Lebanon C478

     The Phoenicians appeared in the Mediterranean around 1200 B.C. and remained until the first century A.D. They invented the alphabet with twenty-four letters, and were traders who covered the whole Mediterranean. The map on the stamp issued by Lebanon in 1966 shows a schematic representation of Phoenician trade routes in the Mediterranean. They also sailed out through the Pillars of Hercules, the Strait of Gibralter up the coast of Europe to Britain.
     At the east end of the Mediterranean there is a Phoenician ship. On of the sailors holds a torch from which the flame of literacy shines. The glow of flame is marked by letters from the Phoenician alphabet.