Multinational Enterprise In Ancient Phoenicia - Karl James Moore ; David Charles Lewis

Multinational Enterprise in Ancient Phoenicia' KARL JAMES MOORE and DAVID CHARLES LEWIS Templeton College, University of Oxford

In his recent massive work on Mullinational Enterprises (MNEs)., Dunning states that 'eitriier examples ol' embryonic MNEs can, most surely, be found in the colonizing activities of the Phoenicians and the Romans, and before that, in the more ancient civilisations ... However, this sort of history ... remains to be written".' Considerable literature has recorded the evolution of MNEs in Europe since the early Middle Ages.' There have also heen a number of books and articles written on the economic history of this part of the ancient world.^ However, little has been written concerning the earliest recorded MNEs. In an effort to shed light on embryonic MNEs in ancient civilisations, this article brings together a modern theory of the MNE and literature on ancient Phoenicia. Led by Tyre, the city-states of ancient Phoenicia became the greatest seafaring traders of ancient times. Using Dunning's eclectic paradigm as a lens, this paper suggests these early Canaanite traders were architects of the first truly intercontinental multinational enterprise, spanning parts of Asia, Africa and Europe. The managed business hierarchy created by the merchants of Ugarit and Tyre, moreover, foreshadowed, in some of its features, the international keiretsu networks of contemporary Japan.

n As a starting point we shall define some key terms which are fundamental to our argument, namely, multinational enterprise and the eclectic paradigm. The definition of MNE used in this article is that accepted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the United Nations Center for Transnational Corporations (UNCTC), "an enterprise that engages in foreign direct investment (FDD and owns or controls value-adding activities in more than one country".^ Important elements of this definition are value-adding activities and owns or controls, which will come up later in this article.

Business History. Vol.42. No.2 (April 2tKK)). p PUBLISHED BY HKANK CASS. LONDON

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Though there exist competing theories with different perspectives" seeking to explain international production, this article adopts the eclectic paradigm in examining potential MNE behaviour in ancient Phoenicia. The eclectic theory or paradigm offers a framework for determining the extent and pattern of foreign-owned activities: it may be handily summarised by the acronym OLI, or ownership, location and internalisation advantages. It is the configuration of these advantages, ownership, location and internalisation, which either encourage or discourage a firm to undertake foreign activities and become an MNE. Ownership advantages are firm-specific advantages (FSAs) which are owned or controlled by a firm. Country-specific advantages are ones which are based on the location of the enterprise. Finally, internalisation advantages iue those which accrue to a firm when it internalises or brings inside the hierarchy of the firm activities which could be performed by the market.' The following paragraphs provide greater detail on the eclectic paradigm. Readers familiar with the paradigm may wish to skip this section. It is provided since this article may be of interest to at least two groups: business historians and international business researchers, the former group not generally being as familiar with the eclectic paradigm. Internalisation advantages are based on the hypothesis that MNEs grow 'by replacing imperfect (or non-existent) external markets by internal ones'." Several important ideas are contained in this definition. The first is that MNEs can be the most efficient means of international production when imperfect markets exist. The most important imperfect market for MNEs is the pricing of proprietary information which is generated by a firm but has many of the attributes of a public good. Proprietary information can include knowledge developed by the firm by R&D (both technical and marketing), managerial experience, new production techniques, production differentiation and market knowledge." A public good is 'a good for which consumption by one party does not reduce the consumption of others. Knowledge is a public good in this theoretical sense because it can be applied by any person or organization to a specific problem without destroying the ability to apply the knowledge to another use'.'" The price of a public good is zero: the market cannot price a public good. Thus, in order to profit from investment in knowledge development, the firm 'internalises, using its internal market to monitor and control the use of the knowledge in a way the market is unable. Knowledge is a intermediate product, and the profit to the firm accrues from the sale to a customer of the final product or service. This use of "intermediate product' expands the traditional definition of intermediate products as ordinary semiprocessed materials to include knowledge inputs.

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Other market impertections include government regulations, taxes, controls, tariffs, non-existent futures markets, and inequality between buyers' and sellers' knowledge of the value and quality of the product. All of these distort market prices and act as additional incentives to utilise internal markets." Rugman and Gestrin define FSAs as 'the competitive strengths of the company; they can be cither production-based (cost or innovation advantages) or marketing-based (customization advantages)'.'' Dunning" suggests a number of potential FSAs: those associated with the size of firm (such as economies of scale, product diversification); management of organisational expertise; the ability to acquire and upgrade resources; labour or mature small-scale intensive technologies; product differentiation; marketing economies; and access to domestic markets. He also lists the ability to foresee and take advantage of global production and marketing opportunities: capital availability and financial expertise; access to natural resources; and the ability to adjust to structural changes. CSAs arc defined as 'the national factor endowments of a nation basically the variables in its aggregate production function'." Dunning'"* suggests a number of potential CSAs: input costs (such as labour wages and national resources); labour productivity; the size and character of markets; transport costs: and the psychic distance from key markets and the home country of the MNE. There are also tariff barriers; the taxation structure; risk factors; attitudes toward FDl; and the structure of competition. Having finished this brief introduction of the central ideas of the eclectic paradigm, this article now considers events from the Phoenician empire.

m International trade began to develop in the Near East around 3500 BC. By the second millennium BC the city-states of Sumer, Assyria and Babylon lay at the centre of a network of trade in copper, tin, silver, foodstuffs and textiles thai stretched from Egypt and Crete to the Indus River Valley and Afghanistan. To help readers who may not be familiar with the geography or chronology of the time and area we have provided a historical map in Figure 1 and a chronology of Phoenicia in Figure 2. The first known multinational enterprises arose in the city of Ashur between 2(X)0 and 1700 BC. Their story, more fully documented in a previous article,"' may briefly be summarised. State-supported but familyowned and managed firms headquartered in the Old Assyrian capital of Ashur opened subsidiary trading and manufacturing offices in Babylon, Syria, other parts of northern Iraq, and, most importantly, the city of Kanesh in Cappadocia, from which a number of smaller offices in Anatolia (modem

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ANCIENT PHOENICIA FIGURE 2 l'll.'\.SiiS OF PHOENICIAN COMMKRCIAL EXPANSION Phase

Time Period

Driving Force

Areas where activity occurred

Pretiminary Phase

1000-890 BC

Business partnership with a uniicd Israel

Red Sea, A rah i a. East Africa and India

Continental Phase

890-840 BC

Tyre allenipi.s to become an Asian land power

Israel. Cyprus. AnalolJa. Syria and Assyria

IntcrconiinenlalMullinalional Phase

839-538 BC

Redirection of Tyrian trade towards Assyria and wave of colonisation across Mediterranean

Assyria. Spain. West Africa to Babylon

Turkey) were tnanaged. Similar multinational firms, on a smaller scale, were found in Babylonia under Hammurabi and. later, the Kassite kings who set up subsidiary trading offices on Bahrain in the Arabian Gulf." Virtually al! of the second-millennium and even early first-millennium BC business cultures of the ancient Near East were mixed economies. Private landholdings. markets and private, usually family-owned, firms operated in close harmony with royal and lemple enterprises."* Phoenicia was no exception. The commercial records from Ras Shamra and Ugarii, augmented by a few later sources, depict a system of managed trade and enterprise founded on strong religious and feudal connections. Like Sumer. Assyria and Babylon. Phoenicia was a supernalural-oHented society worshipping a hierarchy of gods, goddesses and spirits who organised and directed not only the affairs of nature but the affairs of humankind. Creation was organised on a feudal pyramid: Baal-Melkart and Astarte were supreme: an assembly of lesser gods and goddesses paid them homage. Subject to these spirits were princes, priests, nobles, businessmen, peasants and slaves.''' Everyone was expected to play his or her role in a divine order of creation and nature, and this had considerable implications for busitiess enterprise. Independent merchants and more free-markel models ilourish in cultures, such as Classical Athens, whieh encouraged rationalism, and the Protestanl but quite secular United States, where the traditional belief in a God who was above, noi part of. his creation ultimately encouraged, as did rationalism, individualistic thinking. Oriental societies, such as ancient Phoenicia and modern East Asia, were, in contrast, rooted in a pantheistic outlook that decreed that the search for profits had to be in harmony with the natural order rather than being motivated by self-interest alone.^"

