious freedom to end the oppression of the Seleucids. However, as the Maccabees realized how successful they had been, many wanted to continue the revolt and conquer other lands with Jewish populations or to convert their peoples. This policy exacerbated the divide between the Pharisees and Sadducees under later Hasmonean monarchs such as Alexander Jannaeus . Those who sought

7128-474: The mosaic reflects the ancient Jewish veneration of the nine Maccabee martyrs from the books of the Maccabees, which is later perpetuated just in Christianity, while Jewish tradition preserves only the rite of lighting a nine-branched candelabrum during Hanukkah . In her opinion, there is a direct relationship between the Jewish symbolic object and the Christian symbolic story, with the Hanukkah menorah undergoing

7227-532: The name Maccabees is based on the Aramaic word for "hammer", because they "strike hammer blows against their enemies". The revolt involved many battles, in which the Maccabean forces gained notoriety among the Seleucid army for their use of guerrilla tactics. After the victory, the Maccabees entered Jerusalem in triumph and ritually cleansed the Temple, reestablishing traditional Jewish worship there and installing Jonathan Maccabee as high priest. A large Seleucid army

7326-681: The name is a corruption of Machbanai , a mighty warrior in the army of King David . In the 2nd century BCE, Judea lay between the Ptolemaic Kingdom (based in Egypt ) and the Seleucid Empire (based in Syria ), monarchies which had formed following the death of Alexander the Great . Judea had initially come under Ptolemaic rule but fell to the Seleucids around 197 BCE, after the Battle of Panium , during

7425-608: The narrative of I Maccabees , after Antiochus issued his decrees forbidding Jewish religious practice, a rural Jewish priest from Modi'in , Mattathias the Hasmonean , sparked the revolt against the Seleucid Empire by refusing to worship the Greek gods . Mattathias killed a Hellenistic Jew who stepped forward to offer a sacrifice to an idol in Mattathias' place. He and his five sons fled to

7524-475: The ninth century BC, the Phoenician civilization in the eastern Mediterranean gradually declined due to external influences and conquests. Yet, their presence persisted in the central and western Mediterranean until the destruction of Carthage in the mid-second century BC. The Phoenicians were long considered a lost civilization due to the lack of indigenous written records, and only since the mid-20th century have historians and archaeologists been able to reveal

7623-572: The north. Egypt subsequently lost its coastal holdings from Ugarit in northern Syria to Byblos near central Lebanon. Sometime between 1200 and 1150 BC, the Late Bronze Age collapse severely weakened or destroyed most civilizations in the region, including the Egyptians and Hittites. The Phoenicians were able to survive and navigate the challenges of the crisis, and by 1230 BC city-states such as Tyre, Sidon, and Byblos, maintained political independence, asserted their maritime interests through overseas colonization, and enjoyed economic prosperity. The period

7722-474: The one-day supply of oil lasting eight days is first described in the Talmud , committed to writing about 600 years after the events described in the books of Maccabees. The New Testament mentions Jesus visiting the temple during Hanukkah (John 10:22-23). The second and fourth books of the Maccabees recount the martyrdom of seven Jewish brothers, their mother and their teacher. Although these are not said to be of

7821-493: The overthrow of his appointee, Menelaus, or – encouraged by a group of radical Hellenizers among the Jews, he may have been responding to an orthodox Jewish revolt that drew on the Temple and the Torah for its strength. Other scholars argue that, while the rising began as a religious rebellion, it was gradually transformed into a war of national liberation. According to 1 Maccabees, Antiochus banned many traditional Jewish and Samaritan religious practices: he made possession of

7920-411: The production and trade of the dye, combined with the labor-intensive extraction process, made it very expensive. Tyrian purple subsequently became associated with the upper classes. It soon became a status symbol in several civilizations, most notably among the Romans. Assyrian tribute records from the Phoenicians include "garments of brightly colored stuff" that most likely included Tyrian purple. While

