Pygmalion of Tyre Pygmalion of Tyre Pygmalion (also known as Pu'mayyaton) was king of Tyre from 831 to 785 BC and a son of King Mattan I (840-832 BC). During Pygmalion's reign, Tyre seems to have shifted the heart of its trading empire from the Middle East to the Mediterranean, as can be judged from the building of new colonies including Kition on Cyprus, Sardinia (see Nora Stone discussion below), and, according to tradition, Carthage. For the story surrounding the founding of Carthage, see Dido. A possible reference to Pygmalion is an interpretation of the Nora Stone, found on Sardinia in 1773 and,
Pygmalion of Tyre which he names as Cothon, and says that Dido and her company built a circle of houses there. Eventually peace was made with the inhabitants on the mainland, and the Tyrians were given permission to build a city. Peñuela maintained that these various events between the departure from Tyre and the eventual rapprochement with the inhabitants on the mainland explain the eleven-year difference between Pompeius Trogus’s date of 825 BC and the 814 date derived from other classical authors for Carthage’s founding. This understanding of the chronology related to Dido and her company resulted in the following dates for Pygmalion,