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IV In ancient Phoenicia private commerce and the temple-state were partners whose functions and roles overlapped and interlocked. A pyramid structure with the Prince of Ugarit, Byblos, or Tyre and the high priest of the city's patron deity at the top. followed by the bureaucracy led by the vizier and his harbourmaster, then the landed nobles and the major merchant-princes, known as mkrm, and their firms, followed by the lesser firms or hidaluma, craft guilds, peasants, serfs and slaves. Private and public executive roles were never sharply defined. Commerce in the city-states was dominated by an assembly of private and royal merchant princes. In Phoenicia, as in Babylonia, and even modern Britain, merchants could enter the aristocracy and aristocrats could take up commerce. The mknn Ahdihaqab of Ugarit traded overseas for his own profit, but also for that of his prince, being rewarded with a hereditary landed estate.-' The mknn Sinaranu fared even better as Prince Niqmepa's real estate agent, probably becoming the richest man in Ugarit. Sinaranu owned his own shipping company, which Niqmepa granted a royal monopoly in trading with the Aegean, especially Kaphtor (Crete). Sinaranu and his firm also served as tax collectors for the whole Ugaritic realm, subcontracting many of their duties to lesser merchants, or bidaluma. who were as honour-bound to him as he was to Niqmepa. " Simple forms of horizontal and transnational partnerships were also found in the Ugaritic and Ras Shamra texts. In what was known as a contract of uippuui, guilds and groups of Ugaritic merchants joined hands with counterparts in neighbouring principalities to finance trading expeditions to Egypt. Anatolia. Crete or Babylonia.-' Large mknn finns and even the Crown itself became involved, the latter in a supervisory or even participatory role. Princes like Niqmepa supported, oversaw and even organised joint public-private overseas ventures, An expedition organised by the Prince of Byblos raised 540 shekels in silver, .SO of which were carried in the ruler's personal sbip.'^ Maritime trading firms, or hubur, like Sinaranu's owned scores of vessels, were financed with royal and temple support, and behaved as distant ancestors of Sumitojiio and Mitsubishi." Meanwhile, the staff of harbourmasters like Ugarit's Abiramu laboured under the watchful eyes of the sakiiiu, or vizier, to play the mercantilist role that centuries later is seen in the activities of some government agencies such as Japan's MITI. regulating and assi.sting national commerce and restricting foreign competition. Copper, lumber, shipbuilding and wheat were designated as crown monopolies in the hands of state-directed hubur.'" Foreign merchants, or ubru. on the other hand, were to be strictly confined to special quarters in the port cities and subject to strict supervision in their

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importing, exporting and investment activities in an ancient version of today's non-tariff barriers.^^ The militarisation of Phoenician commerce would anticipate Sun Tzu by centuries. Seaborne trade representing war by other means naturally led to its being organised and conducted on a military basis. Phoenician business ties with the armies and especially the navies of their principalities were very strong. Admirals often doubled as merchants and were awarded peerages and estates for their courage and service. Large fleets, sometimes consisting of 100 or more round galleons and long warships were needed to deter piracy and minimise commercial risk. "The reason', argues archaeologist J.F. Raincy, for "this association between business agents and the military is not hard to find. Mercantile enterprise ... was a dangerous adventure."-" Merchants were often murdered or abducled on their trading ventures, leading to Ihe creation of a body of treaty law protecting and supervising their activities and involving private businessmen in diplomatic delegations. In Phoenicia, as in many countries today, 'commercial, diplomatic, and military activity went hand in

There are good reasons to believe that Ugarit's form of managed feudalcommercial enterprise was both reproduced and perfected in other cities of Phoenicia, such as Byblos, Sidon and Tyre. The papyms of the Egyptian trader Wen-Amon spoke of an assembly of merchants in Byblos and royal {probably by the temple) control of the city's warehouses. The same document alludes to Ihe Bybliie shipping firm of Werket-Ef or Urkatel, who owned a fleet of 50 vessels and wielded as much if not more power than Zakar-Baal, Prince of Byblos: 'As regards this Sidon ... are there not .'iO more ships in it, thai trade with Werkct El and are dependent on his house?"" Prince Zakar-Baal himself described the royal Jurisdiction over the Byblitc lumber industry: 'If I shout to Lebanon, the heavens open and the logs lie at rest [on] the seashore!'" Having established their own lucrative firms by the year 1000 BC, the merchants of Tyre rapidly began to outdistance all other Phoenician traders.'' Placed on an offshore island with a well-protected harbour. Tyre was naturally endowed for long-distance maritime trade. The end of Egyptian. Aramean and Philistine hegemony over southern Lebanon as a result of the victories of Israel's King David, whose son. Solomon, became Tyre's ally, guaranteed the island city her independence and a stable climate for her commercial expansion." In the period between 1000 and 500 BC, the merchants of Tyre achieved dominance in, if not control over, international trade in the Near East, the

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Mediterranean, and, for a time, even the Indian Ocean and its tributaries. Tyre's strategy of commercial expansion look place in three stages: /. 1000-890 BC: The Preliminaiy Pha.se, based upon creation of a business partnership with a united Israel resulting in mutual trade expansion into the Red Sea, Arabia. East Africa, and even India. 2. 890-840 BC: The Confinenfal Phase, based upon an attempt to make Tyre an Asian land power through economic and political union with Sidon and the kingdom of Omri in northern Israel. Trade and investment are redirected from Africa lo Israel. Cyprus, Anatolia, Syria, and a rising Assyrian power in Mesopotamia. 3. 840-538 BC: The hUercontinental-Mullinational Phase, based upon the redirection of Tyrian trade towards Assyria and a co-ordinated wave of colonisation across the Mediterranean followed by massive expansion of foreign direct investment in a network of subsidiiiry enterprises spreading from Spain and West Africa to Babylon. The Preliminary Phase, 1000-890 BC, began with the creation of a vast lapputu-slyle partnership between the artisan-oriented economy of Tyre and an agrarian Israel. The Tyrian ruler, Ahiram 1, the famous Hiram of the Old Testament, obtained a stable food supply from Israel's granary; Solomon obtained valuable luxury goods, iron tools and industrial expertise. Phoenician smiths and craftsmen in Jerusalem and elsewhere engaged in value-adding production on Israelite soil, exporting valuable knowledge in mining, metal-working, building and ship construction. Tyrian miners provided the expertise to mine the copper of Edom and to construct oceangoing vessels on the site of what is now Eilat.'^ Tyre became 'a coparticipant in Solomon's trade enterprises with other countries', her navai merchant-princes being invaluable to Solomon's Red Sea-Indian Ocean ventures "primarily because of their shipbuilding and sailing skill' '• The shipping companies of Jerusalem and Tyre formed a partnership whose operations aimed at opening up a new Oriental market extending into the Red Sea and even the Indian Ocean. The fleets of HiratTi and Solomon imported gold, silver, ivory and precious stones from Arabia, Somalia and India."' The partnership also provided Phoenician firms access to overland trade routes, such as the Kings' Way east of the Jordan which linked Arabia and Mesopotamia and other camel caravan routes which crossed the Negev.'' Profits reaped frorn the new Oriental market helped spur further growth in the Phoenician and Israelite commercial infrastructures. Solomon constructed palatial buildings, public works and acquired vast numbers of

