The remarkably rapid Arab-Muslim conquests removed the political barriers between Iran and Mesopotamia on the one hand, and the Mediterranean world on the other. In this way an opportunity arose to mix the resources of two distinct civilisations. The establishment of the Umayyad Dynasty in Syria, a province that had been thoroughly Hellenised over the previous millennium, meant that the predominant artistic influences were classical or, more precisely, classical transformed under the influence of an orientalised provincial tradition.