Phoenician and Punic Archaeology

The course aims to provide the students with the necessary instruments for the understanding of Phoenician culture and its specific material outcomes, through the analysis of historical sources and especially archaeological and epigraphic evidence. This analysis will be carried out starting from the Syro-Palestinian coast to the different areas of the Mediterranean colonization, in the period between the beginning of the Levantine Iron Age (c. 1200 BC) and the Hellenistic Period. Students will be driven through the analysis of Phoenician cultural-historical developments in the East and West, and the Punic expansion in the Western colonial sphere from the mid-6th century BC to the

Roman conquest. Classes will focus on cultural interactions in the Levantine sphere between Phoenicians and other peoples of the region, as well as relationships with the Greeks, both in the East and in the western colonies.

Conceptual background: Acquisition of fundamental knowledge about the historical-archaeological developments of the Phoenician civilization in the East (Syro-Palestinian coast) and in the colonies founded by Phoenicians in the Mediterranean (Cyprus, North Africa, Sicily, Sardinia, Malta, and the Iberian Peninsula), through the analysis of archaeological, iconographic and textual sources. Expertise in the methodologies of analysis and history of studies, from the emergence of discipline to the most recent developments.

Competences: Acquisition of skills in the critical analysis and assessment of the historical-archaeological evidence of the Phoenician civilization and its Punic developments, in order to be able to recognize, at a diachronic and geographical level, the different cultural spheres that are part of the broad Phoenician horizon, as well as to be able to independently delineate the historical and cultural development in the several macro-regions (Cyprus, North Africa, Sicily, Sardinia, Malta and the Iberian Peninsula).