PHOENIC' IA ORIGINS.

Phoenic'Ia was an ancient civilization that were primarily known as sailors who developed a high level of skill in ship-building and were able to navigate the often turbulent waters of the Mediterranean Sea. 
Phoenic'Ians were composed of independent city-states settled along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea stretching through what is now Syr'Ia, Lebann'On, and Northern Isra'El. The city-states began to take form around 3200 BC and were firmly established by 2750 BC. The island city of Tyre and the city of Sidon were the most powerful states with Geb'Al/Byblos ans Baal'Bek as the most important spiritual / religious centers.
They were highly regarded for their skill in ship-building, glass-making, the production of dyes, and an impressive level of skill in the manufacture of luxury and common goods.
Ship building seems to have been perfected at Geb'Al/Byblos where the design of the curved hull was first initiated. Over the following centuries, Geb'Al/Byblos and other city-states such as Tyre, Sidon, Arvad, and Beirut, created an important 'niche' for themselves by transporting luxury goods and bulk raw materials from overseas markets back to the Near East. These new trade routes took in much of the Eastern Mediterranean, including Cyprus, Rhodes, the Cyclades, mainland Greece, Crete, the Libyan coast, and Egypt. The sailors were also known to have traveled to Britain and to Mesopotamian ports.
The cargo of these ships carried ingots of copper and tin, storage vessels containing unguents, wine, oil,
glass, gold and silver jewelry, glazed earthen-ware, painted pottery, tools, and scrap metal.
Phoenic'Ians were known by the Greeks as the 'Purple People,' owing to the dye manufactured at Sidon and used extensively at Tyre), or as the 'Horse People' owing to the ornately carved horse heads which adorned the prows of their ships. This horse heads were purposeful tributes to honor the might of their sea god Y'Amm, the brother of M'Ot, the god of death, and were used on the ships to placate the god's mood, needed to be constantly appeased to prevent his wanton destruction of the ships at the sea.
Y'Amm (Hebrew word for 'sea') was depicted as tyrannical, angry, violent, and harsh, and closely associated with chaos. The god was in constant conflict with Baal Ha'Dad, the son of the supreme god El, a force of Order. Both gods met each other in combat on the Plains of Heaven and, after the defeat of Y'Amm, the god was cast out of heaven into the depths of chaos. Still, Y'Amm wished to dethrone Baal Ha'Dad and rule in heaven and so he came back from the depths beneath the seas to battle for heaven's gates, bringing chaos with him. Y'Amm was defeated again and exiled to the seas where he directs his rage against humans.
The 'Purple Dye' manufactured and used in Tyre for the robes of Mesopotamian royalty gave to the Phoenic'Ians  the Name by which we know it today (from Greek 'Phoinik'Es' for Tyr'Anian Purple) because the dye stained the skin of the workers.
The extraordinary skill of the artists of Sidon in glass-making made the thought that the Sidon'Ians invented the glass. They provided the model for the Egyptian manufacture of faience and set the standard for work in bronze and silver. They developed the art of mass production in similar artifacts, fashioned in the same way and in large quantities. All of this was accomplished through the competition between the city-states (particularly keen between Tyre and Sidon), the skill of the sailors who transported the goods, and the high art attained by the craftsmen in the manufacture of the goods.
Herod'Otus cites Phoenic'Ia as the birthplace of the Alpha'Bet, stating that it was brought to Greece by the Phoenic'Ian Cadm'Us (before 8th BC) and that, prior to that time, the Greeks had no alpha'bet.
The Phoenic'Ian Alpha'Bet is the basis for most Western Languages written today and their city of Geb'Al (called by the Greeks 'Byblos') gave the Bible its name (Greek 'Ta Biblia', 'The Books') as Geb'Al was the great exporter of papyrus ('bublos' to the Greeks) which was the paper used in writing in ancient Egypt and Greece.
In its time Phoenic'Ia was known as Can'Aan and is the land referenced in the Hebrew Scriptures to which Moses led the Israelites from Egypt and which Joshua then conquered.
The people of the land recognized a shared ethnic identity as Cann'Ai, inhabitants of the land Can'Aan yet, despite a common linguistic, cultural, and religious inheritance, the region was very rarely united, with each city operating as a sovereign state ruled over by a king.
The city-states flourished through maritime trade between 1500 - 322 BC when the major cities were conquered by Alexander the Great. In 334 BC he conquered Baal'Bek (re-naming it Heliopolis) and marched to subdue Tyre and Sidon in 332 BC. Upon his arrival at Tyre, the citizens followed Sidon' s example by submitted peacefully to Alexander's demand for submission. He then wished to offer a sacrifice in the holy temple of Melq'Art at Tyre and this the Tyrians could not allow. The beliefs of the Tyrians forbade foreigners from sacrificing, or even attending services, in the temple, and so they offered Alexander a compromise whereby he could offer sacrifice in the Old City on the mainland but not in the temple on the island complex of Tyre. He found this proposal unacceptable and sent envoys to Tyre demanding the surrender. The Tyrians killed the envoys and threw their bodies over the walls.
At this point Alexander ordered the siege of Tyre and was so determined to take the city that he built a causeway from the ruins of the Old City, debris, and felled trees, from the mainland to the island (which owing to sediment deposits over centuries is why Tyre is not an island today), and, after 7 months, breached the walls and massacred most of the populace. It is estimated that over 30,000 citizens of Tyre were massacred or sold into slavery and only those wealthy enough to properly bribe Alexander were allowed to escape with their lives (besides those who found a way to escape by stealth).
After the Fall of Tyre, the other city-states surrendered to Alexander's rule, thus ending the Phoenic'Ian Civilization and ushering in the Hellenistic Age. After Alexander's death, the region became a battle ground in the fight between his generals for succession and their empire.
By 64 BC the disassembled parts of Phoenic'Ia were annexed by Rome and, by 15 BC were colonies of the Roman Empire with Heliopolis remaining an important pilgrimage site which boasted the grandest religious building (Temple of Jupiter Baal) in all of the Empire, the ruins of which remain well preserved to this day.
The Bible refers to the Phoenic'Ians as the 'princes of the sea' in a passage from Ezeki'El 26 and 27, in which the prophet seems to predict the destruction of the city-state of Tyre and Sidon.
Melq'Art was the highest god and patron of the city of Tyre, equivalent to Baal at Sidon. The god was associated with monarchy, sea, hunting, colonization, and commercial enterprise, both at home and abroad. The deity, in addition, assumed some of the characteristics of both Adonis and Eshmun as he was the focus of a festival of resurrection each year (February-March). He was responsible  for the cities commercial success as we can see that the discovered of the dye the Phoenic'Ians extracted from the murex shellfish, which they used to create their famous purple cloth, was attributed to him.
Religion was an inseparable part of everyday life and remarkably constant, due to the geography of the region where their land were contained on the narrow coast of the Levant and backed by the Mountains creating a border with their Ar'Ama'Eans and Hebrew neighbors. Their beliefs influenced the Mediterraneans and continued to evolve and was perpetuated by their greatest colony of all, Cart'Hage.