THE PHOENICIANS On the Costa del Sol

The Phoenicians, a people of merchants and sailors established on the Eastern Coast of the Mediterranean Sea, were in full contact with the main civilizations around them from the Third Millennium BC interacting with all their neighbours, much stronger than them. Mentioned in the Iliad and in the Odyssey, and also in the Old Testament and in the ancient texts of The Egyptian Pharaohs, this intrepid people of sailors, merchants and pirates, sailed the length and breadth of the Mediterranean, driven by the need to trade and by the pressure of the empires of the Near East, such as Assyria, Babylon and Egypt. They created maritime trade routes all through the Mediterranean Sea, founding a strong network of port cities along the coast of North Africa from Libya to present-day Morocco, establishing also relevant urban settlements on the coasts of the major islands of the Mediterranean such as Sicily and Sardinia, and settling down on the coasts of Southern Spain as well. The Costa del Sol would become one of the main Phoenician coastal regions of the Mediterranean shores. Here the Phoenicians would create a New World for themselves. In this lecture we will approach their adventures through the Mediterranean Sea, their wars and conflicts, their beliefs, hopes and fears, and the reasons and nature of that New World the Phoenician Civilization created on the Costa del Sol almost 3000 years ago.