The main way that the phoenicians wrote, was with very thin papyrus and an ink made from common plants and flowers (they would also occasionally write on stone tablets). This then disintegrated over time and so we do not have many pieces of writing from the phoenician time period. After a few years of writing on papyrus, the phoenicians then moved on to writing on parchment and wax-writing tablets. These did not disintegrate as much over time so we were able to find out more about the phoenicians when we looked at these. In the royal phoenician temples, they also had writing on gold plates and carvings in stone. As the phoenicians did not start writing on more durable materials until later on, most of the writing has disintegrated over the years and so it was very hard to find more information about this ancient civilisation. However, we also found some carvings in stone that were about the phoenicians but were created by their enemies and the greeks. They also developed some writing in wooden tablets that were layered to make a sort of book.