Phoenicia During the Iron Age II Period Oxford Handbooks Online Phoenicia During the Iron Age II Period María Eugenia Aubet The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of the Levant: c. 8000-332 BCE Edited by Ann E. Killebrew and Margreet Steiner Print Publication Date: Nov 2013 Subject: Archaeology, Archaeology of the Near East Online Publication Date: Mar 2014 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199212972.013.046 Abstract and Keywords This articleanalyses archaeological evidence concerning the condition and developments in Phoenicia during the Iron Age II. It suggests that the Phoenician history during this period is aligned with the history of Tyre, which took the initiative in transforming Phoenicia into a commercial, territorial and colonial power. The article explains the causes of Tyre’s ascendancy during this period. These include the destruction of Ugarit at the beginning of the twelfth century BC, the decline of Egypt (which left Phoenicia free of administrative interference), and the absence of competitors in Levantine trade after the ‘crisis years’ that left the Phoenician cities in a position to resume the long-range economic strategy which had caused cities such as Byblos and Ugarit to prosper. Keywords: Phoenicia, Iron Age II, Tyre, colonial power, Ugarit, Egypt, Levantine trade, crisis years Introduction During Iron Age II (900–600 BC) Phoenician history became aligned with the history of Tyre. Archaeological evidence shows that the city of Tyre took the initiative in transforming Phoenicia into a commercial, territorial, and colonial power (Fig. 46.1). The transformation began at the end of Iron I in the middle of the 11th century BC, when the whole region of the Bay of Akko and Mount Carmel became part of a southerly extension of Phoenicia, and Tyre set up its first trading post in Palaepaphos, on southwest Cyprus. The causes of Tyre’s ascendancy during Iron II are the result of a number of factors that came together at the end of Iron I. In the first place, with the destruction of Ugarit at the beginning of the 12th century BC, the chief maritime and commercial power in the region disappeared, shifting the main focus of interregional trade southwards. Secondly, the Page 1 of 12 PRINTED FROM OXFORD HANDBOOKS ONLINE (www.oxfordhandbooks.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a title in Oxford Handbooks Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy). Subscriber: University College London; date: 02 November 2017 Phoenicia During the Iron Age II Period decline of Egypt left Phoenicia free of administrative interference, conferring a high degree of independence on its cities. Lastly, the absence of competitors in Levantine trade after the ‘crisis years’ left the Phoenician cities in a position to resume the long- range economic strategy that had caused cities like Byblos and Ugarit to prosper: that of acting as intermediaries between the great empires of the interior and the peripheral regions of Syria, Galilee, and the Mediterranean, and supplying strategic raw materials like copper, silver, and tin. Recent excavations in the region, moreover, demonstrate that the Phoenician cities remained at the margins of the serious destructions that devastated the region at the end of the Bronze Age. They were thus able quickly to regain control of the maritime circuits of exchange and connect them with the principal land networks, thanks to the privileged position of their ports, which afforded them good communication along the roads to the Beqa‘ Valley, Damascus, Lower Galilee, and Jordan Valley. So it can be said that at the beginning of Iron II the Phoenician cities had become genuine regional markets. Neither Tyre nor Sidon were a great centre of production, and their political institutions and merchant corporations succeeded in monopolizing the distribution of products and raw materials created by others. It had been thought that the transition from the Late Bronze to the Iron Age in Phoenicia had implied the replacement of a palace-administered exchange by a decentralized and (p. 707) entrepreneurial trade, and Phoenician trade was described as an activity characteristic of ‘merchant capitalism’. This interpretation was undoubtedly strongly influenced by the Homeric texts. The reality is much more complex and, as in so many other cases, Click to view larger archaeology reflects a strong Fig. 46.1 Map of Iron Age II sites in Phoenicia continuity with Late Bronze Age traditions in which private trade and institutional trade were intermixed and coexisted. We know the archaeological sequence of Iron II thanks to important stratified deposits of ceramics and architecture identified in Tyre, Sarepta, Cyprus, Dor, Tell Abu Hawam, (p. 708) and Tel Keisan. These sequences, together with the Tyre stratigraphy established by Bikai in 1973–4 in the centre of the island (Bikai 1978), show the main features of the evolution of Phoenician pottery, easily recognizable and sober, standardized with Page 2 of 12 PRINTED FROM OXFORD HANDBOOKS ONLINE (www.oxfordhandbooks.