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| The Cedar is an important carry-over from ancient times, and is on the modern flag of Lebanon. |
Because of this cultural focus on trade and shipping, I suspect this probably had a profound impact on their oral tradition. There would not have been a huge need for epic poetry because there weren't any glorified warriors to sing about or wars to chronicle. Even when conquered, they didn't put up much of a fight as a people, as long as they were still allowed to trade. Instead, I suspect merchants were trained in an apprentice-master relationship, usually within a family, where they learned the tricks of the trade and how to become profitable through oral discussion. Another important aspect of the oral tradition might have been the sailors' chants as they rowed up the rivers and through the calms on their long trading expeditions. Stories might have been used to entertain while away from home, but we have no records of them.
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| An idol of Baal |
Phoenician religion is a familiar one to the students of the Old Testament: the worship of Baal. This religion leaked southward to their Hebrew neighbors and caused some idol worship there, but does not seem to be a very educational religion. From my understanding, it was a more naturalistic religion focused on Baal as a male-type sun god, along with his female counterpart Ashtoreth. There is not much discussion of myths or beliefs surrounding these gods, and there was particularly not an honored, educated, priest class. In this society, religion seemed to take a back seat to livelihood and trade.
The Phoenician people are most well-known for the beginning of an alphabet that resembles our own today, with 26 and later 22 letters that represent certain sounds and could be combined to express language. This was probably helpful for them, because of the different languages they interacted with in all of their trades, they could use one system to record their accounts and business dealings. Despite the differences in the spoken languages, they could use the same letters to form the different words. But that's getting into their written tradition (which we have little of, as well...).
It is interesting to think of how an "oral" tradition is only really know to us if it survived long enough to become a written one. It is something we mentioned a bit in our class today. "history" as we know it really means written history because if it isnt written it probably hasn't survived with enough evidence to prove something to us. We need the records. Who knows of the Phoenicians had some great epic poem (although unlikely) because if noone wrote it down or remembered it through the years it just wouldn't have survived for us to find out.
ReplyDeleteYeah I was thinking about that too, that the way we have to study oral traditions is through writing... seems a bit backwards. I guess it is all about preservation. Word of mouth serves a different purpose, for fast paced histories that need to be told on the spot like we talked about in class today... written history is for other people to read later on. Like Dr. Peterson said, who would write down the joke your roommate just told you before you would tell it...?
ReplyDeleteso i guess what I am trying to say is that before todays class I discredited oral history as inferior because of its lack of ability to preserve history as well as written (as exemplified in the phonecians...) but we use oral history every day!!
ReplyDeleteI was thinking the same thing as Will, about how it seems a bit weird that if no one wrote it down, it's pretty hard to study an oral history. It makes sense, when you look at the context of what it is, but at the same time, it's pretty difficult to examine the oral tradition of the Phoenicians or the Etruscans when you can't read what people say about their oral traditions.
ReplyDeleteI was also thinking that it would be interesting to see how modern peoples who live in the area that the Phoenicians once occupied feel connected (or not) from them today. You put up the Lebanese flag, with the image of the cedars of Lebanon, something about which we have ancient records. I think that demonstrates at least some degree of linkage between these societies.
I agree with what Lauren said, that it is interesting that we only know a culture's oral history if someone wrote it down. I think that is one of the reasons why the prophets throughout the Book of Mormon wrote down a history of the people, culture, wars, etc. so that we wouldn't have to rely on word of mouth and oral transmission (which can often change history over time).
ReplyDeleteEven in the case of the Phoenicians, they didn't write their oral traditions, or even much of their history. Most of what we know about them is based on what other, surrounding societies wrote about them. Something interesting: Carthage (the city in North Africa) was a colony of the Phoenicians that then developed its own culture, but we really only know about them from the accounts from Rome of the Punic Wars. Maybe part of the reason the history and oral traditions of the Phoenicians weren't recorded as well were that they were mainly a peaceful, trading people, and didn't have any hard, war-like qualities they valued.
ReplyDeleteI agree it is hard to evaluate the oral history of ancient civilizations, but I liked the example in class of the three little pigs. Even if things change and are mostly lost over time they leave an impact on what we know and a cultural footprint. like the cedar on the flag or that a breed of dog is called Phonecian. We may not have the oral tradition itself but we have it's impact the veritable chinny chin chin.
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