c. 3000 - 2000 B.C. People moved into the Levant (the eastern end of the Mediterranean boundaried by mountains). They were the Canaanites. They were the best merchants of the ancient world. Clothing at this time was always very drab. People used vegetable dyes which are not very vivid. The Canaanites developed a dye that was vivid and colorfast from the murex shell/animal which made a very vivid maroon color that wouldn't fade. One drop of the dye could be extracted from each murex. Only the wealthy could afford this luxury -- only nobility. In Greece, all the young nobles wanted it (Royal Purple). The Greeks went to the Canaanites and called them the Phoenicians (Phoenix -> Purple). They were great navigators, sailors, mariners -- the greatest in the world. They were not a bellicose people. They were merchants. But they had pretty good land, several cities (Tyre, Sidon, Byblos -- port cities).
c. 1250 - 1200 B.C. Other people began moving: Aramaans, Hebrews, the Philistines (Philistine is now Palestine). The Canaanites colonized. They discovered the Atlantic Ocean. They colonized most of the Mediterranean except for the Aegean. They traded with the Azores (halfway across the Atlantic). They may have had tin mines in Cornwall. They found Carthage and settled it c. 800 B.C., controlling all of the Mediterranean. They circumnavigated Africa in 500 B.C. They were the first great sharp traders. They invented their own form of writing.