On Tue, 4 Nov 2003, Andre Engels wrote:

Is there someone here with good and current knowledge about ancient history in general and/or Phoenicia in particular? If so, please take a look at the recent edits to [[Phoenicia]]. I get the impression that someone is trying to pass off the opinion of a respected but by no means general accepted theory/professor as being 'the' truth about Phoenicia. I do know something about this subject, but not enough to either go into an edit war or resolve it.

I am not an expert about Phoenicia, but I think I know a thing or two about ancient history -- at least enough to know when something doesn't "feel" right.

This article starts off oddly, assuming that the reader knows the definitions for "Phoenicians" & ''Canaanites". And it doesn't help that this article lacks a link to [[Canaan]]. (An article in desperate need of work, but one task at a time.) I'm also not sure why Phoenician is said to be an "Afroasiatic" language when many informed people would classify it as a Semitic language, just like Arabic, Babylonian, Hebrew & Egyptian. It also doesn't help that the link to [[Afroasiatic]] doesn't lead anywhere.

(And yes, I know "Afroasiatic" & "Semitic" are synonymous; but would the average reader who is consulting this article for the first time?)

I'm puzzled at the section "Mysterious origins"; I've refreshed my knowledge of the Ancient Near East from time to time, & I've never encountered any theory that the Phoenicians are anything but the descendants of the native peoples of either that region, or perhaps immigrants from an adjacent region.

And I recognize the names of two names in the history of this article: one is sincere, but advocates "alternative" interpretations of history; the other has contributed at least one article that is, to be polite, highly fanciful.

Like you, Andre, I'm highly suspicious about the content of this article, but I don't have the research or time to fight to clean it up. At least right now.

Geoff