More than 4000 years ago, the Phoenicians settled on a territory that today belongs to Lebanon and part of it to Syria. They occupied a narrow strip of land between the Lebanese Mountains and the Mediterranean Sea, of approximately 25 miles wide and 125 miles long.
Despite of this apparent unfavorable condition, their coast was marked by a landscape suitable for ports at their main cities and their lands were filled with cedar trees, which provided the wood for their ships. Besides that, they stood at the main waypoint for commercial Asian caravans that traveled to trade with the big nations of the Mediterranean, like Greece and Thrace.
