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The Phoenicians were an economic and cultural force in the Mediterranean from 1200 B.C. Their realm extended from the Syro-Palestinian coast to North Africa, and they controlled much of the trade in this region and across the Mediterranean. They became skilled glassworkers who fashioned technically masterful beads and developed unique forms of pendants made by core forming. These objects were often traded. The powerful port city of Carthage (located in modern Tunisia), which was established by 800 B.C., was the center of production for many of these beads and pendants. Pendants with men’s heads, featuring curly hair and beards, are by far the bestknown work of the Phoenicians, who also crafted pendants with demons’ masks (e.g.,66.1.249) and rams’ heads (e.g., 66.1.212), as well as cylindrical barrel beads with protruding eyes that are thought to have been used as protection against the “evil eye” (e.g., 64.1.13). While the Romans would continue to display the human face on their glass beads, the type of head pendants fashioned by the Phoenicians ended with the demise of their kingdom.
