The Language of Life

Abstract

The ancient Phoenician sacrificial practices unveil a primordial ritual order which seems to include in its cultic codes initial elemets of the proto- Hellenic and proto-Semitic sacrificial traditions. Called kena‘ani or Canaanites, a word which was adopted as kinahna in Akkadian, the Phoenicians moved into the area of modern Lebanon around 3000 BC, at the beginning of the Early Bronze Age, centuries before Sargon of Akkad and Naram-sin, his grandson, founded in Mesopotamia, in the region where the Tigris and the Euphrates are closest to each other, the city of Agade and the first empire in history. In the same way as other Semites, the Phoenicians worshipped El as the chief figure of their pantheon, which comprised also Asherah of the Sea and Astarte as goddesses.