Phoenicia
The Phoenicians lived in a narrow strip of land between the Great Sea and the snow-covered Lebanon Mountains. Their lineage comes from the Semites and also the Hittites and they were related to the Canaanites. They gave up nomadic lifestyle, mimicking Egyptian and Babylonian cultures. Phoenicians were renowned throughout the ancient world as traders and sailors. Egyptian paintings in tombs portrayed pictures of Phoenician ships at Egyptian docks. They delivered Lebanese cedar for Egyptians so the Egyptians could build Nile-sailing ships. Thutmose III used the Phoenician harbors for his military campaigns. The Phoenicians were also vassals to Sargon I of Akkad and of Hammurabi of Babylon. Solomon obtained artisans and lumber from the king of Tyre in Phoenicia (1 Kings 5:6). Persians of course made their navy from the Phoenicians' ships and sailors.
Their fertile land produced wheat, olives and figs. The cedars of Lebanon were famous throughout the world. Murex (a certain shellfish) produced phoinix, a purple dye. It was an expensive product, and this shade of purple became synonymous with the royalty. They made bronze weapons, gold, silver, and glass vessels, carved ivory, and phoinix dyed cloth. They traded these things throughout the world, and became great navigators; followed sea routes used Polaris the North Star to navigate by night. The founded Carthage, a trading colony on the northern coast Africa. In the seventh century B.C., Carthage was still a strong trading center that rivaled Rome for controlling trade in the Mediterranean.
Phoenicia was made up of 4 main city-states: Beirut, Byblos, Tyre, and Sidon. Tyre is located on a small island. Each city-state was ruled by a king.
The Phoenicians also developed the alphabet of 22 letters. The Greeks used the Phoenician alphabet and modified it, representing vowels with the letters that had no parallel in Greek. The Romans borrowed it as well and used their version throughout the western world.
The Phoenicians believed each city-state was owned by a deity, or Baal, and would ask him for aid and practiced terrible rituals such as human sacrifice. There was no ethical behavior required of those who worshipped Baal.
The Assyrians conquered the Phoenicians in 854 B.C. In 612 B.C., Phoenicia was conquered by the Chaldeans, and in 540 B.C. by the Persians. Alexander the Great took Tyre in 333 B.C. The Phoenician city-states became part of the Roman province of Syria in 64 B.C.
Sources
Howe, Helen and Robert Howe. Ancient and Medieval Worlds. White Plains: Longman, 1992. Chapter 4.