"Grandpa, we're home!" Laurie shouted as she ran up the stairs.
She had just come back from the beach with her dad and was carrying a jar full of seashells.
"Choose any one you like, but only one," she said, standing at the study door.
"Thank you!" Grandpa said, examining the shells closely.
He took a small peach-colored shell from the jar. "I'll add this to my collection."
"You have a shell collection too?" Laurie asked.
"Well, I have just two shells, but they are very special ones from Lebanon!"
Grandpa reached high on a shelf and took down a bowl with two spiny seashells in it.
"These are sea-snail shells from the Mediterranean coastline.
I found them when I visited Lebanon last year to research the ancient Phoenicians.
They were seafaring merchants who lived there from around 2000 BC to 500 BC, when they were taken over by the Persian Empire."
"What are seafaring merchants?" said Laurie.
"People who spend a lot of time sailing at sea and make their living by trading things," Grandpa explained.
"The coasts of Lebanon are surrounded by high, rugged mountains, which protected Phoenicia, but it also made it difficult to travel by land.
So, out of necessity, the Phoenicians became great shipbuilders and seafarers.
From their coastal cities, they sailed to other Middle Eastern cities, and to Africa and Europe.
There, they traded their goods for things they couldn't find in their homeland.
They are considered the first organized traders and merchants of the world.
Even though we call them Phoenicians and the area they lived in Phoenicia, they weren't really united into a country or empire.
Phoenicia was more like individual cities that developed close to one another.
But when the Phoenicians traveled around selling their goods, they became known as one people, the Phoenicians."
"Did they simply sell these seashells by the seashore?" Laurie asked, giggling.
"No, silly, but the sea snails that came from these seashells—whew!—were the source of the Phoenicians' most valuable item: purple dye.
Purple dye hadn't yet been discovered anywhere else,
and when the Phoenicians began to make cloth dyed this wonderful purple, people loved it.
But hundreds of snails were needed to dye even a small piece of fabric.
So the dye-making process was very time-consuming, and therefore, the dye was worth a lot of money.
It was so expensive that only royalty or the very wealthy could afford anything purple.
That's how purple became known as the 'royal' color.
Glass and cedarwood were also popular Phoenician items.
Cedar, which grew in the mountains of Lebanon, was rare in neighboring lands; that made it highly desirable.
It was also perfect for building and produced great-smelling oils.
The Egyptians in particular bought lots of cedar, which they used to build temples, palaces, and coffins.
The Phoenicians' seaside location helped them with something else—glassmaking, because glass is made with sand.
People think Egyptians had been making glass for a while, but the Phoenicians developed it into an art.
They made colored beads, clear vases, and other beautiful glasswork.
We owe a lot to the Phoenicians for their creations.
But they are most famous for one thing.
You know, as merchants, it was important for them to keep records of all their sales.
What do you think they invented to help them do this?" Grandpa paused.
"Hmm . . . receipts?" Laurie guessed.
"Well, yes, but how would they write receipts if they didn't have an alphabet?
The Phoenicians invented the first 22-letter alphabet!
Of course, written language had gradually been developing since the time of picture symbols, like hieroglyphics,
but the Phoenicians created the first letters representing sound alone.
We can even trace our alphabet back to theirs!
Here, what do you think this says?"
Grandpa wrote three Phoenician letters on a piece of paper.
"Um, triangle, circle, cross . . . D-O-T! Dot!" Laurie cried excitedly.
"Amazing! You can read Phoenician!" Grandpa laughed.
He handed her an open book from his desk.
The page showed a chart of the Phoenician alphabet.
"Wow. Letters have come a long way in three thousand years.
I wonder what they'll look like three thousand years from now!" Laurie said.
She flipped to another page in the book.
"Ooh, who is this? She's beautiful!" she whispered.
"That's Jezebel, princess of Tyre. Tyre was a city on Phoenicia's coast.
It was one of the richest, most powerful Phoenician cities.
The king of Tyre married his beautiful daughter to the king of Israel's son, Ahab.
He thought this would keep good relations between the two neighboring peoples, but he was wrong.
In Israel, the Jewish people worshipped one god, while Phoenicians worshipped a number of gods and goddesses,
who they believed controlled weather, harvests, the sea, the moon, and so on—in other words, the natural world.
Now, Jezebel was a passionate woman who loved her husband but loved her native religion more.
She asked Ahab to build temples to her gods and goddesses in his land, and she encouraged the people of Israel to join her in worship.
The Jewish leaders got upset. They destroyed the Phoenician temples and killed the Phoenician priests.
In all the political turmoil, Ahab and Jezebel were also killed." Grandpa sighed.
"Wow! What a story for a beautiful Saturday afternoon!"
"Oh! Why do strong women in history always die tragically?" Laurie cried.
"One day soon, I'll have a story for you about a strong woman who lives to see a happy end," said Grandpa.
"Well, I'm going to put this stuff in my room now.
But I'll always think of crushed sea snails when I wear my purple tank top and of that ancient, funny-looking alphabet when I'm writing!
And you can have another seashell. Catch!" Laurie said.
She tossed another shell from her jar to Grandpa and walked out the door.