452 EARLY MAN IN BRITAIN. [CHAP. xm. 



played, as we might have expected from their position 

 and commerce, a most important part in the ancient 

 Mediterranean world, a part not unlike that played by 

 their kinsmen, the Jews, in the Europe of the Middle 

 Ages and of to-day. In the eyes of the early Greeks, 

 the term Phoenician was almost the equivalent of trader. 

 They were famous merchants before the seventeenth 

 century B.C., since they are mentioned in the Egyptian 

 records as importing vases, rings, rhytons, necklaces, 

 perfumes, precious stones, and ivory, as presents to 

 Thothmes III. 1 They not only traded with Egypt, but 

 they built ships for the Egyptians. Their glass, amber, 

 and metal work were famous among the Greeks, and their 

 trade is proved to have extended through Palestine, 

 eastward, as far as the Euphrates and the Tigris, by the 

 metallic bowls with Phoenician inscriptions found in 

 Babylonia and now in the British Museum. Their 

 colonies were scattered far and wide over the Medi- 

 terranean, wherever there was a good anchorage for 

 their ships and facilities for developing a traffic with 

 the natives. 2 One of their most important colonies, 

 Gades, Gadeira, or Cadiz, was founded at the mouth of 

 a navigable river, the Guadalquivir, and at a place 

 equally convenient for carrying on a coasting trade 

 along the western shores of Spain and the north-western 

 coast of Africa. It is said to have been founded not 

 later than B.C. 1100. 



The greatness of their chief cities, Tyre and Sidon, is 

 most vividly brought before us on the bronze gates set 

 up by Shalmanezar to commemorate his triumphs, and 



1 Chabas, op. cit. p. 120. 



2 See Butler, Public Schools Atlas, Map 3 ; W. Smith, Atlas of Ancient 

 Geography, No. 9. 



