Excavations in North Syria

Abstract

AT the Friday evening discourse at the Royal Institution on January 21, Sir Leonard Woolley described “Excavations in North Syria”. The object of the North Syrian Expedition has been to trace such relations as may have existed between Asia and the early Greek world, especially during and before the rise of the Cretan civilization. Two sites were chosen on the trade-route afforded by the Orontes valley. One was at al Mina, at the river mouth, one at Atchana in the Amk plain where the road debouches from the mountain range and runs across open country past Aleppo to Carchemish and the Mesopotamian centres. At al Mina, underlying the ruins of the crusading port of St. Simeon, there were found nine further strata giving a continuous record of commercial activity from 300 B.C. back to the beginning of the eighth century. During the fifth and fourth centuries Athens, in spite of the long-drawn crisis of the Persian wars, enjoyed a trade monopoly with Persia. In the sixth century B.C. the bulk of the trade was in the hands of the Rhodian manufacturers, but Corinth, Naukratis and Lesbos secured a certain amount of it and Cyprus was still selling goods in Asia although in greatly reduced measure. In the seventh century, judging by al Mina, Cyprus entirely controlled the market ; of all the imported pottery found there scarcely a sherd is not Cypriote. This domination had come about quite suddenly. It was a natural result of the wealth of the Asiatic clientele that the al Mina merchants imported always the best wares that were to be obtained ; from each manufacturing centre the finest quality was selected and the centre changed according as its level of production rose or fell.