But they survived, and in the vacuum left by the collapse of the Bronze Age palace economies and trade networks, they built something new.

The Phoenician trading network of the Iron Age was one of the most extensive maritime commercial systems the ancient world had seen.

Phoenician merchant ships ranged across the entire Mediterranean, establishing trading posts and eventually colonies at Carthage (in modern Tunisia), Cadiz (in modern Spain), Malta, Sardinia, Sicily, and dozens of other locations.

By the first millennium BCE, the Phoenicians had connected the Mediterranean world with the Atlantic coast of Africa and possibly beyond.

The Phoenicians also gave the world one of its most consequential gifts: the alphabet.