TRADING SYSTEMS-EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN

Long-range trade routes first appeared in the 3rd millennium BC

Sumerians in Mesopotamia traded with the Harappan civilization of the Indus Valley.

The Phoenicians were noted sea traders, traveling across the Mediterranean Sea, and as far north as Britain for sources of tin to manufacture bronze. For this purpose they established trade colonies all over the Mediterranean.

PHOENICIANS Phoenicia , was an ancient Semitic

Canaanite civilization situated on the western, coastal part of the Fertile Crescent and centered in Lebanon.

The major Phoenician cities were on the coastline of the Mediterranean.

It was an enterprising maritime trading culture that spread across the Mediterranean from 1550 BC to 300 BC.

The Phoenicians used the galley, a man-powered sailing vessel

'traders in purple', referring to their monopoly on the precious purple dye of the Murex snail, used, among other things, for royal clothing

spread of the alphabet (or abjad), from which all major modern phonetic alphabets are derived.

TRADE ROUTES

The Phoenicians were among the greatest traders of their time and owed much of their prosperity to trade.

traded mainly with the Greeks, trading wood, slaves, glass and powdered Tyrian purple. Tyrian purple was a violet-purple dye used by the Greek elite to color garments

WRITING CUNEIFORM-one of the earliest known

forms of written expression. Emerging in Sumer around the 30th century BC

cuneiform writing began as a system of pictographs.

HIEROGLYPHICS-A hieroglyph (Greek for "sacred carving") is a character of the ancient Egyptian writing system.

PHOENICIAN ALPHABET The Phoenician alphabet, was a

non-pictographic consonantal alphabet, or abjad.

SPREAD BY CULTURAL DIFFUSION TRADE