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a title in Oxford Handbooks Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy). Subscriber: University College London; date: 02 November 2017 Phoenicia During the Iron Age II Period conservative shapes and simple decoration. In its general evolutionary tendency we can observe three fundamental changes: 1. The presence of Phoenician pottery, as in Strata XIII–X in Tyre (1050–850 bc) where the types characteristic of Phoenician Iron Age pottery appear for the first time, was strongly imbued with the traditions of the Late Bronze Age, together with Cypriot pottery, and the so-called Philistine pottery. Known as the ‘Kouklia horizon’ in Cyprus (Bikai 1987: 50–53), its most representative forms are the pilgrim flask, the palm tree jar, the dipper juglet, the strainer-spouted jar, and the round-based juglets with Bichrome decoration of concentric circles. At a later point in this period, during the first half of the 9th century BC (= Tyre X), burials began in the recently excavated zone of the Al-Bass cemetery. 2. The pottery of Tyre IX–IV (850–760 BC), or ‘Salamis horizon’ in Cyprus, shows transitional forms in which the circle decoration gives way to horizontal bands. Red Slip Ware makes an appearance and gradually increases, the most representative forms being the trefoil juglet with a long neck and the square-rimmed juglet (Fig. 46.2a), a forerunner of the famous mushroom-lipped jug. 3. In Strata III–II at Tyre, or the ‘Kition horizon’ in Cyprus (760–700 BC), the classic forms of the colonies in the West appear: the square- rim juglet becomes the mushroom-lip jug (Fig. 46.2b), the Click to view larger trefoil globular juglet Fig. 46.2 Juglets from Al-Bass (Tyre) becomes firmly established, (p. 709) and oil bottles, plates, the so-called Fine Ware, and the crisp-ware storage jar or ‘torpedo’ jar proliferate. This is the time of the pinnacle of Red Slip Ware and of the absolute dominion of Tyre in the Mediterranean. In the time of Stratum I in Tyre, or the ‘Amathus’ horizon in Cyprus (700–600 BC), all these forms evolve into types further removed from the original models, although the Tyre III–II pottery continues to be predominate. Thus the body of the mushroom-lip jug becomes wider, the trefoil juglet acquires a biconical form, and Red Slip Ware starts to decline. The presence and distribution of these three groups of pottery in Cyprus and Galilee allow us to reconstruct the main stages of Phoenician external expansion. Page 3 of 12 PRINTED FROM OXFORD HANDBOOKS ONLINE (www.oxfordhandbooks.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a title in Oxford Handbooks Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy). Subscriber: University College London; date: 02 November 2017 Phoenicia During the Iron Age II Period The 10th–8th Centuries BC and the Making of Tyre From the 10th century BC on, the archaeological record and written sources reveal strong growth in the city of Tyre. We do not know why Tyre imposed her supremacy on other Phoenician city-states. According to the written tradition, both classical and biblical, Iron II Tyre arose from an urban project and large-scale restructuring undertaken by just one person, King Hiram I (969–936 BC), who gave the city its monumental urban appearance that was to last for centuries (Fig. 46.3). The legend, as reported by Flavius Josephus (Contra Ap. I, 113), tells us that Hiram joined the two islands or reefs together, forming a single island, on which he erected temples for Melqart, Astarte, and Ba‘al Shamem. Centuries later some historians were able to visit the famous temple of Melqart, the patron deity of the city and the monarchy, evoking its two famous columns, one of pure gold and the other of emerald, which shone at night (Herodotus II, 44). As late as the Hellenistic period, the temple still received annual tributes in the name of the king, sent by the colonies. Other important projects of Hiram I were the construction of the walls and of the Eurychoros or ‘open space’, a big marketplace near the north port, the most ancient documented in eastern sources. We have very little archaeological data from Tyre during Iron II. On the island a large industrial quarter of the 10th–8th centuries BC has been identified, devoted to the production of pottery and precious metals.