Chambers Encyclopaedia notes that "After 1200 B.C. the name of Canaanites vanished from history. They changed their name to Phoenician." Thus the most notorious and most hated people on earth received a new lease on life. The barbaric Canaanites had disappeared. The more civilized Phoenicians, seemingly harmless merchant folk, took their place. Having obtained a monopoly on purple dye, which was highly prized throughout the ancient world, the Canaanites advertised their control over this product by calling themselves Phoenicians, from phoenicia (phoenikiea), the Greek word for purple. From the outset of their history, the Phoenician Canaanites always managed to get a monopoly on some essential product. They later had a monopoly on tin for some centuries, until the Greeks discovered tin in Cornwall in 233B.C. Joseph of Arimathea, the uncle of Jesus, was said to have owned large tin mines in Cornwall.
