Dish with Tambourine Players, 700-600 BC. The Phoenicians lived on the coast of what is now Israel and Lebanon from about 1200 to 700 BC. Skilled sailors, traders, and craftsmen, they are best remembered today for having developed the basis of the Western alphabet. Their travels took them to Iran, where they bought silver, and to Egypt, where they bought ivory and acquired a taste for Egyptian artistic motifs. For example, many of their works of art include sphinxes and lotuses.