The term Phoenicia is an ancient Greek exonym that most likely described one of their most famous exports, a dye also known as Tyrian purple it did not correspond precisely to a cohesive culture or society as it would have been understood natively.
The Phoenicians were a Semitic-speaking people of somewhat unknown origin who emerged in the Levant around 3000 BC. At its height between 1100 and 200 BC, Phoenician civilization spanned the Mediterranean from Cyprus to the Iberian Peninsula. It was concentrated along the coast of Lebanon and included some coastal areas of modern Syria and Galilee, reaching as far north as Arwad, and as far south as Acre and possibly Gaza. Phoenicia ( / f ə ˈ n ɪ ʃ ə, - ˈ n iː-/ ) was an ancient thalassocratic (a state with primarily maritime realms) civilization originating in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily located in modern Lebanon.
