Although they were known to be Semitic, the Phoenicians never depicted themselves in their own artwork.
Unearthed in Lebanon, the sarcophagus of King Ahiram of Byblos is festooned with bas-reliefs and engraved with a curse.
The teeth of 540 individuals in a 2010 study suggest that the majority of remains in one particular tophet were from stillborns.
By the way, thanks for not....heh, killing us.
Both please!
Motya, just off Sicily's western coast was settled by Phoenicians. Evidence of this is a rectangular man-made harbor, known as a ''kothon''. However, archaeologist, Lorenzo Nigro from Sapienza University in Rome, claims the inland basin was actually a ritual pool.
The freshwater pool was located in the middle of a circular wall enclosing three temples and a Ba'al idol and was also utilized in astronomy. For six decades archaeologists have intensely excavated Motya on San Pantaleo, where it hosted trading vessels from North Africa, Iberia, and Sardinia.
Between the 7th and 8th centuries BCE, the Phoenicians arrived and intermarried the even lesser known, indigenous Elymians. Then, in the mid-sixth century BCE, the local Phoenicians were ironically invaded by their own relatives, the Carthaginians, led by General Malco wanting to eliminate them as an import/export rival.