Commerce is another context that ea

Commerce is another context that easily lends itself to demonstrating the historical and enduring effect of intercultural communication. Let us reflect on just two very early examples—the Phoenicians and the Silk Road. The Phoenicians were an ancient trading civilization located in the coastal area of what is now Syria and Lebanon. By the late 800s BCE, they had established trading routes, outposts, and colonies along the southern Mediterranean coast and ventured into the Atlantic along the peripheries of Spain and West Africa. The Phoenicians focused on maritime trade rather than territorial conquest, which obviously required a keen appreciation for different cultures and languages. Their legacy remains evident today in the word “Bible,” which the Greek’s derived from Byblos, the name of an ancient Phoenician city (Gore, 2004).