Tyre / Lebanon
Tyre was founded around 2750 BC according to Herodotus and it appears on monuments as early as 1300 BC. The commerce of the ancient world was gathered into the warehouses of Tyre. "Tyrian merchants were the first who ventured to navigate the Mediterranean waters, and they founded their colonies on the coasts and neighbouring islands of the Mediteranean and Aegean Sea, and in the northern coast of Africa, at (Carthage). The city of Tyre was particularly known for the production of a rare and extraordinarily expensive sort of purple dye, produced from the murex shellfish, known as Tyrian purple.
