The Phoenicians are the major trading power in the Mediterranean in the early part of the first millennium BCE.

They have trading contacts in Egypt and Greece, and establish colonies as far west as modern Spain, at Gadir (modern Cádiz).From Gadir, the Phoenicians control access to the Atlantic Ocean and the trade routes to Britain.

The most famous and successful of Phoenician colonies is founded by settlers from Tyre in 814–813 BCE and called Kart-Hadasht (Qart-ḥadašt, literally "New Town", known to history as Carthage.

The Carthaginians later found heir own colony in the southeast of Spain, Carthago Nova, which is eventually conquered by their enemy, Rome.According to María Eugenia Aubet, Professor of Archaeology at the Universidad Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona: "The earliest presence of Phoenician material in the West is documented within the precinct of the ancient city of Huelva, Spain...The high proportion of Phoenician pottery among the new material found in 1997 in the Plaza de las Monjas in Huelva argues in favor of a regular presence of Phoenician people from the start of the 9th century BCE.

The recent radiocarbon dates from the earliest levels in Carthage situate the founding of this Tyrian colony in the years 835–800 cal BCE, which coincides with the dates handed down by Flavius Josephus and Timeus for the founding of the city.