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chariot.s: Hiram, in addition to building vast shrines to his god. Melkart, reinvested many of the profit.s in building new shipyard.s and vessels."* Public enterprise played an imporlanl role in bolh the trading partnership and the transfer of technology it inspired. Solomon is quoted in I Kings rejoicing that "my servants will be with your servants' for 'there is no one among us who knows how to cut timber like the Sidonians*. Hiram, like Zakar-Baal, promised that his bus mlk (royal merchants) would bring the timbers lor the Jerusalcin temple by sea from the forests under his jurisdiction."' The Continental Phase, 890-840 BC. of Tyre's commercial strategy came about as a result of the division of Solomon's kingdom into the northern House of Israel, eventually ruled by the dynasty of Omri from a new capital in Samaria, and the southern House of Judah, still ruled from Jerusalem hy the Davidic dynasty. This weiikening of Israelite power created a vacuum to be filled by Egypt. Aram-Damascus, and. most importantly. Assyria. Around 890 BC an ambilious High Priest of Melkart, known as Itobaal. seized the Tyrian throne and inaugurated the new strategy. With Judah no longer his ally and the Indian Ocean closed to Phoenician commerce. Itobaal and his merchants redirected investment much closer to home, to Aram, Cilicia, Cyprus. Assyria and the more friendly Hebrew kingdom in Samaria. Surrounded by resurgent land powers. Itobaa] hoped to make Tyre a land power itself. Earlier business partnerships with mainland Phoenician states were transformed into a political union, at least as far as Sidon was concerned. Formerly Prince of Tyre. Itobaal now proclaimed himself King of the Sidonians as well.'" The ambitions of the ruthless priest-king extended to the south as well. Betrothing his daughter .lezebel, herself High Priestess of the state cult of Astarte. to Israel's Prince Ahab, who became king around 890 BC, Itobaal hoped to integrate the Samarian kingdom into his political sphere, where it would serve as his granary.^' Phoenician direct investment flowed into the House of Israel, erecting buildings in Hazor and Megiddo. and planting a colony of artisans in Samaria. Producing the status goods so coveted by Israel's new Omrid elite, the Samarian colony probably became the head office for a network of lesser Phoenician .settlements which dotted the wheat plains and shores of Northern Samaria and Galilee. Hurbat Rosh Zayit. Achzib. Akko. Tell Keisan, Tell Abu Hawam, Shikmona. Tell Mevorakh and Tel Michal became the residences of Phoenician commercial agents charged with purchasing and shipping Israel's grain/' Cyprus as well was drawn into the Tyrian commercial orbit as a copper-mining centre. In Cyprus, Israel and Phoenicia, the presence of large Phoenician jugs side~by-side with Cyprusmade ware indicated the existence of a managed, internalised network of commercial activity linking the three regions.'' Itobaal's investors expanded

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BUSINESS HISTORY

to the north and east as well, opening branch offices ul Myiandrios on the Anatolian shore, as well as Aleppo and Carchemish in Syria. Monuments dedicated to Baal-Mclkart. Tyre's supreme god, found on bolh of the Syrian sites, testify not only to the Phoenicians' presence in these regions but an effort on their part to control the trade routes joining Anatolia's mines with Mesopotaniian and Levantine markets.'^ The Melkart monuments highlighted the key role played by the cult and temple of the bearded and horned Baal-Melkart in Phoenician business. Melkart {"King of the city') personified the ideal, all-powerful Tyrian prince. Gods and goddesses in Phoenicia were often worshipped as patrons of trade and technology, and even considered to be merchants ihemselves.^^ Phoenician businessmen believed that Hayyin. Kothar, Astarte, and especially Melkart blessed and supervised human commerce, ensured its honesty, and cursed the violators of contracts. The supernatural sanctions imposed by these spirits through their earthly representatives did much to underpin the feudal keiivtsii-Vike strueture of the Phoenician business world. Supported by the state, temples were centres of trade, banking and warehousing where priests notarised transactions and regulated weights, priees and measures. What merchant would wish to defraud the representatives of a god who might withhold the rain or destroy a galleon with a windstorm.'"' The temple of Melkart was the cornerstone of Itobaal's commercial strategy. When a guild of Phoenician merchants settled in a foreign country, their Urst project was to ereet a temple in the supreme Baal's honour. As Tyrian settlements multiplied in other countries, the temple hierarchy also grew in size and prestige, itself taking on the structure of a multinational enterprise as the head shrines in Tyre acquired "hranch temples in several cities'.^' Not only In Tyre, but throughout the Near East, loeal temples remained in constant communication with head sanctuaries. Goods and capital were transferred back and forth among them in a perfect example of an internalised business hierarchy.*' The hierarchy of Melkart would play an important part in internalising the transactions of international Phoenician business and in forging the tappulii partnerships so important not only to Itobaal's commercial strategy but that of his successors. When a Sidonian, Aramean or Hittite firm entered into a partnership with a Tyrian subsidiary, the rulers, merchants and even the population of the foreign state accepted the worship of Melkart alongside that of Hadad, Teshub and other native deities all seen as interchangeable personifications of the powers of nature. Merging companies" supernatural patrons underwrote and strengthened transnational intertlrm co-operation. Paying homage to the power of Tyre's gods engendered the trust whereby huge deals could be negotiated and information and technology transferred.^" A religious partnership thus

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helped seal an economic one. providing *a positive incentive for individuals or communities to reduce transaction costs by investing in the creation of common gods'.^" Quite successful in Cyprus. Hatti and Aram, with their long traditions of nature-oriented polytheism, Itobaal's grand strategy was ultimately frustrated by a religious revolution in Israel backed first by the prophets Elijah and Elisha and then by the nationalistic dynasty of Jehu which massacred the Melkaii hierarchy within Israel in a revolution which took place around 841 BC. Willing to accept their own state religion centred in the shrines of Dan and Bethel. Israel's new rulers were monotheistic enough to reject homage to the Tyrian Melkart cult, thus dooming any closer political alliance or merger between Samaria and Tyre." VI The climactic Intercontinental-Multinafional Phase. 840-538 BC, of Tyrian trade and investment expansion began on the heels of Jehu's revolt and culminated in the period of the Neo-Assydan Empire in the eighth and seventh centuries BC. Phoenician investment not only flowed into As.syria and Babylonia hut even reached across the central and western Mediterranean to North Afriea and the Atlantic eoast of Spain. The rise of Assyria was the major catalyst of the new Phoenician strategy. In the days of Itobaal, the armies of Ashurnasirpal II and Shalmaneser HI marched westward across the Euphrates, exacting tribute from terrified Phoenician rulers.'- The Assyrian presence became much more immediate after 733 BC when the armies of Tiglath-Pileser 111, Shalmaneser V, Sargon II and Sennacherib conquered Syria and Israel. Assyrian influence over Phoenicia reached its peak under Esarhaddon (680-69 BC). Mainland Phoenicia was divided into three Assyrian provinces called Simya, Sidon and Ushu, and many of the inhabitants were deported. Tyre kept her independence, hut only under the harsh terms of a vassal treaty dictated by Esarhaddon to the Tyrian Prince Ba'alu. The treaty confirmed the position of the Assyrian governor in Tyre itself and listed the ports through which Ba'alu's merchants were permitted to trade/' The text of the treaty, drawn up in the presence of various priests, illustrated the nature of business in the 'feudal' and even magical Phoenician world. According to its terms, any violations on behalf of Prince Ba'alu would call down the wrath of various storm-gods raising an evil wind against Tyre's ships, sinking them in the sea;'^ These are the ports of trade and the trade roads which Esarhaddon king of Assyria [granted] to his servant, Baal: [to wit] toward Akko. Dor, in the entire district of the Philistines, and in all the cities within

