what are Phoenicians best known for?

Not necessarily in order of importance:

1. The Alphabet, this includes all Western and Fertile Crescent alphabets, going back to Hebrew, Greek, Roman, Aramaic, Romance Languages, etc.

2. Glass. They manufactured it in the form of "blocks" and taught their customers how to heat it and shape it.

3. The accounting principle knows today as the "Double Ledger".

4. "Assembly" line production of ships.

5. Wine. The produced it and sold it before anyone else.

6. Mass production of art/icons. For instance, they created templates of Egyptian deities, some miniaturized, mass produced and sold them in Egypt as the real thing.

7. Exploration, but they did not really do it for sightseeing, instead they were cultivating new markets, which led them to establish colonies in Sicily, Carthage and other places that became later the nucleus of major empires.

For SicFi fans, they may be the Ferengi of the ancient world.