The Alphabet Phoenicia's greatest contribution to ancient history may be the way in which Phoenician traders helped spread an alphabet  the precursor of our Western alphabet  throughout the Mediterranean world. Many people know that the alphabets we use today grew out of the alphabet used and spread throughout the Mediterranean by the Romans. But what inspired the Romans has its origins in writing systems developed much earlier in Phoenicia. It is believed that the alphabet was only developed in about 1700 to 1500 BC in Phoenicia (and perhaps, as some people believe, more specifically in Byblos. Old pictographic and ideographic systems were used and changed into a real alphabet called the Semitic alphabet. This alphabet developed branches and grew into many of the alphabets used today in the Middle East, Africa, parts of Asia, Europe and the Americas today. One branch of the original Semitic alphabet was Canaanite, which then split into two of its own branches: Early Hebrew and Phoenician. The Greeks adapted Phoenician and then carried it throughout the Mediterranean. The Romans picked it up and adapted it and then spread it even further. The alphabet we use today is therefore the Roman adaptation of the Greek adaptation of the Phoenician adaptation of the Canaanite branch of the original Semitic alphabet.