The commerce of the ancient world is gathered into the warehouses of Tyre.

The city of Tyre is particularly known for the production of a rare and extraordinarily expensive sort of purple dye, produced from the murex shellfish, known as Tyrian purple.

This color is, in many cultures of ancient times, reserved for the use of royalty, or at least nobility.

It is often attacked by Egypt, is besieged by Shalmaneser V, who was assisted by the Phoenicians of the mainland, for five years, and by Nebuchadnezzar (586–573 BCE).

Ezekiel 26:12–14 states that God caused Nebuchadnezzar to destroy Tyre because its residents gloated over the fall of Jerusalem.

The Tyrians hold off Nebuchadnezzar's siege for thirteen years, resupplying the walled island city through its two harbors.

Later, a king of Cyprus takes Tyre using his fleet in the 370s BCE, "a remarkable success about which little is known," according to historian Robin Lane Fox.

In 332 BCE, the city is conquered by Alexander the Great, after a siege of seven months in which he builds the causeway from the mainland to within a hundred meters of the island, where the sea floor slopes abruptly downwards.Tyre continues to maintain much of its commercial importance until the Christian era.

The presence of the causeway affects water currents nearby, causing sediment to build up, making the connection permanent.Alexander used the remains of the old city to build the causeway from the mainland to the island where the new Tyre is located.In 315 BCE, Alexander's former general Antigonus begins his own siege of Tyre,[ taking the city a year later.