These mountains, or at any rate Casius and Amanus, are of igneous origin, and, if carefully explored, would certainly yield gems to the investigator.

At the same time it must be acknowledged that Syria had not, in antiquity, the name of a gem-producing country; and, so far, the reading of "Edom" for "Aram," which is preferred by many,[960] may seem to be the more probable.
The commerce of the Phoenicians with Egypt was ancient, and very extensive.

"The wares of Egypt" are mentioned by Herodotus as a portion of the merchandise which they brought to Greece before the time of the Trojan War.[961] The Tyrians had a quarter in the city of Memphis assigned to them,[962] probably from an early date.

According to Ezekiel, the principal commodity which Egypt furnished to Phoenicia was "fine linen"[963]--especially the linen sails embroidered with gay patterns, which the Egyptian nobles affected for their pleasure-boats.
They probably also imported from Egypt natron for their glass-works, papyrus for their documents, earthenware of various kinds for exportation, scarabs and other seals, statuettes and figures of gods, amulets, and in the later times sarcophagi.[964] Their exports to Egypt consisted of wine on a large scale,[965] tin almost certainly, and probably their peculiar purple fabrics, and other manufactured articles.
The Phoenician trade with Arabia was of especial importance, since not only did the great peninsula itself produce many of the most valuable articles of commerce, but it was also mainly, if not solely, through Arabia that the Indian market was thrown open to the Phoenician traders, and the precious commodities obtained for which Hindustan has always been famous.

Arabia is _par excellence_ the land of spices, and was the main source from which the ancient world in general, and Phoenicia in particular, obtained frankincense, cinnamon, cassia, myrrh, calamus or sweet-cane, and ladanum.[966] It has been doubted whether these commodities were, all of them, the actual produce of the country in ancient times, and Herodotus has been in some degree discredited, but perhaps without sufficient reason.