Phoenicia · 1000-700 BC

The Phoenicians: merchants of the purple sea

From a few harbor cities on the Lebanese coast, the Phoenicians sailed the whole Mediterranean. Students follow cedar, purple dye and silver along their routes and find the colonies, from Cyprus to Spain, that they left behind.

Teach it live New Open on the map
Length
50 minutes
Ages
11–14
On the map
3 steps, 1000 BC to 800 BC
Live lesson
7 rounds, 3 on the map
Worksheet
Two A4 pages, with Classroom
You need
A projector; phones for live

Live lesson · new in Classroom

Teach it live. The class answers on their phones.

Put the board on the projector. Students join with a six-digit code, no account needed, and tap the map: where was the frontier, where did the grain come from. Their pins drop in together when you reveal, and the closest student takes the round.

€19 per month: every lesson live, every worksheet, cancel anytime. Rome at its height runs live for free.

A live lesson on the projector: the class's pins on the map around Alexandria, the closest students listed beside it A student's phone: the question and a map to tap
7 rounds
3 places to find on the map, quiz questions, a class vote and a one-line answer.
About 15 minutes
Run it as the map step, or to open the discussion. You move on with the space bar.
A report
Every answer, per student and per round, to read back or print after the lesson.
1

Introduction

5 min

Read aloud

From a few harbor cities on the Lebanese coast, the Phoenicians sailed the whole Mediterranean. Students follow cedar, purple dye and silver along their routes and find the colonies, from Cyprus to Spain, that they left behind.

By the end of the lesson, students can

  • Locate Tyre, Sidon and Byblos and explain why these cities turned to the sea.
  • Name three goods the Phoenicians traded and where they came from.
  • Trace a Phoenician route from Tyre to Gadir (Cadiz) and name two colonies along it.
2

Explore the map

15 min

Project the map, or let students follow on their own devices. Each step opens the map at the right year and place.

a

1000 BC

Cities with their backs to the mountains

Open the map in 1000 BC on the Lebanese coast and zoom in until you see the shoreline. The map paints this coast in the colors of its bigger neighbors, but Tyre, Sidon and Byblos were independent harbor cities. Why would a thin strip of coast with mountains behind it look to the sea?

Open this view on the map
b

800 BC

Westward

Zoom out to the whole Mediterranean in 800 BC. Turn on the Cities layer and find Carthage, founded by settlers from Tyre (traditional date 814 BC). Estimate how many days of sailing that was at about 100 km a day.

Open this view on the map
c

800 BC

Tin and silver

Turn on the Trade Routes layer. The Tin Route brings tin from Britain and Brittany toward the Mediterranean. Phoenician ships met this trade at Gadir (Cadiz), beyond the Strait of Gibraltar. Why was tin worth such a journey?

Open this view on the map
3

Class discussion

15 min

Pick two or three. They run from what happened to why it mattered.

  1. Why did the Phoenicians, with so little farmland, become the best sailors of their age?
  2. The Greeks named them after their purple dye, made from thousands of sea snails. Why would a color be worth more than gold to a king?
  3. Carthage, Gadir and Kition started as trading posts, not conquests. What is the difference, and which lasts longer?
  4. The cedar of Lebanon went to Egypt and to Solomon's temple in Jerusalem. What happens to a country that sells its forests?
  5. Assyria made the Phoenician cities pay tribute but left them trading. Why would an empire keep merchants rather than crush them?
4

Game round

10 min

No Phoenician king is in Rule History. Play one round as Hannibal Barca, a descendant of the Tyrian settlers of Carthage, and discuss afterwards: how did a trading people end up with one of history's greatest generals?

Open Rule History
5

Worksheet

5 min

This worksheet comes with Classroom

€19 per month unlocks every worksheet, every live lesson and the class workspace. The free lesson prints without a subscription.