Israel discovers 3,700-year-old Phoenician seal impression
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E-mail Xinhua, February 21, 2023
Israeli archaeologists have found a Phoenician seal impression that could date back 3,700 years, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) said Sunday evening.
The small pottery artifact, 1.8 cm in diameter, was found at an ancient Canaanite temple in the Mediterranean city of Nahariya in northern Israel, the IAA noted.
The seal consists of three waves that form a spiral and recalls expressions of Phoenician art, which later appeared on proto-Aeolic capitals in palaces of the ancient kingdoms of Judah and Israel.
It is evidence of maritime trade and the arrival of people from the northeastern Mediterranean, today's Türkiye and Greece, to the Nahariya area.
The Phoenicians were a Canaanite people of seafarers who settled along the eastern Mediterranean shores starting from the third millennium BC, with most of their economy and culture influenced by maritime trade.
Eventually, the Phoenicians were assimilated into the Greek and Roman cultures and became part of the Byzantine world.
They left behind the Phoenician alphabet, which is the basis of most modern alphabets, including the Greek, Latin, Arabic, Cyrillic, and Hebrew ones.
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