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| Around the end of the 9th century BC, with the development of trade relations
between the Greeks and peoples of the East, Greek merchants began settling
on the coasts of the Middle East. Among their first settlements was the foundation of
a trade emporium, probably by Euboeans, in the city of Al Mina at the mouth
of the Orontes river in northern Syria. |
 At
the time of the arrival of the Euboeans, the city must have been under the rule of one
of the smaller Aramaic kingdoms, whose peoples had been pushed to the area
earlier, in the first millenium BC. Based on pottery finds no long-lived
installation existed before the arrival of the Greeks.
A recent study of non-Greek pottery from Al Mina demonstrated that
no vase dates before the mid-9th century BC. Greek pottery found along
with it at the lower layers could be securely dated to around the end of the 9th
century BC. |
 The
foundation of a trade emporium at Al Mina was dictated by the intention to render systematic
contacts between Euboean cities with metal workshops and the
lands of the East rich in metals. For the greater part of its history, Al Mina seems to have been
a harbour and ship supply depot. Its area received both
Asia Minor and Semitic cultural influences. It is here that the shortest and most comfortable
road between the Mediterranean and Mesopotamia ended. The city was a place of concentration
of goods from the East. In its harbour the trade of metals from Armenia was conducted:
bronze from northern Syria, luxurious articles from the East, such as ivory, murex
and precious clothes, but also Greek products from the Aegean. |
| Al Mina was not the only harbour to attract the Greeks, as evidence from pottery finds shows.
Smaller quantities of Greek vases from the 8th century BC, especially Euboean and
Rhodian, have been found in various parts of Syria, Palestine and Mesopotamia.
One of these is Rash-el-Basit, a coastal site to the south of Al Mina, that is possibly
identified with Poseidion quoted by Herodotus (History 3, 91). |