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Assyrian territory, on the seacoast, and in Byblos. [across] the Lebanon, all the cities in the mountains, all the cities ... which Esarhaddon gave Ito] Baal ... Ito] the people of Tyre ... in their ships or ail those who cross over, in the towns of IBaal], his towns, his manors, his wharves, which ... to ... as many as did lie in ihe outlying regions, as in the past ... they ... nobody should harm their ships. Inland, in his district, in his manors ..." Assyria's efforts to monopolise Tyre's trade with the rest of Asia, ironically, permitted Phoenician commerce to seduce even the might of Nineveh. Assyria's landlocked kings left their western trade in the hands of the people who knew and managed it best, be they settlers or deportees. A firm run by the Sidonian Hanunu became chief supplier of the Empire's dyed fabrics: Oubasti. exiled to Nineveh by Sennacherib as a youth, became the city's chief porter.'*' The eastern network of merchants, organised in the time of Itobaal. in Cilicia. Aleppo. Carchemish and now even Nineveh and Babylon continued to ship goods to and from points west, leaving them in the hands of Phoenician companies, their partners and subsidiaries." The Tyre-Nineveh partnership followed a commercial pattern established centuries before, when Babylonian and Ugaritic merchants joined hands to finance large-scale trade between Mesopotamia and the West. Bulk shipments of metals, textiles, foodstuffs and processed goods, including purple dye. plied up and down the Euphrates and crossed Syrian mountains and plains, paid for in silver and textiles by consortia of Canaanite, Babylonian and Assyrian merchants. Babylonian and Assyrian firms and their employees formed price-fixing partnerships to purchase Phoenician goods and distribute them to their subcontractors. Temples of Ashur. Marduk and Melkart provided capital, direction and storage facilities, hi the eighth and seventh centuries BC, Babylonia was now a vassal of Assyrian kings using the Euphratean trading system for their own ends. Tyre became Assyria's source not only of huge quantities of dyed garments but also silver and iron. Lacking the iron deposits needed to equip their vast armies or the silver to finance them, the kings of Nineveh turned to their Tyrian vassals and clients to supply them, much as Germany in the Second World War turned to Sweden for iron ore and Switzerland for hard currency.^" Assyrian control of Near Eastern markets and resources encouraged Tyre's merchants to embark upon an ambitious new strategy. Becoming Nineveh's supplier and banker preserved Tyre's independence while guaranteeing ii a vast market on the Assyrian-held mainland. The potential profits from selling precious metals, raw materials and finished goods to the Assyrian Empire in bulk were sufficient to justify creation of the first

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intercontinental multinational enterprises. The advanced stage of Tyrian commerce and its relationship with Assyria offered Tyrian firms ju-st the right combination of advantages, described in Dunning's eclectic paradigm, to make mullinational investment on a larger scale than ever before expedient and profitable. Tyre's firms possessed ownership-specific advantages in the form of the finest tnerchant marine in the world, the skills of its sailors, smiths, financiers and a powerful, well-organised network of shipping and trading companies, supported by both the crown and supervised by a multinational temple hierarchy. The location-specific variables were also favourable for the creation of a sea-based empire: being headquartered on an almost impregnable island witb direct access to the ports, trade routes and resourees of three continents were ideal for any firms interested in overseas inve.stment. Most importantly, the ability of Tyre's business establishment to invest abroad on a large scale in the form of managed hierarchies and partnerships provided intemalisation advantages over Greeks. Egyptians or any other potential competitors. Unlike these others, Tyre's business establishment, directed by the Melkart hierarchy, would possess suffieient capital to minimise risk and circumvent market failure through its state-supported merchant fleets. In accord with the advantages outlined in Dunning's eclectic paradigm. Tyre's managers expanded their trade and investment across the Mediterranean. While this strategy bore its greatest fruit after 750 BC and especially alter 680 BC, the seeds had been planted in the reign of the Tyrian Princes Mattin (840-32 BC) and Pumayyaton (831-785 BC). The history of Japanese expansion in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries suggests a pattern of how the economy of Tyre must have expanded as well. The feudal strueture described by Abe and Fitzgerald had been in place for many centuries before the great commercial expansion, aided by a rising monarchy, began. The takeoff industry in 1870s Japan appears to have been textiles, in the form of both cotton and silk. Similarly, in Phoenieia it was decorative garments, primarily the miirex purple. By the I92()s in Japan and the Late Bronze period in Phoenicia a competitive textile industry was now joined by shipbuilding. The shipyards of Tyre were as impressive in their day as those of Nagasaki and Kobe are today. By the 1940s in Japan and the time of Hiram in Canaan metalworking and productive manufacturing had become significant.'"^ Temporarily derailed by the Second World War, the climactic period of Japanese commercial expansion was in the 1950s and 1960s, to which a rough parallel can be drawn to the Phoenicia of 9(X)-6(X) BC which likewise was weak in agriculture but strong in textiles, mining, manufacturing (on a smaller and more primitive scale) and capital investment. By 1964 in Japan the percentage of people working in manufacturing exceeded those involved in agriculture, forestry and fishing.

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a trend which must have taken place at some time in Phoenicia also, probably after the Iberian metals boom taking place after 750 BC. Growth in hoth places rested upon an uneven development of textiles and specific industries, while much of the rest of the economy remained frozen in time. In both cases, specific clusters of industries - textiles, metal manufacture, shipbuilding, mining and finance - would empower the national economy as a whole.*^' Built around the temple of Astarte and ruled over by a prince of the Tyrian line, Kition in Cyprus served as the mode! for the overseas Phoenician branch offices to come. New settlements of metallurgists sprang up all across the island, at Golgoi. Idalion. Tamassos, Marion and Capcthos, processing ihc copper from the island's mines. Privately employed, these coppersmiths nonetheless worked in a temple-supervised keiretsu-style relationship with larger firms.'' Known as Qart-Hardasht or 'New City'. Kition was logically positioned to serve as both an embarkation and a distribution centre for the newer colonies to the west. The most famous of these, founded in Tunisia around 814 BC, also bore the name of QartHardasht. suggesting some possible connection. Better known as the famous Carthage, this African colony, with its sister settlements of Utica and Hadrumeto, was placed to control the wheat-fields of North Africa, which, sale from invading armies, would replace Israel as the Phoenician breadbasket.''' Other Tyrian settlements were founded, between 830 and 800 BC. on the European side of the Tunisian Straits, on the islands of Pantellaria, Lampedusa, Gozo, Malta, Sicily and Sardinia. Temples to Melkart were erected on the harbour-islands of Motya, off the northwestern coast of Sicily, and Sulcis, off the southwestern coast of Sardinia."' As in the East, so in the West did the temple operate as the major institution in directing trade and investment: In distant places where he | Melkart | possessed a temple, his function was a very concrete one: to ensure the tutelage of the temple of Tyre and the monarchy over the commercial enterprise, thus converting the colony into an extension of Tyre, and also to guarantee the right of asylum and hospitality which, in distant lands, was equivalent to endorsing contracts and commercial exchanges.*^ The still relatively undeveloped central Mediterranean settlements were but overtures to a much more important investment in the land of Tarshish, located in the southern part of the Iberian peninsula. Encouraged by a sacrificial omen, Phoenician traders in search of access to 'the most abundant and most known sources of silver' in the ancient world erected a vasl temple to Melkart on the island site of Gades (Cadiz) in the mouth of

