The phoenicians were a group of people living in what is now called Lebannon. The phoenicians were well known to the greeks and the romans. This was because they were highly skilled at building boats and so they used them to trade for things in Greece. They were also known as the "purple people" because they often traded purple dyes that they made, to the greeks and other civilisations so that they could dye silk to make clothing. The phoenicians made an alphabet consisting of 22 letters. This alphabet has the most similarities to our alphabet out of all the ancient civilisations. Although the phoenicians were highly skilled when it came to communication skills, they were not however skilled at making writing utensils that would last. For example, most of their writing was done on papyrus, and so it disintegrated over time. The only real reason we know about the phoenician civilisation, is from the writing that their enemies have done in stone. The phoenician religion was called "Canaanite". Since the papyrus that the phoenicians disintegrated, we do not actually know what they called themselves. We only call them the phoenicians because we have seen it written in the greek and romans writing that referred to them as phoenicians which meant "purple people" because of the purple dye they traded.