If you highlight text in a post, you'll see a button that says "+Quote|Reply"; +quote adds it to your list of quotes (which will appear as "Insert Quotes" below reply box) and Reply will quote it directly. At least that's how it works in a browser.I'm sorry about the multiquoting-kinda new here! It bothers me too when my entire respond appears as editing a quote for sure too...how does one actually do that on this forum so I can fix this problem lmao
Indeed, and in the Bronze Age Cypriots were Asian. In fact, they were mostly Phoenician.Anyways I do agree that technically speaking, the Phoenicians are geographically asian. But they're just as asian as cypriots...
I think your analysis is fair for the Hellenistic Mediterranean and onward, but it doesn't fit for the Bronze and Iron Age Mediterranean. At that point, the Phoenicians ruled the Mediterranean, the Greeks and Romans were irrelevant (and deeply culturally indebted to the Phoenicians), and the Phoenicians themselves looked to Egypt and Babylo-Assyria for cultural influence. Prior to the rise of the Greek city-states to prominence circa the 5th century AD, the entire Mediterranean was very east-oriented. The Phoenicians weren't just geographically and linguistically Asian; they were also very much so culturally Asian.I think I misspoke when I said the Phoenicians were Europeans. I tend to go by cultural groupings instead of strict geographic or linguistic ones personally and therefore think of Europe as consisting of 3 groups...the anglo/germanic/nordic in the west, the slavic/nordic in the east, and the Mediterranean in the south. The final group is one that overlaps with north Africa and the near east (I.e. Lebanon, Turkey, Cyprus, etc.) based moreso on culture. So in my eyes they are part of a cultural group that includes more classically European states like Greece, Italy, and Spain.
Given that there are so many Mediterranean civs and that they all have a shared history/culture to some degree, I think the region acts as it's own continent of sorts-perhaps separate from Europe all together. There are some kinks in that mindset (Egypt and France immediately come to mind) but it's just my opinion. It's a subcontinent at least and imo should be treated as one to make the most sense instead of locking each cultural/civ into it's own continent
By the time Carthage rises to prominence, the situation is different, and Greek culture has spread throughout the Mediterranean basin. This is long after Phoenicia's heyday, however, as Tyre takes a secondary place to her North African colony. Again, though, Phoenicia proper proved remarkably resistant to outside cultural dominance even after being annexed in turn by Assyria, Egypt, Macedon, Seleucia, and Rome.