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the Guadalquivir.'' The Spanish operation was poised to become the most important subsidiary in the entire Phoenician trading network. Long before Phoenician longboats and galleons reached the distant Spanish shores, native Iberians using crude stone tools were mining the vast silver lodes of the Huelva region."" The greatest deposits of all in this region, not far from what is now Portugal, lay on the shores of the Rio Tinto. Here, at a place called Corta del Lagc archaeologists in the 1970s would uncover evidence of a massive growth in silver production beginning around 800 BC. The discovery of new iron tools. Oriental smelting techniques, and more systematic mining practices, together with large numbers of Phoenician jugs not unlike those found in Lebanon, Cyprus and Palestine showed that this primitive Iberian industrial revolution coincided with the coming of the Phoenicians and their transfer of technology and advanced techniques.''^ Destined for a huge new market, vast quantities of silver ore floated down the red waters of the Rio Tinto to the furnaces of Huelva, where Iberian smiths turned them into ingots and sold them to the Phoenicians. Other silver went overland from the mines of Azfialcollar near Seville to another group of furnaces at San Bartolome de Almonte for processing before shipment to Gades. These two routes were not competing enterprises but complementary operations in a new Iberian business consortium capable of co-ordinating mines, foundries and ports. Growing Phoenician demand for silver required more Iberian miners, more personnel to organise, house and supply them, and more teamsters to ship their ore to the sea. This would have been impossible without the rise of a new business class in Iberia which now formed its own organised hierarchy capable of bringing an expanding mining industry under its internal sway.*^ The new Iberian silver enterprise probably adopted an organisational form similar to thai of its new Phoenician trading partner, which still managed overall operations from Tyre itself: What is more, the traffic in silver ore ... implies, in addition to considerable economic investment, a high degree of coordination between the mine and the wharf, such as the existence of an authority lo centralise and coordinate these services. Given that the chief beneficiary was Tyre, we are bound to think, as the classical sources from Diodorus (5:35:5) insinuate, that Gades was acting under orders from Tyre by way of powerful commercial agents installed in the west.''"

32

BUSINESS HISTORY

vn The growth of the Phoenician/Iberian silver consortium would eventually stimulate investment all along the entire Phoenician Mediterranean network. Whether founded before or after Gades. the settlements of the central Mediterranean and elsewhere would definitely prosper as a result of the silver trade's growth: 'And the result was that the Phoenicians, as in the course of many years they prospered greatly, thanks to commerce of this kind, sent forth many colonies, some to Sicily and its neighbouring islands, and others to Libya, Sardinia, and Iberia."" New settlements were founded in southern Spain, Africa, Sicily and Sardinia, whose growlh and prosperity was linked to the Tarshish trade. These eolonies, each of which was supervised by a naval and temple hierarchy responsible to the head offices in Gades, Kition and/or Tyre itself, became important bases in a battle for economic survival with powerful military implications. The sailormerchants of Tyre considered the central Mediterranean subsidiaries 'a response to certain basically strategic imperatives'.'' The head offices in Gades, Moyta and Sulcis were all planted on secure harbour-is lands which resembled Tyre itself. As the Tyrian relationship with Assyria developed and the mining of silver in Spain intensified, the central Mediterranean offices began to grow and prosper as a direct result.'- The Sicilian office in Moyta, based around its temple and sparsely staffed until about 650 BC, experienced thereafter a period of direct Tyrian investment in the form of Marge industrial complexes and warehouses' suggesting 'the early appearance of specialised industries - iron and purple'." Sardinia was more thickly settled. Tyrian activity was at first confined to Sulcis under the civil rule of the shrine of Melkart until the army won trading rights for Phoenicians on the island. After 700 BC a new wave of Tyrian settlement dominated by soldiers, sailors and merchants spread over the southern half of the island, erecting a fortifiedbelt of settlements at Salcis. Nora, Cagliari, Bythia, Carloforte and Thairos.^' The systematic creation of a half-dozen seaports and merchant colonies, in close proximity to one another on the southern coast except for Thairos indicated that the Tyrian subsidiary in Sulcis and those directing it far to the east were pursuing a "genuine territorial strategy ... of controlling the hinterland".'" Given the need for massive capital investment and direction to sustain all of these settlements and their activities, the existence of a marketoriented but royally directed business organisation supervising and coordinating them is highly plausible. Excavations on Sardinia showed an organised pyramidal relationship among the Tyrian colonies on the island. Founded as a naval base and way-station, Sulcis eventually became the subsidiary head office of a Tyrian mining operation extracting Sardinian

ANCIENT PHOENICIA

33

.silver and lead deposits. The large military presence in these colonies demonstrated royal accountability of the merchants first to Sulcis, then to Kition or Gades, and eventually to Tyre itself. The presence of a single temple of Melkart and burial ground in Sulcis was a sign of the overlordship held by the priests and merchant-princes of that city over the other settlements on the island until a second cemetery was erected in the interior after 400 BC."^ Phoenician investment developed in Spain as well, Gades and other Guadalquivir settlements being followed by a new strip of Phoenician colonies which flourished along the Mediterranean shore of Andalusia between 750 and 500 BC. The site of Toscanos, in particular, yielded abundant traces of direct investment and even value-added productive activities by the Phoenician coloni.sts.^' Phoenician Red Slip ceramics were produced locally in these settlements rather than being directly imported from TVrian factories. Even more important in these colonies was the presence of metal-working industries, where the residents turned the ore and ingots of the Iberian mines into finished luxury articles and tools to be sold back to the natives, who provided a fine market for Canaanite ceramics, artwork, handicrafts, jewels, ivory, caskets, combs, statues, altars and amulets imported from Phoenician offices both in Spain and abroad.'** Much involved in trade with the Spanish interior, the Andalusian colonies also imported and probably processed ivory from Africa and tin from the British Isles. The warehouse at Toscanos was too large to satisfy local subsistence alone. More likely, it served as a terminal for Spanish silver shipped by road from the mines of the Sierra Morena, tin from the North Atlantic, and Phoenician goods going to and fro across the Mediterranean."' The tombs of Morro de Mezquitilla. immediately to the east of Toscanos. provided striking confirmation that this trading and value-adding activity was directed by a local Ibero-Phoenician management with family ties to Tyre itself/" The richer tombs of Morro de Mezquitilla belonged to the elite of the colony, leading British archaeologist Richard Harrison to surmise ihat they were 'probably from important trading families who headed the firms that were based in Tyre and Sidon"."' Linking the Atlantic tin trade with Tyre's Mediterranean hierarchy, the trading sphere of the Toscanos subsidiary colonies covered not only much of western Europe, but even included parts of West Africa. Pottery finds linked the Andalusian colonies with new Tyrian colonies on Rahgoun Island, Lixus and the Isle of Mogador, off the coasts of Algeria and Morocco, which managed the gold and ivory trade of Guinea and other points in sub-Saharan Africa."'

