Before the settlement of the Phoenicians, today’s Palermo was already frequented by the Sicans (autochthonous or probably coming from Spain) in the third millennium, by the Cretans in the second half of the second millennium, by the Elimi (coming, according to tradition, from the destroyed Troy) around the first millennium and from the Greeks around 700 BC The first settlements and warehouses were transformed into a splendid city to which was given the name of Mabbonath, which in Phoenician means “lodgings”, that is, inhabited city. It soon became the most important of the so-called Phoenician triangle, including Mozia and Solunto, also mentioned by the Athenian historian Thucydides.
In this period the name of the city becomes Zyz which in Phoenician means flower. The name is not yet fully ascertained, but many coins found in Palermo bear the words Zyz, most probably Palermo had its own mint. The name seems to derive from the conformation of the city that cut in two by two rivers (Kemonia and Papireto) resembled the shape of a flower.
The Phoenicians took advantage of the strategic position of Palermo which presented itself as a large green basin (today’s Conca d’Oro) which extended for 100 square kilometers, flourishing and rich in vegetation, surrounded by mountains that enclosed it in a sort of funnel , from the sea that lapped the coast, from the numerous rivers and from three rivers, the Kemonia, the Papireto and the Oreto.
Before the arrival of the Phoenicians, that piece of land had been used as a commercial emporium and support base for northwestern Sicily. The first historical news of Palermo, date back to 480 BC, when the Carthaginians, at war against the Greek allied cities, had to take refuge some days in the harbor before embarking on the siege of Imera, they show us this city already flourishing of commerce, very populated and well defended, under the wise domination of the Phoenicians.