The Phoenicians have left no marked trace of their presence; but inasmuch as they were probably of nearly the same race as the Arabs, it would not be easy to distinguish the two types.
At a very early period - as early probably as the 16th century B.C.- Syria became the meeting-place of Egyptian and Babylonian elements, resulting in a type of western Asiatic culture peculiar to itself, which through the commerce of the Phoenicians was carried to the western lands of the Mediterranean basin.
She is everywhere the great female principle, answering to the Baal of the Canaanites and Phoenicians 2 and to the Dagon of the Philistines.
The Phoenicians are the earliest Mediterranean people in the consecutive chain of geographical discovery which joins prehistoric time with the present.
Such were the Persian wars of Greece, and perhaps one may add Hannibal's invasion of Italy, if the Carthaginians were Phoenicians transplanted to Africa.