34

BUSINESS HISTORY

VII By 650 BC the Prince of Tyre, the high priests of Melkart. and the viziers, harbourmasters and merchants under their tutelage presided over the most impressive business organisation in antiquity. Managed by an international temple hierarchy which cemented the kein'tsu-^\y\e relationships among Tyrian firms and their foreign trading partners, the unified Tyrian business organisations were able to internalise trade and production on an axis stretching from the Atlantic shores of Spain to the shores of the Babylonian Euphrates. The lucrative Spanish firms, jewels in Tyre's imperial crown, were now closely integrated with the island firms of the central Mediterranean. A Canaanite tomb discovered at Ghajn Ouajjcd in Malta containing a horde of Spanish silver pointed to the Maltese subsidiary's role as a way-station linking the Gades and Toscanos operations with those of the home country."' The "mini-Tyres' of Sulcis and Moyta, besides directing the Sardinian and Sicilian subsidiaries, also served as 'ports of call on the routes of Phoenician ships coming into the western Mediterranean in order to transport metal to .sell in the marketplaces of the Near East'."' Kition. headquarters of the Cypriot-Aegean subsidiaries, became the key entry-point for Mediterranean silver, wheat and goods entering Asia itself as well as the key departure-point for Asian goods heading west. Artefacts from Egypt and Mesopotamia reached Spain via Phoenician-controlled ports and most likely Kition, and it is very probable that the popular Phoenician Red Slip ware in Spain first came from the Tyrian enterprises on Cyprus: Spain communicated with Phoenicia both directly and through Cyprus's mediation, probably on this island originated the red ceramics technique. A number of parallels are found between the objects of Hispano-Phoenician and Cypriote arts. Some original Cypriote objects were discovered in Spain."' TTie regular contacts between Cyprus and the western operations and key role of Kition in the latter was noted as well by the most famous of all Hebrew prophets. Warning of Tyre's doom, Isaiah, then a royal prince in the court of King Hezekiah of Judah in Jerusalem, painted a picture of the city's future destruction and its impact on the overseas empire. Galleons plying eastward from the Iberian mines and factories reaching Cypais would there learn of Phoenicia's demise and the consequent economic ruin of both Iberia and Kition: "Wail. O ships of Tarshish: for Tyre is destroyed, without house or harbour; it is reported to them from the land of Cyprus'."'' Our contention that the business establishments of Tyre's overseas colonies functioned as branch-plants and foreign subsidiaries in an

ANCIENT PHOENICIA

35

intercontinental multinalional setting is supported by several archaeologists, including T. Jiidice Gamilo: The structure of the Phoenician settiemenls was linked with the homeland mercantile 'companies', in a family based organisation, which might have been operating in town.s like Ugarit or Tyre. Some of these "companies" possessed large numbers of ships ... [which] would provide the capital for their trading activity ... as sponsoring and protective private Institutions. // was indeed a private enierpri.se, owned by traders, who organised Iheir workforce, ships and voyages. The traders seem to have had a high status and an equally high political rank, based on a kinship organisation. ... This aspect is further emphasised by the Old Testament references to the Phoenician "household" and Moscati also mentions the textile industry developed at Carthage, which apparently was based on "family lines" too.'" The British archaeologist Richard Harrison is even more explicit in his support, describing both the iamily-based .structure and the inlernalisation advantages which Tyre, Inc. possessed: The pattern of Phoenician trade was linked to .specialist production centres, connecting different areas and political systems which otherwise would not have been drawn together, and establishing a rate of exchange much to their own advantage. They could do this fairly easily since they had a monopoly on both the specialized manufactures that everyone desired, and the marine transport, so they could stimulate demand where they chose to do so. A virgin market wa.s the ideal since it could be scoured hard for huge profit.s; this accounts for their interest in Spain, especially in the silver mines behind Huelva in the Rio Tinto. and near C^stulo in the Sierra Morena. The Phoenicians were able to locate new metal sources, and unlock the wealth from Ihcm. unhindered, for a century and a half. The traders worked through a system of Phoenician family firms, who had representatives in their home town in the eastern Mediterranean as well as in their new markets and factories; they owned their own ships, too, and were prepared to take risks which their overlords could not well calculate, or were unwilling to do. and so profited greatly.*"**

IX In the course of this article we have suggested a few similarities between Phoenicia and modern-day Japan. The similarities between Phoenicia and

36

BUSINESS HISTORY

today's Japan were economic as well as religious and social. Both were forested, densely populated, urbanised nations compelled to seek prosperity on the high seas. Enough of a parallel exists between these two societies to suggest describing the Phoenician economy a.s an early form of East Asian 'producer' capitalism bearing somewhat of a resemblance to the modern Japanese keiretsu system. Boundaries between public and public enterprise were fluid. Large firms formed honour-bound subcontracting relationships with smaller ones on the basis of feudal loyalties. A royal state, a state-run priesthood, an aristocratic military and a rising business class co-operated in the long-term pursuit of the collective national interest. Trade itself was not viewed as free play among individuals but as part of a battle for national commercial survival and supremacy in which each trader was an economic knight/soldier with his dutiful role to play for his city's prince and gods. Ugarit and Tyre as well as Japan had a very pragmatic approach to economics marked by 'the absence of a strong anti-business ideology among government officials or anti-government sentiment among business leaders'."'' X Even from the perspective of 3.000 years, Phoenicia's achievements, and especially those of Tyre, are considerable. Based upon a smal! island with no natural resources. Tyre's merchants, guided by resourceful priests and princes, adapted the Phoenician model of integrated business establishment pioneered in Ugarit and embarked upon an ambitious quasimilitary global trading strategy, centuries ahead of its time, that resembles in some ways keiretsu capitalism of modem Japan. At its peak, the executives who directed this intercontinental enterprise traded in silver from Spain, tin from Britain, ivory from Africa, copper from Cyprus, iron from Syria, and textiles and manufactured goods from all over the Mediterranean. Their investments reached from the Atlantic to the core of the Assyrian Empire. Impressive as it was. Tyre's system was not eternal. Dealt a severe blow by Nebuchadnezzar's Chaldean Empire around 600 BC and conquered by Alexander the Great in 33 i BC. Tyre and its empire faded from the scene. New iron-working technologies empowered both Greece and Rome, enabling tbem to supplant both Tyre and its successor, Carthage, while pioneering a more individualistic form of business organisation. Mesopotamia would never again be the centre of world trade or the major source of foreign direct investment. Though Tyre's domain was dissolving, the island city had shifted the heart of world trade to elsewhere in the Mediterranean, where it would remain for a millennium and a half

ANCIENT PHOENICIA

37

A Study of the growth and triumph of Phoenician business networks based upon the above evidence is nevertheless valuable for several reasons. It demonstrates that the multinational corporation is not necessarily a new development, but is several thousand years old. The close, honour-based horizontal and vertical relationships among Phoenician firms, their brancbes, subcontractors and the public sector represented by prince and priest demonstrate as well some important aspects of some fornis of today's capitalism. Finally, the impact of Tyrian investment in not only Israel but in Spain, where it inspired a technological revolution, social differentiations, and even nationalist reactions to what really was a primitive form of 'regionalisation' provides a fruitful area for further study.

NOTES 1. This material is adapted from a f'onhcoming book by the same authors. Birth nf the MuUinational: 2000 Yecir.i of Ancieiii Biisines.s History - From Ashur to Augustus, lo be published hy the Copenhagen Business School Press. 2. J. Dunning. Multhiutitiunl Enterprises and The Global Ecorwmy (Wokingham. 1993). p.96. 3. For example in W. Roslow. Ihe World Eronomy: Hi.Ktory and Prospect (Texas. 1978); D. Nonh, Structure and CJumi-e in Economic History (New York, 1981); A. Chandler. Scale und Scope: the Dynamics of Industrud Capitalism (Cambridge. MA. 1990); J. Powelson. Centuries of Economic Emteavor (Ann Arbor. MI. 1994). 4. For example. I.. OfWn. Assyrian Colonies in Cuppiidociu (The Hague. 1970); M. Larsen. The Old Assyrian City-Staie and Its Colonies (Copenhagen. 1976); M. Aubct, The Phoenicians and the We.\l: Politics. Colonies and Trade (Cambridge, 1987). 5. Dunning. Multinational Enterprises, p.3. 6. Two olher importanl theories which seek to explain foreign aclivilies of firms are the inlernalisation iheory of the MNE: for some key works in ihc area, see P. Buckley and M. Casson. The Future of the Multination
38

