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
18 BUSINESS HISTORY

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 semi-
processed materials to include knowledge inputs.
ANCIENT PHOENICIA 19

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 family-
owned 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
ANCIENT PHOENICIA 21

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 Red Sea, A rah i a.

a uniicd Israel East Africa and India

Continental Phase 890-840 BC Tyre allenipi.s to become an Israel. Cyprus.

Asian land power AnalolJa. Syria and
Assyria

Intcrconiinenlal- 839-538 BC Redirection of Tyrian trade Assyria. Spain. West

Mullinalional Phase towards Assyria and wave Africa to Babylon
of colonisation across
Mediterranean

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.^"
22 BUSINESS HISTORY

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
ANCIENT PHOENICIA 23

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 feudal-
commercial 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
24 BUSINESS HISTORY

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 ocean-
going vessels on the site of what is now Eilat.'^ Tyre became 'a co-
participant 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
ANCIENT PHOENICIA 25

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 Cyprus-
made ware indicated the existence of a managed, internalised network of
commercial activity linking the three regions.'' Itobaal's investors expanded
26 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
ANCIENT PHOENICIA 27

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
28 BUSINESS HISTORY

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
ANCIENT PHOENICIA 29

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.
30 BUSINESS HISTORY

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 Qart-
Hardasht. 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
ANCIENT PHOENICIA 31

