The Initial Stages of the Phoenician Expansion Overseas: When and Why?

©Trustees of the British Museum.

One of the major problem, which has troubled generations of scholars, with regard to the initial stages of the Phoenician expansion overseas, is the conflicting picture presented in the ancient literary sources versus the archaeological record. According to the sources, the Phoenician expansion overseas was already quite substantial, including foundations of the Phoenician colonies, in the 11th-9th centuries BCE, while available archaeological remains implied a much later date. In this talk, I shall address this question from a multidisciplinary perspective in light of current discoveries.