BUSINESS HISTORY

of Firms ami The Competitivettess of Nations (Lund. Sweden. 1990). 14. Riigman anil Gestrin. The Srnircfiir Response, p. 19. 15. Dunning. The (ilohulizution nf Finns. 16. K. Moore ;ind D. Lewis, 'Tlie First MNEs: Assyria Circa 2000 B C . Maiuigement Inicnumonul Review. No,2 (1998). 17. A. Kuhrl. The Ancient Near East. Volume I (London, 1994). p. I i 1. IS. Stale-owned muliinaiional enterprises (SOEs) were a growing phenomenon unlil the mid1980s. In 1965. 19 of [he world's largesi 200 industrial enterprises outside the US were SOEs: by 1985 ihere were 35 on the same list, ineluiling 18 foreign direci investments. Dunning. Mullinarioniil Enterprises. pp.4()-.'>0. Few would qiicsiion these TinTis as being •real" MNEs. ly. R. Cliflbrd. 'Phoenieian Religion". Bulletin nf the Americnn Schools of Orienml Research. No.279 (August 1990). pp.55-64: D. Harden. The Phoenicians, pp.82-6. 20. Aeeording to Etsun Ahe and Rohen Rtzgerald. Japanese society is an ideal arehelype of this model: 'Just as individuals were linked to families, lamilies were linked to village eommunities. and village comtnuniiies looked to Iwal lords tor proleclion and favour, just as loeal lords itHiked to the Tokugawa shogunale. Consequently, hierarchiea! connections had a polilical and tnililary purpose as well as an economic and social one. and. within this "vertical society", membership of a group became closely lied to personal identity." K. Abe and R. Fitzgerald. "Japanese Economie Success". Business History (1995). p. II. 21. M. HcUzcr. 'A Reeently Discovered Phoenician inscription and the Prohlem of the Guilds of Metal-Casters". Atli del I Con^resso Intermiziomtle di Stmli fenici e puniei. Roma. 5-10 Novemhre t'^79. Rome. Consiglio Nazlonale della Ricerche. 3 vols: VoM. pp. 119-23. 124. 135. Abdihaqah is thought to have lived around the period of 1100-1050 BC. 22. Heltzer. "Phoenician Inscription'. p.i36: E. Linder. "Ugarit. A Canaanite Thalasswracy". in G.D. Young (ed.). Vfiurii in Retrospect: Fifty Yeur.s of Ugarit and U^aritic (Winona Lake. Indiana. 1981). p.35: A.F Raincy. "Business Agents at Ugarif. in Young (ed.). Ugarit in Retrospect, pp.313-21. 23. Heltzer. 'Phoenician In.scription". pp.140-42. 24. Ibid., pp.142-3. 147: Linder. -Ugartt'. p.35. 25. According to Y Kunio, the Japanese "government is an important souree of funds' for the trading companies, including low interest and relief loans without which many of their ventures might he unproHtabte. Y. Kunio. Sof^o Sho.sha: The Vanguard of the Japanese Economy (New York. 1982). p.275. 26. Linder deserihes the grain enterprise as •monopolized by the king and shipped by his fleet", •Ugarit'. p.33. 27. Heltzer. Phoenician Inscription", pp.135-7. 28. Rainey. "Business Agents'. p.3l4. 29. Ibid.. p.3I5. 30. "The Journey of Wen-Amon to Phoenicia', text in M.E. Aubet, Phoenicians and the We.u (Cambridge. l99Ci). Appendix II. p.2y8. 31. According to M.E. Aubet. "The presence of the powerful Urkatet suggests thai there may have existed in Phtienieia from earliest times a highly developed private commeree. operating in circles very close to the palaee or dircetly subordinate to the royal house. In that case, the hubur might be organised corporations or shipping consoriia running a regular trade between the Phwnieian coast and Egypt and operating with complete autonomy under the protection nf a wealthy man'. Aubet. Phoenicians and the Wesr. p.93. 32. R.R. Stieglil/. "The Geopolities of the Phoenician Littoral in the Early Iron Age". Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research. No.279 (August 1990). p.l I. 33. Aubet. Phoenicians and the We.\t. pp.27. 29-32. 35. 34. I Kings 5:11: Sabatino Moscati. The World of the Phoenicians. English translation by Alastair Hamilton (London. 1968). p. 1335. M. Elat. The Monarehy and The Development of Trade in Ancient Israel", in E. Lipinski (ed.). State and Temple Economy in the Ancient Near East. Proceedings of ihe Internationa!

ANCIENT PHOENICIA

36.

37.

38. 39. 40.

41. 42.

43.

44.

45.

39

ConTerence organised hy the Kalholieke Universiieii Leuven. 10-14 April 1978 (Louvain. Belgium. 1979). p.5.'*7. Hlal also records ihal "The Sidoniuns were expert sea traders and. LIS we leam Iroiu the reporl of Wenamun. even hud a special association of niiiritime nierchant.s ealled Huhur . Phoenician maritime skills were likewise laterexported lo the Assyrians, who employed Sidonians to huild and ruan their trading and war fleets in the Persian Gulf (p.537). The Gold of Ophir menlioned in II Chronicles 20:35-7 probably came from the west and soiiih of the Arabian peninsula, the Egyptian Desen or even further south in Africa in ihe present country nf Sudan (p.539). According lo Aubet. the Israelites noi only obtained Phoenician technology, but also imitated Phoenician bu.siness practices, setting up trading companies on ihe Tyrian model. Aubet claims I Kings 22:48 and I Chronicles 20:35 refer to 'a Phoenician model of a merchants' consortium traditionally used for joini large-scale shipping enterprises under the protection of the monarchy. The profits or losses in an enterprise of this kind could be so high that il was necessary to Join forces under state management'. (Aubet. PlwfiiicUins mid ihe IVcvf, p.92l. "Solomon controlled ihe trade routes and Ihe countries over which the Arah camel caravans then travelled on their way to the lands of the Fertile Crescenl. Without Solomon's cooperation, the Arabians could not be assured of the regular conduct of iheir trade.' (Elat, 'Ancient Israel", p.526). Auhci. Phncniriiins mill the lVf'.vf. p.36. I Kings 5:6; Moscali. WiirUIof ihc Phticiiiciuiis. pp.I2-13. Itohaal was the "Ethbaa! king of the Sidonians' mentioned in I Kings 16:31. Sabatino Moseati mentions that ihe fragmentary annals of Tyre describe him as a usurper-priest of Astarte who seii^ed the TyHan throne after a period of civil war con-esponding to a similar civil war in Israel between the followers of Omri and Tibni. Where Hiram had been King of Tyre only. Itobaal became King of the Sidonians. or King of Tyre and Sidon. F-ounding a new dynasty in Tyre. Itohaal tried to extend that dynasty into both Israel and Judah hy marrying his daughter Jezebel into the House of Omri and his granddaughter. Athaliah. inio ihe House of David. Moseati. World of the Phoeniciuns. pp.14—15. "Israel was Tyre's main source of agricultural produce." Blai. 'Ancient Israel', p.537. 'Atcoaslal settlements ... sueh as Achzib. Akk(vTell Keisan. Tell Abu Hawam. Dor and Tell Miehal. the material culture of the period is distinctly Phoenician." E. Stern. "New Evidence from Dor for the First Appearatice of the Phoenicians along the Northern Coast of Israel". Biillfliii of till- Anwrirun Schooix of OrieiUul Reseiinh. No.279 (August 1990). pp.29-30. See also Z. Gal. "Hurbat Rosh Zayil and the Early Phiwnician Pottery". Levuiil. Vol.XXIV 11992). pp. 173-8.'i. It should be noted Ihat orthodox chronologies date these settlements to the period of around 1050 BC. placing them during King Saul's reign rather than .\hab"s. A new compressed chronology, however, championed by several 1990s archaeologists, redates many of the early Phoenician Tmds and places these settlements in the tenth and ninth eenturies BC. See P. James, l.J. Thorpe. N. Kokkinos. R. Morkoi and J. Prankish. Centuries nf Darknc.-i.s: A Cludtetifie ro ihe ConvenlUmal Climnoloi'y oJ Old World Animeology. foreword by C. Renfrew (New Brunswick. NJ. 1993). pp.186-96. Even though he adheres to the orthodox dates. Stern notes that "The parallel phenomenon of the pottei-y found at Dor (as well as at Tell Ahu Hawam. Tell Keisan. Tyre. Sarepta, and Khaldeh on the Phoenician coast, and elsewhere) and in Cyprus seems in faet lo represent two sides of the same coin: the beginning of Phoenician expansion and settlement on the northern coast of Palestine and in Cyprus." ("New Evidence', p.32). 'Thanks to a network of factorships and trading posts in place in the Gulf of .Mexandretta and the coastal region of Cyprus, Tyre was able to secure a monopoly of the trade in meials and slaves in Cilicia. the Taurus Mountains, and ihe Euphrates and. at the same lime, to control the sea routes to Cyprus and Crete.' (Aubet, Phoeuiciiim and ihc We.ti. pp.40-41). The Baal Epic in the Ras Shamra texts praises the Bitul Hayyin as patron of all Canaanite metalworkers: 'Hayyin would go up to the bellows ... To melt silver, to beai oui gold.' See J.B. Priiehard (ed.). AncienI Near Ecislerii Te.xts Rekili/ii; to ihi' Old Testciitieril tPrinceton.

