Listening to Indigenous Voices: The Achaemenid-Period Phoenician Epigraphic Sources

Contrary to the classical sources that provided an outsider’s view of Phoenicia, frequently tainted by biases and preconceptions, indigenous Phoenician inscriptions reveal more directly the internal social, political, and religious concerns. At the same time, because they reflect the interactions of Achaemenid Phoenicia with the empire, these epigraphic sources also allow us to better nuance the relationship between the two. It is precisely this relationship that we will address in this chapter based on epigraphic sources, as well as interactions between Phoenician city-states themselves. Ultimately, though, we will strive to determine a specific socio-political picture of Achaemenid Phoenicia emerging from epigraphic sources.