8 Features of Civilization are 8 features that explain the place, without the 8 features that place wouldn't be consider a city. The main 8 features are cities, social classes, organized government, public works, established religion, arts and architecture, job specializations and writing. Phoenicians were consider as a civilization therefore it had all 8 features. Below are the 8 main features of the Phoenicians.
CITIES
Tyre
Tyre is an ancient Phoenician port city which, in myth, is known as the birthplace of Europa and Dido of Cartage. The name means 'rock' and the city consisted of two parts, the main trade centre on an island, and 'old Tyre', about a half mile opposite on the mainland.Tyre was in its golden age (golden age mean peace, prosperity, and happiness) around the 10th century BCE and, in the 8th, was colonizing other sites in the area and enjoying great wealth and prosperity owing primarily to an alliance with Israel.
Sidon
Sidonis the Greek name (meaning fishery) for the ancient Phoenician port city of Sidonia in what is, today, Lebannon. Along with the city of Tyre, Sidon was the most powerful city-state of ancient Phoenicia and first manufactured the purple dye which made Tyre famous and was so rare and expensive that the color purple became synonymous with royalty.
Byblos
The city began as a small fishing village called Gubal or Gebal while the coastal region of the land, which the Greeks named Phoenicia, was known to the inhabitants as Canaan. By 3000 BCE the little village had grown to a prosperous city through trade.
Arwad
While Byblos, Sidon and Tyre received most of the fanfare in the early days of the Phoenicians, other cities rose to prominence among them as time went on is, Arwad, It served as a major shipping port. After the Phoenician golden years, however, that commerce shifted from the island to the coast during the Roman era.
SOCIAL CLASSES
Phoenicia is broken down into classes. The classes are determined by the person's wealth, power, color, place of birth and race.
Top Class
Top class consisted of Kings, Priest, Government officials, and land owners. This class gained the most respect from their people due to wealth and power they processed. The kings were the highest among the top class.
Middle Class
Middle Class consisted of farmers, merchants, class people, and fisherman. These are the group of people who are working to earn respect in the society due to their race and where they were born.
Low Class
Low class consisted of slaves and servant. They were forced to live a poor and miserable life. They had no rights of their own and had the least amount of privileges in the Phoenician.
ORGANIZED GOVERNMENT
Kingship seem to have been the oldest form of Phoenician government. His power was supported by the powerful merchant families, who held great influence in public affairs. Kings often consulted an assembly of important members of state when dealing with important matters . Ancient text refer to a 'People's Assembly' made up of enfranchised male citizens, but the little is known of its function or power.
PUBLIC WORK
Each city had it's temple, municipal buildings and amenities. The architecture of the Phoenicians began with the fashioning of the native rock so abundant in all parts of the country where they had settled themselves into dwellings, temples, and tombs. The temple of Eshmun was one of the well-known temples in Phoenicia. Eshmun is one of the very few temple that are in this condition currently. It was the dedicated to Eshumun, the Phoenician god of healing. This temple is located near the Awali River.
ESTABLISHED RELIGION
Phoenicians were polytheistic, so they believe in different gods, for example, El was a god who protected the universe, Ball who controlled the weather and the season of the year, Astarte was the goddess of love and war, Eshmun was the god of healing. Phoenicians believe in sacrificed and will consider cruel for their common human sacrifice. Some people even believe that they sacrificed their own children.
ARTS AND ARCHETECTURE
The Phoenicians crafted lots of their time and talents into their artworks and architecture. Though the Phoenicians made lots of artworks, they didn't concern about the realism but more artistic. The Phoenician artisans wanted to make whatever they were making more stylish and unique than the original forms. Some example of what Phoenicians created were jewelry, masks, and figurines out of woods, gold, ivory, or metal. Also Phoenicians built myriad of very beautiful architectural sites such as passageways, buildings, and pillars around the cities which enhanced the beauty of the places.
JOB SPECIALIZATION
The Phoenicians had several different jobs. Weavers wove the purple cloth sold to the royal families. Sailors fetched the murex snails for the weavers. Traders went to the kings, and bargained the cloth for very high prices, because the monarchs had large quantities of money.
WRITING
The Phoenician alphabet was one of the first alphabets with a strict and consistent form. It is assumed that it adopted its simplified linear characters from an as- yet unattested early pictorial Semitic alphabet developed some centuries earlier in the southern Levant. The precursor to the Phoenician alphabet was likely of Egyptian origin as Middle Bronze Age alphabet from the southern Levant resemble Egyptian hieroglyphs, or more specifically an early alphabetic writing system found central Egypt.