The Phoenician contribution to Western civilization is systematically undervalued, largely because the Phoenicians left far fewer literary texts than the Greeks and Romans who overshadowed them. What they left instead was the alphabet.

The Phoenician alphabet — an abjad of 22 consonantal signs derived from Proto-Sinaitic script — was adopted, adapted, and transmitted by virtually every alphabetic writing system in use today. Greek, Latin, Arabic, Hebrew, and through Latin, every Western language, all trace their scripts to this source. The Greeks added vowel signs to create the first true alphabet.

Beyond the alphabet, the Phoenicians established the first documented commercial colonies in the Western Mediterranean. Carthage (founded c. 814 BC according to tradition), Utica, Gades (Cadiz), and dozens of other settlements created a Phoenician commercial sphere that competed directly with Greek colonization.

Our knowledge of Phoenician religion comes largely from their enemies — mainly Hebrew scriptures condemning Canaanite religious practices and Roman accounts written after Carthage's destruction. What's clear is that Phoenicia's contribution was more durable than its political history.