In person, as we learn from the Egyptian monuments, the Canaanites resembled their descendants, the modern inhabitants of Palestine.  They belonged to the white race, but had black hair and eyes.  They dressed in brilliantly-coloured garments, stained with that purple or scarlet dye in search of which they explored the coasts of the Greek seas, and which was extracted from the shell of the murex.  On their feet they wore high-laced sandals; their hair was bound with a fillet.  Their skill as sailors was famous throughout the Oriental world; the cities of the Phoenician coast already possessed fleets of ships in the age of the Eighteenth Egyptian dynasty, and their merchants carried on a maritime trade with the islands of the AEgean and the coast of Africa.  Before the time of Solomon their vessels had found their way to Tartessus in Spain, perhaps even to Cadiz, and the alliance between Hiram and the Israelitish king enabled the Tyrians to import gold and other precious things from Africa and Arabia through the ports of southern Edom.  The Tel el-Amarna letters refer to the riches of Tyre, and excavations on the site of Lachish have brought to light amber beads ef the same age, which indicate intercourse with the Baltic.  It is possible that the tin which was needed in such large quantities for the bronze tools and weapons of the ancient East was derived from Cornwall; if so, it would have been brought, like the amber, across Europe along the road which ended at the extremity of the Adriatic Gulf.

The wealth of the Canaanitish merchants was great.  The spoils carried away to Egypt by Thothmes iii. after his conquest of Palestine are truly astonishing.  Beautiful vases of gold and silver, artistically moulded bronzes, furniture carved out of ebony and cedar and inlaid with ivory and precious stones, were among the booty.  Iron, which was found in the hills, was freely used, and made into armour, weapons, and chariots.  It was “the chariots of iron” which prevented the Israelites from capturing and sacking the cities of the plains.  Wealth brought with it a corresponding amount of luxury, which to the simpler Hebrews of the desert seemed extravagant and sinful.  It was associated with a licentiousness which Canaanitish religion encouraged rather than repressed.

The religion was a nature-worship.  The supreme deity was addressed as Baal or “Lord,” and was adored in the form of the Sun.  And as the Sun can be baleful as well as beneficent, parching up the soil and blasting the seed as well as warming it into life, so too Baal was regarded sometimes as the friend and helper of man, sometimes as a fierce and vengeful deity who could be appeased only by blood.  In times of national or individual distress his worshippers were called upon to sacrifice to him their firstborn; nothing less costly could turn away from them the anger of their god.  By the side of Baal was his colourless wife, a mere reflection of the male divinity,