Things I learned on my latest visit to the British Museum (2): the origin of the term Phoenicia
This week, I visited the British Museum with a family of Czech friends. Of course, I’ve been to the museum on many occasions but, on each such visit, I always learn something new.
By the beginning of the first millennium BC, the territory on the north coast of modern Lebanon and Syria was known as Phoenicia. The name derives from the Greek word for ‘purple’, referring to one of the principle industries of the region, the extraction of dye from murex shells and the production of purple-coloured fabrics.