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 sailor-
merchants 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 market-
oriented but royally directed business organisation supervising and co-
ordinating 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 quasi-
military 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<d Enterprise (London. 1976); J. Hennari, A Theory of
Multinational Enterprise (Ann Arbor. MI, 1982); aiid for ihe macro-economics iheory of
foreign direct invesimeni hest represented hy Kojima. see his 'Reorgani/ation of
North-South Trade; Japan's Foreign Economics Policy for the 1970s', Hitoiuha.shi Jourtjol
of Economics. Vol.23 (1973), pp.630-40. and K. Kojimu. 'Japanese Direct Investment
Abroad'. Social Science Research hmitute Monograph Series I (Tokyo. 1990).
7. For an further discussion of internalisation advantages, see Buckley and Casson, The Future
of the Muhinational. and C. lelto-Gitlies. International Production: Trends. Theories. Effects
(Oxford. 1992).
8. P. Buckley, "The Role of Management in Internal isation Theory'. Management International
Review. Vol.33 Na3 (1993). p.l98.
9. letto-GilUes. International Production, and Dunning. Muhinational Enterprises.
10. A. Rugman. 'A New Theory of the Multinational Enterprise; Intemaiionalization versus
lntemalization', Columbia Journal of World Business. Vol.29 (Spring 1980). p.26.
11. Ihid.. A New Theory: M. Casson, Vie Finn und the Market (Oxford. 1987); letto-Gillies,
Interniitional Production.
12. A. Rugman and M. Geslrin. The Strategic Response of Multinalional Enterprises lo
NAFTA", Columbia Journal of World Business. Vol.28 (1993). p. 19.
13. J. Dunning. 'The Glohali^ation of Firms and the Competitiveness of Countries; Some
Implications for ihe Theory of International Production", in J. Dunning (ed.). Globalization
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 mid-
1980s. 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. 13-
35. 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 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).
36. 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.
37. "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 co-
operation, the Arabians could not be assured of the regular conduct of iheir trade.' (Elat,
'Ancient Israel", p.526).
38. Auhci. Phncniriiins mill the lVf'.vf. p.36.
39. I Kings 5:6; Moscali. WiirUIof ihc Phticiiiciuiis. pp.I2-13.
40. 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.
41. "Israel was Tyre's main source of agricultural produce." Blai. 'Ancient Israel', p.537.
42. '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.
43. 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).
44. '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).
45. 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 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<in and Irading
across the lx;vani and the Aegean: 'There now. he off on thy way ... lo Kaphlor. the throne
that he sits on. Hikpat the land of his portion' (p. 138).
46. M. Silver. Economic Stniclures of Antiquity (We.stpon, CT. 1995). pp.6-7, 18-19, 25-7.
47. Ibid.. P..32.
48. 'In explaining financial connections among cults or administrative controls of one cult hy
another or the sharing of temples or the merger ol* cults or temple complexes, the economist
would of cotirsc be inclined to stress explanations in terms of efficient organi.sation or the
exercise by mother cults of quality controls over franchiser cults or economies of scale or
scope. Slandard explanations stress battles over supremacy and cultic imperialism or mere
"friendly connections" between sites worshipping the same diety." Silver, Economic
Strucntres. p.33.
49. Ibid., p. 10.
50. Ibid., p.8.
51. n Kings 9-10 recounts the Israelite coup and the slaughter of the Melkar! hierarchy in
Samaria: chapter 11 records a parallel revolt against Queen Athaiah in Judah led by the
temple priest Jehoiuda restoring both Ihe Davidic line and the traditional Hebrew worship. I
Kings 18 relates the story of the confrontation between Elijah and the state-supporied priests
who undoubtedly supervised T^Han business activity in norihem Israel. C'armel may well
have been the site ofajoint Isruclite-Tyrian shrine to Melkan. Stem. 'New Evidence', p.32.
tn the commercial context of this presence. Elijah's taunt that Baal WSK 'on a journey' (I
Kings 18:27) takes on new significance.
52. One of Pritchard's Assyriiin texts records Ashumasirpal 11 (883-59 BCt receiving 'tribute of
the seacoast from the inhabitants of Tyre, Sidon, Byhlos' in the form of gold, silver, dn,
copper, copper container*, linen garments with multicolored trimmings, large and small
monkeys, ebony, boxwtxxl, [andl ivorv from walnis tusk.' Pritchard. Ancient Texts.
pp.276-8!.
53. Moscali. The World of the Phoenicians. pp.!8-2l; see as well the Esarhaddon texts in
Pritchard, Ancient Texls pp.290-91.
54. Treaty of Bsartiaddon wiih Baal of Tyre. Pritchard. Ancient Texts, p.5.34.
55. Ibid.. P..5.W.
56. E. Lipinski. 'Les Ph^niciens fl Ninivii au temps des Sargonide: Ahonbasti, Portier en chef,
Atti del I Congresso lntemazionale di Sludi fenici e punici. Roma. 5-10 Novembre 1979
(Rome, 198.1). Vol.1, pp.125-34.
57. A.L. Oppenheim, 'Essay in Overland Trade in the First Millennium B C . Journal of
Cuneiform Studies. Vol.21 (1967). p.253.
58. Oppenlieini. 'Essay in Overland Trade', pp.239—40. Most nf the iron for the Assyrian anny
came from mines in the region of Aram-Damascus. Syrian mines supplied the armies of the
Assyrian king Adad-Nirari 111 (810-783 BC) with I4.(XX) kilograms of iron ore. Oppenheim.
'Essay in Overland Trade", pp.239. 241. 246-7. From !0()0 BC on 'the Wesi was the major
source of the iron used by the Assyrian war machine'. Oppenheim, 'Essay in Overland
Trade'. p.24l.
59. In 1940 manufacturing accounted for 59 per cent. fo(Kl 12 per cent and textiles 17 per cent
of the Japanese economy. Abe and Fitzgerald. Jafanese Economic Suci-ess. pp, 1-2.
60. Ibid.. PP..3-1. 7-8.
61. Aubet. Phoenicians and the West, p.4.^; Moscati. The World of the Phoenicians, p.98.
Phoenician metal-working shops in Cyprus 'communicated directly with a nearby temple'
whose walls were covered with graffiti of ships. Silver. Economic Structures, p. 19.
62. One .should also keep in mind that the Princes of Tyre knew how vulnerable ihey were to
Assyrian economic pressure in terms of food. Witness ihe record of Esarhaddon's attack on
Tyre: 'I withheld from them |i.e. ihe inhabitants of besieged Tyre] food and [fresh] water
which sustains life.' Pritchard,/\H(IWJ/ Texts, p.292.
6.1. Moscati. The World of the Phoenicians, p. 99.
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 craftsmen-
importers 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 Ibero-
Phoenician exports lo the Aegean, although dlrecl trade between Spain and Greece also
42 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.
86. Isaiah 2.1:1.
87. 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).
88. Harrison. Spiiifi at the Dawn of History, p.42 (e in p ha.*; is added).
89. C.J. McMillan, The Japanese Industrial System (New York. rev. edn. 19%). pp.56-7.