“Since Homer celebrated the artistic skill of the {{W|Phoenician}}s the western world has looked to the coastal areas of Syria and Palestine as centers of applied art. We now know that many crafts flourished there not only in the Phoenician period (ca. ninth to fifth centuries {{small-caps|b.c.}}) but also in the preceding {{W|Canaanite}} era, particularly in the sixteenth to thirteenth centuries {{small-caps|b.c.}} when great Syrian and Palestinian cities were centers for the international trade and politics of the Late Bronze period.”