Ever since ancient times the Mediterranean has been place of business and cultural exchanges, crossroads between East and West and many populations have been sailing it allowing a quite busy exchange of products, people and ideas between the opposite shores of this communication road. The Phoenicians are among the populations who best contributed, in the ancient times, to set up a cultural Mediterranean“koinè” (“community”) and to spread this culture. The Phoenicians, sailors and businessmen, during the XI century BC, started to move across the Mediterranean for exploratory and trade reasons only, exporting their products and making use of the landingplaces near the promontory or islands as trade ports and intermediary calls. Their presence in different places and the endless contacts both with the mother country and with advanced civilizations, first with the Egyptians and later with the Greeks, granted them the role of intermediaries , cultural unifiers . As a consequence, if, on one hand, their main aim was exporting, on the other hand, they took up many features characterizing those populations they got in touch with. This latter aspect highly connotated this civilization, where intercultural exchanges and tolerance blend and mingle originating a culture sharing.
The establishment of the European cultural Itinerary “The Phoenicians’ Route” aims to foster such Mediterranean culture and to strengthen the historical ties with the Mediterranean countries we are closer to. The Itinerary is in fact based on historical, social and cultural relationships which the Phoenicians established along the sailed routes and along the ports and the colonies they founded in the Mediterranean area.
