>>40963575
The East, succinctly
Persia/Central Asia: Imperial Aramaic (Phoenician lineage) administers a continental state; later Arabic and Persian chancery cultures keep the alphabetic-bureaucratic spine.
India: Northwest scripts (Kharoshthi from Aramaic) and later Indo-Med trade through Red Sea/Arabian hubs port logic persists via intermediaries.
China: Different script system; Sogdian/Persian brokers dominate Silk Road. Maritime interface in later eras runs through Arab Persian. Malay networks (the “eastern Phoenicians,” functionally). The logic ports in, even if the people aren’t Levantine.
“Signals” you’d expect if this thesis is right
Continuity of port elites across regime changes (same families/consortia reappearing under new flags).
Ledger wins over throne: moments when those who hold insurance/credit/standard weights override kings.
Mythic continuity: repeated god-swaps (Melqart > Herakles, Baal > Saturn echoes, then saints/ideological heroes) mapping onto the same trade nodes.
Fear cartography: evolving from sea terrors to regulatory terrors (restricted zones, blacklists) aligned with commercial monopolies.
Shell migrations: after each “fall,” the routes/handbooks appear intact under new corporate/legal wrappers.
TL;DR
Phoenicians didn’t disappear they taught the world an operating system: ports > palaces, scripts > swords, proxies > crowns, myths as UX, fear as fencing, and ledgers as law. Empires come and go; the lane-keepers persist.