Phoenician identity crisis

PHOENICIAN WATCH: A Question of Middle East Politics: 'Phoenician, Lebanese, or Arab?' (Duke Today).

Speaking on "Phoenician, Lebanese or Arab: Crafting a Christian Identity in the Middle East" at the John Hope Franklin Center, North Carolina State history professor Akram Khater focused on his native Lebanon and how the many shades of religious, ethnic and civic identity there affected the country's history and its 1975 civil war and today continue to shape the current uprisings in the region.

The Phoenician merchant identity, the primary focus of Khater's lecture, arose in Beirut in the late 19th century following archaeological discoveries of ancient Phoenician artifacts. Phoenicia was a Mediterranean civilization of maritime traders that flourished from 1500 BC to 300 BC. Lebanese Christian scholars soon began to correlate the archaeological findings with their own ancestries and claimed to be the "heirs to the Phoenician nation."

As ever, ancient history is highly relevant to present-day Middle Eastern politics.