Phoenicia

Phoenicia (from the Ancient Greek: Φοινίκη, Phoiníkē meaning either "land of palm trees" or "purple country") was a thalassocratic ancient Semitic civilization, that originated on the east coast of the Mediterranean Sea and in the west of the Fertile Crescent. It included the coastline of what is now Lebanon, Israel, Gaza, Syria, and part of southern Turkey, though some of its colonies later reached the Western Mediterranean (most notably Carthage) and even the Atlantic Ocean. The civilization spread across the Mediterranean between 1500 BC and 300 BC. The civilization was organized in city-states, similar to those of Ancient Greece, perhaps the most notable of which were Tyre, Sidon, Arwad, Berytus, Byblos and Carthage. Each city-state was a politically independent unit, and it is uncertain to what extent the Phoenicians viewed themselves as a single nationality or culture. In terms of archaeology, language, lifestyle, and religion there was little to set the Phoenicians apart as markedly different from other residents of the Levant.

Around 1050 BC, a Phoenician alphabet was used for the writing of Phoenician. It became one of the most widely used writing systems, spread by Phoenician merchants across the Mediterranean world, where it evolved and was assimilated by many other cultures.

Phoenicia in "Occupation Duty"
The Phoenicians were one of the Semitic cultures that survived to the modern era, along with the Arabs and the Moabites. The Philistinians lived in fear that the Phoenicians and Arabs would ally with the Turks of Babylonia to violently end the Philistinian dominance over the Moabites.