Of Cretans and Phoenicians

Journal of Roman Archaeology, 2019

“The phantom Phoenicians are back” would perhaps be an apt alternative title for J. Crawley Quinn’s In search of the Phoenicians, reflecting the book’s brilliant and ironic spirit. Thanks to the success it has enjoyed internationally, the British scholar’s book has given a significant boost, especially in the English-speaking world, to the revival of interest in the Phoenicians — the “invisible people” — and has brought the long-standing question of Phoenician identity to the attention of non-specialists as well as specialists in Classical antiquity.

Journal of Roman Archaeology 32, pp. 584-591, 2019

“The phantom Phoenicians are back” would perhaps be an apt alternative title for J. Crawley Quinn’s In search of the Phoenicians, reflecting the book’s brilliant and ironic spirit. Thanks to the success it has enjoyed internationally, the British scholar’s book has given a significant boost, especially in the English-speaking world, to the revival of interest in the Phoenicians — the “invisible people” — and has brought the long-standing question of Phoenician identity to the attention of non-specialists as well as specialists in Classical antiquity. The book’s leading thesis is to demonstrate, through the analysis of ancient documentation ranging from Near Eastern texts written in Ugaritic, Neo-Assyrian and Hebrew to those of ancient authors who wrote in Greek and Latin, that the Phoenicians never regarded themselves as a group. As the author frankly acknowledges (xxiv), “the suggestion that the Phoenicians were not a self-conscious collective, or even a clearly delineated historical civilization, is not new”. The never-ending debate about the identity of the peoples is not new either, nor is it limited to the Phoenicians. It must be understood — in the interests of methodological rigour — to apply also, and not exclusively, to all the other peoples of antiquity (even the Egyptians and Greeks), who never defined themselves in the way we define them, according to our current perspectives as interpreters of the past. The revival of these issues could be connected to the use of anthropological theories in various Phoenician and Punic studies and, at a more general level, to the contemporary problems of Mediterranean migrations that have made ‘obsession about identity’ such a sensitive topic. The book, composed of 9 chapters, is divided into three parts each of 3 chapters, with a brief introduction and conclusion. This arrangement reflects the origin of the book in three Balmuth Lectures delivered at Tufts University (Medford, MA) in 2012. In a narrative that has almost the structure of a hypertext, the titles play an important rôle, often referring, in appealing journalistic style, to burning issues in the political (“There are no camels in Lebanon” and “Lebanon first”) or academic spheres. The introduction is beautifully and passionately written. Beginning almost like a novel, it takes us to a schoolroom in Ireland in 1833 which is the setting of Brian Friel’s 1980 play “Translations”. In this context, the description of “noble” Carthage is connected to Ireland, while Rome is associated with the British occupation of the island. Irish Phoenicianism is the narrative escamotage with which Quinn illustrates the guiding principle of her work, which is above all (xiv-xv) to avoid the dangers of stamping ethnic labels on people who may themselves have felt ambivalent about or simply uninterested in them, people whose own collective identities came, went, and in some cases never rose above the level of their own towns or even families. Quinn introduces us to the theme of identity in a rigorous manner, providing some astute statements (xviii: “identities are variable across both time and space”) and some illuminating examples from recent African history that attest to the sheer breadth of the reading that forms the basis of her book.

Levant, 2018

Assemblage, 2019

Anth.416/516: War and Peace in Ancient Mesopotamia, 2022

ABSTRACT: The following 83 questions follow the documentary (no.7), National Geographic, Quest for the Phoenicians (55 minutes). It is a good documentary detailing diverse aspects of the heritage and achievements of the Phoenicians: WEB LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBObLQZdeq8. The question sheet aids in furnishing a summary of the documentary's coverage and sequence of specific topics. The documentary introduces the Phoenicians' Canaanite background, geographic dispersal and trading network, and legacy via mostly hostile and biased Greek and Roman accounts. The film's focus includes and interweaves (1) R. Ballard's past-current maritime investigation of known and sought after Phoenician shipwrecks (e.g., SW coast of the southern Levant; the Malta-Carthage trade route), (2) two geneticists' --(i.e., Pierre Zalloua and Spencer Wells)-- study of modern DNA from residents in modern Carthage, Tyre, and elsewhere (in comparison to samples from a tooth from a Phoenician royal burial of King Tabnit), (3) Paco Giles' excavations of a Phoenician cultic deposit in Gorham's Cave at Gibraltar, (4) Claude Dumet Sirhal's five seasons of excavations of a Phoenician cemetery and other Canaanite remains at Sidon, and (5) a Lebanese ship builders's reconstruction and sailing of a replica Phoenician ship. The documentary incorporates various discussions by other specialists, Larry Stager, Glenn Markoe, and Ian Morris, plus coverage of the biblical traditions regarding the Phoenicians, Herodotus' references to Phoenician voyages, the sites of Carthage and the Temple of Eshmun, and other aspects about Phoenician ships, navigation, trade, and rivalries with Rome.

THE treasures of ancient high art lately unearthed at Luxor have excited the admiring interest of a breathless world, and have awakened more vividly than before a sense of the vast antiquity of the so-called "Modern Civilization," as it existed over three thousand years ago in far-off Ancient Egypt and Syria-Phoenicia. Keener and more personal interest, therefore, should naturally be felt by us in the long-lost history and civilization of our own ancestors in Ancient Britain of about that period, as they are now disclosed to have been a branch of the same great ruling race to which belonged, as we shall see, the Sun-worshipping Akhen-aten (the predecessor and father-in-law of Tut-ankh-amen) and the authors of the naturalistic "New" Egyptian art--the Syrio-Phoenicians.

Actas del IV Congresso International de Estudios Fenicios e Punicos, Cadiz 1995, 2000