Al-Mina

Al-Mina (Arabic: "the port") is the modern name given by Leonard Woolley to an ancient trading post on the Mediterranean coast of northern Syria, at the mouth of the Orontes River.

The site, located in the large archaeological area of the Amuq plain, was excavated in 1936 by Leonard Woolley, who considered it to be an early Greek trading colony, founded a little before 800 BC, in direct competition with the Phoenicians to the south.

Woolley's critics point out that he discarded coarse undecorated utilitarian wares, and that the relative numbers of Greek, Syrian and Phoenician populations have not been established.

[7] Woolley, on separate grounds, dated the final extinction of the Al-Mina settlement to the late fourth century BC, perhaps damaged during construction of the port of Seleucia Pieria just to the north.

Al-Mina served as an outpost for cultural influences that accompanied trade with Urartu and the shortest caravan route to Assyrian cities of upper Mesopotamia.