8019-557: The progenitor of classical Greece. Archaeological research suggests that the Minoans gradually imported Near Eastern goods, artistic styles, and customs from other cultures via the Phoenicians. To Egypt the Phoenicians sold logs of cedar for significant sums, and wine beginning in the eighth century. The wine trade with Egypt is vividly documented by shipwrecks discovered in 1997 in the open sea 50 kilometres (30 mi) west of Ascalon , Israel. Pottery kilns at Tyre and Sarepta produced

8118-686: The rare U5b2c1 maternal haplogroup was identified in the DNA of a 2,500-year-old male skeleton excavated from a Punic tomb in Tunisia. The lineage of this "Young Man of Byrsa" is believed to represent early gene flow from Iberia to the Maghreb . According to a 2017 study published by the American Journal of Human Genetics , present-day Lebanese derive most of their ancestry from a Canaanite -related population, which therefore implies substantial genetic continuity in

8217-561: The region in the 8th millennium BC". Brian R. Doak states that scholars use "Phoenicians" as a short-hand for "Canaanites living in a set of cities along the northern Levantine coast who shared a language and material culture in the Iron I–II period and who also developed an organized system of colonies in the western Mediterranean world". The Phoenician Early Bronze Age is largely unknown. The two most important sites are Byblos and Sidon-Dakerman (near Sidon), although, as of 2021, well over

8316-490: The region, and recent genetic research indicates that present-day Lebanese derive most of their ancestry from a Canaanite-related population. The first known account of the Phoenicians relates to the conquests of Pharaoh Thutmose III (1479–1425 BC). The Egyptians targeted coastal cities which they wrote belonged to the Fenekhu , 'carpenters', such as Byblos, Arwad, and Ullasa for their crucial geographic and commercial links with

8415-492: The reigns of the first Babylonian King, Nabopolassar (626–605 BC), and his son Nebuchadnezzar II ( c.  605 – c.  562 BC). In 587 BC Nebuchadnezzar besieged Tyre, which resisted for thirteen years, but ultimately capitulated under "favorable terms". In 539 BC, Cyrus the Great , king and founder of the Persian Achaemenid Empire , took Babylon. As Cyrus began consolidating territories across

8514-513: The rule of the priest Ithobaal (887–856 BC), Tyre expanded its territory as far north as Beirut and into part of Cyprus; this unusual act of aggression was the closest the Phoenicians ever came to forming a unitary territorial state. Once his realm reached its largest territorial extent, Ithobaal declared himself "King of the Sidonians", a title that would be used by his successors and mentioned in both Greek and Jewish accounts. The Late Iron Age saw

8613-572: The southern parts of the island, close to sources of copper and lead. Piles of scoria and copper ingots, which appear to predate Roman occupation, suggest the Phoenicians mined and processed metals on the island. The Iberian Peninsula was the richest source of numerous metals in antiquity, including gold, silver, copper, iron, tin, and lead. The significant output of these metals during the Phoenician and Carthaginian occupation strongly implied large scale mining operations. The Carthaginians are documented to have relied on slave labor for mining, though it

8712-410: The wilderness of Judah. After Mattathias' death about one year later in 166 BCE, his son Judah Maccabee led an army of Jewish dissidents to victory over the Seleucids in guerrilla warfare , which at first was directed against Hellenizing Jews, of whom there were many. The Maccabees destroyed pagan altars in the villages, circumcised boys and forced Jews into outlawry. As a result, one explanation of

8811-628: Was 1200 BC to the end of the Persian period (332 BC). It is debated whether Phoenicians were actually distinct from the broader group of Semitic-speaking peoples known as Canaanites . Historian Robert Drews believes the term "Canaanites" corresponds to the ethnic group referred to as "Phoenicians" by the ancient Greeks; archaeologist Jonathan N. Tubb argues that " Ammonites , Moabites , Israelites , and Phoenicians undoubtedly achieved their own cultural identities, and yet ethnically they were all Canaanites", "the same people who settled in farming villages in

