Phoenician figurines from the National Museum of Beirut
They were such successful traders that they came to dominate the whole of the Mediterranean. As their ships ventured further, they established many new trading posts and colonies in their wake. Phoenician colonists settled on the shores of Cyprus, Crete, Spain, Italy and North Africa. Their colonies became flourishing cities. The most famous of them was Carthage (in the region of modern Tunisia). Carthage became so great it would go on to challenge the power of Rome – when the Carthaginian general Hannibal crossed the Alps with his elephants, to battle the Romans on their own soil. The Phoenician merchants carried not only trading cargo on their ships, but also their culture. They had invented a new writing system – something the world had never known before: an alphabet. The small number of symbols in the Phoenician inscription