Historical Background

Sidon had a long Bronze Age history before the rise of Israel and Judah. The city was part of the network of coastal communities that traded across the eastern Mediterranean.

In the first millennium BC, Sidon developed as a Phoenician royal city. The surviving evidence is uneven: biblical texts describe Sidonians in the early Israelite period, while Assyrian records and later Phoenician inscriptions provide firmer information about individual rulers.