8910-517: Was an attempt to develop a methodology to link the documented historical expansion of a population with a particular geographic genetic pattern or patterns. The researchers suggested that the proposed genetic signature stemmed from "a common source of related lineages rooted in Lebanon ". Another study in 2006 found evidence for the genetic persistence of Phoenicians in the Spanish island of Ibiza . In 2016,

9009-486: Was delivering goods to Tyre. The adaptation to Macedonian rule was probably aided by the Phoenicians' historical ties with the Greeks, with whom they shared some mythological stories and figures; the two peoples were even sometimes considered "relatives". When Alexander's empire collapsed after his death in 323 BC, the Phoenicians came under the control of the largest of its successors, the Seleucids . The Phoenician homeland

9108-573: Was destroyed by Esarhaddon , who enslaved its inhabitants and built a new city on its ruins. By the end of the century, the Assyrians had been weakened by successive revolts, which led to their destruction by the Median Empire . The Babylonians, formerly vassals of the Assyrians, took advantage of the empire's collapse and rebelled, quickly establishing the Neo-Babylonian Empire in its place. Phoenician cities revolted several times throughout

9207-464: Was founded by Phoenicians coming from Tyre, probably initially as a station in the metal trade with the southern Iberian Peninsula . The city's name in Punic , Qart-Ḥadašt ( 𐤒𐤓𐤕 𐤇𐤃𐤔𐤕 ‎) , means 'New City'. There is a tradition in some ancient sources, such as Philistos of Syracuse , for an "early" foundation date of around 1215 BC—before the fall of Troy in 1180 BC. However, Timaeus ,

9306-536: Was no organized Hellenization in Phoenicia, and with one or two minor exceptions, all Phoenician city-states retained their native names, while Greek settlement and administration appear to have been very limited. The Phoenicians maintained cultural and commercial links with their western counterparts. Polybius recounts how the Seleucid King Demetrius I escaped from Rome by boarding a Carthaginian ship that

9405-453: Was recognised by an assembly of the priests, leaders and elders as high priest, military commander and ruler of Israel. Their decree became the basis of the Hasmonean kingdom. Shortly after, the Roman Senate renewed its alliance with the Hasmonean kingdom and commanded its allies in the eastern Mediterranean to do so also. Although the Maccabees won autonomy, the region remained a province of

9504-472: Was repeatedly contested by the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt during the forty-year Syrian Wars , coming under Ptolemaic rule in the third century BC. The Seleucids reclaimed the area the following century, holding it until the mid-first 2nd century BC. Under their rule, the Phoenicians were allowed a considerable degree of autonomy and self-governance. During the Seleucid Dynastic Wars (157–63 BC),

9603-469: Was seized by Tigranes the Great of Armenia in 82 BC, ending the Hellenistic influence on the Levant. The people now known as Phoenicians were a group of ancient Semitic-speaking peoples that emerged in the Levant in at least the third millennium BC. Phoenicians did not refer themselves as "Phoenicians" but rather are thought to have broadly referred to themselves as "Kenaʿani", meaning ' Canaanites '. Phoenicians specifically identified themselves with

9702-420: Was sent to quash the revolt but returned to Syria on the death of Antiochus IV. Its commander Lysias, preoccupied with internal Seleucid affairs, agreed to a political compromise that restored religious freedom. The Jewish festival of Hanukkah celebrates the re-dedication of the Temple following Judah Maccabee's victory over the Seleucids. According to rabbinic tradition, the victorious Maccabees could only find

9801-442: Was the leading city; it was a center for bronze-making and the primary terminus of precious goods such as tin and lapis lazuli from as far east as Afghanistan . Sidon and Tyre also commanded interest among Egyptian officials, beginning a pattern of rivalry that would span the next millennium. The Amarna letters report that from 1350 to 1300 BC, neighboring Amorites and Hittites were capturing Phoenician cities, especially in

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