114 PHOENICIAN COLONIZATION. 



The conquest and partition of Palestine by Joshua was 

 B.C. 1444. In Joshua, chapter 24, we have an account of the 

 nations that fought against the Israelites viz., " the Amorites, 

 and the Perizzites, and the Canaanites, and the Hittites, 

 and the Girgashites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites." These 

 were all driven " out from before you." One of the expelled 

 nations, according to the Jewish commentaries of Maimonides, 

 was " the nation of the Girgashites who retired into Africa 

 fearing the power of God." There is a statement of Procopius, 

 the eminent Byzantine historian of the sixth century, which tells 

 how the Phoenicians fled before the Hebrews into Africa, and 

 spread abroad as far as the Pillars of Hercules, and " there they 

 still dwell and speak the Phoenician language, and in Numidia, 

 where now stands the city Tigisis, they have erected two 

 columns, on which, in Phoenician characters, is the inscription as 

 follows : ' We are the Phoenicians who fled before the robber 

 Joshua, the son of Nun/ " 



Suidas, who wrote about the tenth century the author of a 

 lexicon valuable for its extracts from ancient writers whose works 

 in many cases have perished also confirms this statement, using 

 the word Canaanites instead of Phoenicians. 



Part of the sea boundaries of Phoenicia were Tyre and Sidon, 

 and the Sea of Acre ; called in the igth chapter of Joshua 

 " Great Zidon " and " the strong city Tyre." Their inhabitants 

 were the first manufacturers of glass, which they made from the 

 sands of the rivers Belus and Kishon, which flowed into the Bay 

 of Acre. About 430 years after the partition of Palestine, or 

 B.C. 1014, Hiram, King of Tyre, was sending the cedars of 

 Lebanon in floats by sea to the place appointed by Solomon for 

 building the temple ; whilst Hiram, an eminent architect of Tyre, 

 was employed in the stonework thereof. " And they brought 

 great stones, costly stones, and Solomon's builders and Hiram's 

 builders did hew them, and the stone-squarers ; so they prepared 

 timber and stones to build the house." 



Professor Rawlinson well describes the characteristics of the 

 Phoenicians. He says : " Here it was at Tyre and Sidon that 



