The Phoenicians traveled the Mediterranean long before the Greeks and Romans trading
establishing settlements and refining the art of navigation. But who these legendary sailors
really were has long remained a mystery. In Search of the Phoenicians makes the startling claim
that the Phoenicians never actually existed. Taking readers from the ancient world to today
this monumental book argues that the notion of these sailors as a coherent people with a shared
identity history and culture is a product of modern nationalist ideologies--and a notion very
much at odds with the ancient sources. Josephine Quinn shows how the belief in this historical
mirage has blinded us to the compelling identities and communities these people really
constructed for themselves in the ancient Mediterranean based not on ethnicity or nationhood
but on cities family colonial ties and religious practices. She traces how the idea of being
Phoenician first emerged in support of the imperial ambitions of Carthage and then Rome and
only crystallized as a component of modern national identities in contexts as far-flung as
Ireland and Lebanon.
