Introduction
Every nation’s mythology has stories concerning the creation of the cosmos. History as we know it now is the result of modern nationalism. History is intended to support nationalism and the existence of distinct nation-states. All of this provides modern nationalism with remarkable potential to shape–and distort–the practice and understanding of current history and antiquity.
An ideal example would be the ancient Phoenicians, who have been invoked to establish Lebanese national narratives. Despite assertions by many proponents of Lebanese nationalism that the Phoenicians were their ancient forefathers, the Phoenicians never existed as a self-conscious group, let alone a nascent country (Kaufman 2014). The people created this narrative, and the concept of oneness gave it promise, but it proved insufficient to generate a feeling of identity since history was skewed.
The Spiritual and Mythological Culture of the Phoenicians
The Phoenicians’ greatest asset was their spiritual culture. Myths represented people’s thoughts and goals, dreams and aspirations, philosophy, culture, and perceptions about the varied world around them. This was the situation with the Phoenicians, who dwelt in Tyre, Sidon, Berit, Byblos, and Ugarit (Kaufman 2014).
Despite the multiplicity of local idiosyncrasies and variances, Phoenician stories and myths were linked by a standard narrative, fabula, and “threads” linking their distinct portions. However, the Phoenicians had several explanations of how the cosmos came to be. Some thought that before the start of things, there was dark air like the wind, as well as equally dark turmoil.
The air (and its soul) fell in love with itself, and there was desire, and then there was Mot, which was both death and rebirth. It was either silt or watery decay that caused this Motto to be the symbol (López-Ruiz and Rodríguez González 2023). It gave birth to every creature, every creation, or everything that exists. Then, there were animals without senses. Furthermore, additional rational creatures known as the Guardians of the Sky emerged from them. Simultaneously, the sun, moon, stars, and other great luminaries emerged. Then, the Moth and all the heavenly bodies were lit, and everything was suffused with light due to such ignition.
Moreover, the oceans and countries were lit ablaze by this light. As a result, everything grew heated, the air was moved, winds were formed, and clouds accumulated in the skies, spilling on the earth in tremendous torrents. The earth began to explode as it heated, and enormous earthquakes shook the cosmos.
Moreover, everything became a massive tornado in which all objects and creatures clashed (Kaufman 2014). Thunder and lightning erupted as a result of their crashes. Men and women emerged from the confluence of all of this. They gave the names to the winds, sanctified the earth’s products, and began to worship them.
The Rise of Lebanese Nationalism and the Fall of the Ottoman Empire
Regarding Lebanese nationalism, the Ottoman Empire, which had dominated the Levant, fell apart after World War I. Initially, under British or French authority, European countries aspired to construct the region under their relatively new paradigm of nation-states. The French mandate of Syria and Lebanon included a strip of prosperous Mediterranean ports that supported the rural highlands of the Lebanon Range, the traditional home of the Maronites, Eastern Catholics in communion with the Vatican, and the Druze, whose beliefs blend Islamic teachings with elements of other Eurasian religious traditions.
The Maronites and Druzes had nothing in common except their ongoing military conflict. With all of the Ottoman territory in 1919, a group of local Christian French-speaking intellectuals saw an opportunity to extend this highland enclave to encompass the affluent ports, establishing the new state of Greater Lebanon (Traboulsi 2012). They required a separate past to legitimize their political sovereignty. The Phoenicians, ancient traders who created coastal towns, undertook sea expeditions over the Mediterranean and beyond and devised the alphabet we use today, were chosen.
The Role of the Phoenicians in Shaping Modern Lebanese Identity
The Lebanese argued that the ancient Phoenicians had given them a Western, Mediterranean identity, extremely distinct from the Muslim culture of the Syrian area, which they deemed unfriendly and uncivilized, by portraying the Phoenicians as supporters of free business, just like themselves (Kaufman 2014). The fact that they were not Arabs was central to their worldview. They claimed that the Phoenicians had always been a separate, coherent nation, connected by geography, culture, religion, and a shared identity, to offer an appropriate precedent and parallel for contemporary Lebanon. The argument worked: Greater Lebanon was administered as a distinct entity under the French Mandate beginning in 1920 (Traboulsi 2012). However, the myth’s application needed to be revised because the Phoenicians were never defined as distinct ethnicities.
Conclusion
Thus, the group members viewed the Phoenician identity primarily in cultural terms. Politically, the group gravitated toward developing a pan-Lebanese nationalism. However, the myth proved inadequate in creating a sense of unified identity since “Phoenicians” was a generic label used by ancient Greek authors. The term was never used to describe a distinct ethno-cultural community. Phoenicians do not illustrate the ancient ethnic origins of modern peoples but rather the modern nationalistic origins of at least one ancient ethnicity.
References
Kaufman, Asher. 2014. Reviving Phoenicia: The Search for Identity in Lebanon. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Traboulsi, Fawwaz. 2012. A History of Modern Lebanon. Pluto Press.