Colonies in antiquity were
city-states founded from a mother-
city, not from a territory-at-large. Bonds between a
colony and its
metropolis remained close, and took specific forms.
[clarification needed]An Egyptian colony that was stationed in southern Canaan dates to slightly before the First Dynasty.[1] Narmer had Egyptian pottery produced in Canaan and exported back to Egypt,[2] from regions such as Arad, En Besor, Rafiah, and Tel Erani.[2] Shipbuilding was known to the Ancient Egyptians as early as 3000 BC, and perhaps earlier. The Archaeological Institute of America reports[3] that the earliest dated ship—75 feet long, dating to 3000 BC[4] -- may have possibly belonged to Pharaoh Aha.[4]
The Phoenicians were the major trading power in the Mediterranean in the early part of the first millennium BC. They had trading contacts in Egypt and Greece, and established colonies as far west as modern Spain, at Gadir (modern Cádiz). From Gadir they controlled access to the Atlantic Ocean and the trade routes to Britain. The most famous and successful of Phoenician colonies was Kart-Hadasht (Phoenician ??? ???? Qart-?adašt, literally "New Town"), a colony founded from Tyre. It would eventually be known as Carthage.
In Ancient Greece, colonies were sometimes founded by vanquished peoples, who left their homes to escape subjection at the hand of a foreign enemy; sometimes as a sequel to civil disorders, when the losers in internecine battles left to form a new city elsewhere; sometimes to get rid of surplus population, and thereby to avoid internal convulsions. But in most cases the motivation was to establish and facilitate relations of trade with foreign countries and further the wealth of the mother-city (in Greek, metropolis).Colonies were established in Thrace since the 8th century BC[5].