40

46. 47. 48.

49. 50. 51.

52.

53. 54. 55. 56.

57. 58.

59. 60. 61.

62.

6.1.

BUSINESS HISTORY NJ, 3riJ cdn. 1969), p.l34. This crat'lsnian-god. also worshipped as Kolhar, was even more involved in ihe market, huilding palaces lor Baal from the tcdars ol' l,chan
ANCIENT PHOENICIA

41

64. Aubel, Phoenicians and the West, p.234. 65. Diodorus Sictdus, Vol..^4:35. English translation by C.H. Oldfathcr (Cambridge. MA, 1939). 66. A. Blanco-Prcijeiro und J.M. Luzon. Tre-Roman Silver Miners at Riollnto". Antiquity, 67. R.J. Harrison. Spain at the Dawn of History: Iberians, Phoenicians and Greeks (I_ondon. 1988), pp.l5O-3l: A. Blanco-Frtrijciro and B. Rolhenberg. Exploracion Arqueometaltirgica de Huelva (FAH) (Barcelona. 198!). pp.y6-8. 101. l()4-6. 113-14. According to Aubet. 'we are dealing with an advanced technology and a we 11-organised mining enterprise. It is nol by chance ihat ail [his activity in Rio Tinto began at ihe same time as the first (races of a Phoenician presence appear in the region." .Aubel. Phoenicians and the We.^t. p.238. 68. Aubet. Phoenicians anil the West, p.24O: Blanco-Freijeiro and Rolhenberg. Explaracidn Arquenmetaliirgica df Hui'lva, pp.104—6. 113-14; Harrison, Spain at ttie Dawn of History, PP.I52-.3. 69. Aubet, Phoenicians and the West, pp.240-41. 70. Oldfalher. Diodorus Siculus, Vo!.35:2-5. 71. Aubet. Phoenicians ami the West. p.2(X). 72. Harden. The Phoenicians, p.63. 73. Aubet. Phoenicians and the West., p.202. 74. Moscati. The World of the Phoenicians, p.99: Harrison. Spain at the Dawn of History, pp.42-3: F. Barreca, 'The Phoenician and Punic Civilization in Sardinia'. Miriam S. Balmulh (cd.). .Studies In Sardinian Archaeology, Volume II, Sardinia in the Mediterranean (Ann Arbor. Ml. 1989). pp.152-3: F.M. Cross. "Phoenicians in Sardinia; The Epigraphical Evidence', in Miriam S. Balmuth and Robert J. Rowland (eds.). Studies In Sardinian Archaeology {Ann Arbor. MI. 1987). pp.,*i?)-6. 75. Aubel. Phoenicians and the West, p.203; 'In this case, the founding of ihe colony led lo a need lo bring the coast and the coaslal valley.s swiftly under its sway, thai is, to establish economic and territorial autonomy in relation to the interior and ti> guaranlee peaceful exploitation of Ihe agrieullura! land and metal deposiis' (p.2O7). 76. Ibid., pp.203-7; Barreca. 'Phoenicians and Punic", pp.152-4. 77. M.C.F. Caslro./frcnV;/>( Pre/imwv (Oxford. 1995). pp.177. 183^. 78. Y. Tsirkin. 'Economy of the Phoenician Settlement.^ in Spain", Edward Lipinski (ed.). State and Temple Economy in the Ancient Near Ea.it, pp.548-51. 563. 79. Tsirkin, 'Economy of the Phoenician Seitlemenis". p.557; Castro. Iberia in Prehistory. pp.i82^. 191-2; Harrison. Spain at the Dawn of History, pp.43-4. 80. Among the Iberian towns near the Guadalquivir, the graves of Carmona showed a healthy market for the luxuries prtxluced by these subsidiaries and those in Gades. Tyrian craftsmenimporters skilled in finishing ivt)ry created 'a provincial Phoenician workshop' within seventh-centu!7 BC Cannona itself. Harrison. Spain at the Dawn of History, pp.64-5. Both here and at El Carainbolo near Seville. Phoenician technology in gold- and ivory-working. as well as jewellery-making was transferred lo native Iberian workshops, whose artisans became as adept as iheir tuiors. An elaborate necklace found near Seville, however, 'may well have come fnim Gudir itself". Harrison. Spain at the Dawn of History, p.dfi. The clearest example of transnational technology transfer, however, took place in the explosive growth of the Iberian pottery industry, which instead of a household skill, became a mas^-produetion trade after 6.'S0 BC. All over southern Spain workshops arose turning oul large quantities of the popular grey and red Tyrian stylishly jugs decorated wilh bands of red. black and maroon painl. Harrison. Spain at the Dawn of History. p.(>8. 81. M. Gras, P. Rouillard and J. Teixidor. "The Phoenicians and Death", Berytus, Archaelogical Studies, Vol.XXXIX(l99lKp.l45. 82. Tsirkin. 'Economy of the Phoenician Settlements", p.557. 83. Gras. Rouillard and Teixidor. "Phoenieians and Death", p.145. 84. Barreca. 'Phoenicians and Punic', p.l52. 85. Tsirkin. 'Economy of the Phoenician Settlements', p.559; Kilion also directed IberoPhoenician exports lo the Aegean, although dlrecl trade between Spain and Greece also

42

86. 87. 88. 89.

BUSINESS HISTORY existed. Greek vessels and Cyprioi anifacts were found in both Malta and in Iberian and Ibero-Ph(K;nici;m lomhs heforc 7()0 BC. Ibid., pp.55^3-60. Isaiah 2.1:1. T.J. GamiU>. Sociul Complexity in Southwest Iberia: 800-^00 BC: The Case of Tanessos, B.A.R. lnternaiional Series 43') (Oxford. I98S). p.54 (emphasis added). Harrison. Spiiifi at the Dawn of History, p.42 (e in p ha.*; is added). C.J. McMillan, The Japanese Industrial System (New York. rev. edn. 19%). pp.56-7.