What role did the Phoenicians play in the history of other peoples?

The Phoenicians lived on the territory of modern Lebanon, their civilization did not become an agricultural eastern despotism, like Egypt or Mesopotamia. Due to their coastal location and a sufficient amount of timber, their civilization became commercial and seafaring, for example, they were the first to sail from the Mediterranean Sea to the Atlantic Ocean.

The Phoenicians learned to create colonies far from their places of residence, for example, they colonized Malta and the modern Maltese consider themselves descendants.

They founded many colonies on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea and paved a number of trade routes important for antiquity (they connected Mesopotamia with distant regions in the west). The Phoenicians founded Carthage and in fact laid the foundation for this first state in Africa west of Egypt, which lasted until the middle of the 2nd century BC.